Re: Debian, so ugly and unwieldy!
On Sun, Jun 09, 2019 at 09:46:37AM +0100, Chris Lamb wrote:
> Adam Borowski wrote:
> > This is about GUI appearance and ergonomy.
[...]
> > I also hate with a passion so-called "UX designers". Those are folks who
> > created Windows 8's Metro tiles, lightgray-on-white "Material Design" flat
> > unmarked controls, and so on. They work from a Mac while not having to
> > actually use what they produce.
>
> I empathise, understand and agree with many of the concerns that you
> raised in your message. It is therefore particularly tragic that you
> chose to open your remarks and suggestions in such a manner.
>
> Expressing distain for the status quo and then compounding that by
> passing judgement on the people who may be in the very position to
> improve it seems, at best, unlikely to achieve our shared aims.
It is not my intention to bash any individuals (apologies if I sounded this
way) -- what I hate are two, quite prevalent, attitudes.
One is design that ignores usability and ergonomy. The current trend
ignores not just grumbling user but even actual scientists. Unmarked
controls -- in big words "lacking strong signifiers" make people need a lot
longer time to complete whatever task they were doing -- eye tracking shows
their attention wanders all around the window/page looking for interactable
controls. This might actually be a goal -- it makes people notice adverts
more and for a longer time -- but is a strong countergoal for us. The
theme doesn't need to be skeumorphic -- for example, marking interactable
controls in flat red is okay as long as you don't use red anywhere else.
And especially (the second problem), the interface needs to be consistent.
This is why I hate poor integration between GTK and QT[1] so much, and CSD
even more. The latter makes every program its unique interface, not obeying
the rest of the system. Heck, if your theme has close button on the left or
in the center, a CSD-using program will have it on the right. And look
different, and behave different, and so on. The design movement pabs linked
to, "Don't Theme Our Apps" is exactly the thing I wish to stop. I want
Debian to be well-integrated and usable while they want "brand recognition"
and to showcase their newest design, not letting the user to have things
his/her way.
> It furthermore frames any discussion in an unnecessarily negative light,
> filtering responses to those who are willing to engage and contribute to
> the conversation on combative terms, ensuring a systematic observation
> bias in the outcome.
I don't observe designs much, yeah. I notice things only when they stand in
my way. For example, when faced with eye-hurting whiteness I fixed and
packaged a dark theme (there were none in Debian at the time) as that was my
itch to scratch. But I don't do so in an organized way, just lashing out at
a particular problem. Such as tiny scrollbars being nasty for both fat
fingers on a 450dpi screen (Gemini) and for crap touchpad on a
low-resolution Pinebook. Or, poorly hinted default font looking like crap
on that low-resolution Pinebook (and sub-pixel was set to off!).
I think a good UI person would want to at least know complaints from mere
users like me, and that's why I started this thread.
> As others have mentioned, I hope that Debian remains a project that
> makes it evermore welcoming to individuals
Yeah but one of our core values is "we do not hide problems". I'd rather
lash out and voice my gripes _with actionable ideas_ than to stay silent to
avoid hurting someone's ego.
And I'd also prefer to avoid pushing my way in a back alley, thus I'm asking
for ideas and consensus before filing bugs.
Meow!
[1]. GTK vs QT seems trivial to fix, at least for GTK2-capable themes. You
plop "export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2" into .xsessionrc and that's it.
GTK2 going out might be a problem -- but in my naive view, why not make that
setting the default then maybe improve it later?
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