Haha I don't even know which one to join. Feels like I'll make the wrong choice. GNU projects always remind me why programmers alone isn't enough, apps also need good design and UX.
> GNU projects always remind me why programmers alone isn't enough, apps also need good design and UX.
Some people need others to think for them. Some people like to make their own decisions. GNU is for the latter ones. GNU has always been freedom of choice.
Design is overrated. Functionality and reliability are more important. Even Apple has to admit that.
If you are presented with 6 choices and you cannot reasonably tell the difference between them without spending 15-30 minutes researching all of the options, you have a bad user experience.
Design is important. People like using things that look good.
UX is vital. If a user can't figure out how to navigate through an app in a reasonable amount of time without a great deal of existing knowledge (which they may not even know where to find), your app sucks. People, even technical ones, will abandon it, even if it is more reliable and has more features than the next guy. Making things that are intuitive is really difficult. That is why people get advanced degrees in it and start consultancies that specialize in it. Usability does not just stop at GUIs on your laptop, but also jet fighter cockpits, vending machines, ATMs etc... Think about this, what good is a jet fighter if nobody can actually fly it?
That is not even to begin talking about how people with low vision can operate things. WCAG exists for a reason.
I didn't say usuability is unimportant. I said it is overrated. What does a good UX experience profit if there is lack of functionality and reliability? A legacy Linux desktop with reliable apps is much more useful to me than a polished Windows/OSX where apps crash all the time.
> If you are presented with 6 choices and you cannot reasonably tell the difference between them without spending 15-30 minutes researching all of the options, you have a bad user experience.
That's the price for freedom of choice. If you are not willing to invest some time to choose than others will force you on their ways to go. This spares you some time but at the end it costs you much more because you have to give up your privacy at FB etc.
> If a user can't figure out how to navigate through an app in a reasonable amount of time without a great deal of existing knowledge
Having watched kids, teens, and 20-somethings, I've concluded that "a reasonable amount of time" to them is something on the order of 5 seconds on the outside. On a PC, they might look around and thoughtfully click on things. On a tablet or phone app, they just mash their fingers for about 3 seconds, then if they haven't seen something, move on.
This even extends to 20-somethings and game controllers. I've seen 20-somethings walk up to an 80's emulated arcade game, waggle the sticks on a controller for 2 seconds, not understand why the screen was shaking, then walk away.
You probably shouldn't choose any of them, but should set up your own server, but some people don't want to do that, and we don't want to play favorites and say "this is the best server to join" so instead we list a few servers run by our community.
Installing the software is a different use case from using an existing instance. It's simple to do (compared to buying Twitter or writing your own industrial-strength social networking system from scratch) if you are the kind of user that kind of thing is simple for. Otherwise, you have a wide choice of existing instances to choose from.
There are many more than seven existing servers. Consumer choice is a good thing. User confusion less so.
No. What good is all the functionality in the world if it's prohibitively difficult to use? Especially for something like a social network, where the value is directly related to how many people are on there, and who.
If people are not willing to invest five minutes or so what to choose then they should stick with FB and Twitter where they don't think about the consequences of releasing all their private data anyway.
That is nothing more than an elitist argument that really has no place in this discussion. All you are doing with that argument is saying that you're somehow better than other people, and for that, you should be ashamed.
Some people need others to think for them. Some people like to make their own decisions. GNU is for the latter ones. GNU has always been freedom of choice.
Design is overrated. Functionality and reliability are more important. Even Apple has to admit that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11061111