I don’t slide over to the geek side of things too often, it’s something that I must do more often.
I came across a great post over on usability post the other day. The gist of the post is that as user interfaces get friendlier, they eventually rob the user of the knowledge needed to actually do the job. This can actually result in worse performance than when using the system without assistance.
The post itself contains more detailed information, including cited research so I highly recommend it if usability is your thing. It resonated with me because I just started such an experiment myself with Linux recently. I switched the desktop environment on my Debian laptop over to the Openbox Window Manager, which is very lightweight and much faster.
I’ve been finding that kicking away the crutches that Ubuntu and the GNOME environment provide has its benefits. In line with the research cited in the post I am finding that forcing myself to do things without having my hand held gives a much better understanding of the system and a greater confidence when using it.
Most of this is stuff I already knew how to do, and I’m refreshing old ground, it’s good as it lets me relearn and bring a newer understanding to the things than the last time I covered them.
I can see the point of the usability features, don’t misunderstand me. But it seems to me that for a more technical user, the crutches are in fact a hindrance.
