[dayvid]

The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others

[BinaryIgor]

True; that's why we have companies with paid product who devote a lot of their time - arguably majority - to make the exact interfaces people want and understand:) it's a ton, a ton of difficult work, for which there is little to no incentive in the free software ecosystem

[psunavy03]

And this is precisely why desktop Linux has not knocked off Windows or MacOS.

[ripdog]

I'd argue that's more because the average person has no interest in installing a new OS, or even any idea what an OS is.

Most people just keep the default. When the default is Linux (say, the Steam Deck), most people just keep Linux.

[bigfishrunning]

And that's fine. Those users who want something that's not like desktop Linux have plenty of options.

[valyala]

Omarchy tries resolving this https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy

[port11]

After reading so many apologist comments dismissing the article's points with whataboutism, yours is the first comment that I think addresses the situation properly. As a developer, it's very hard to not mistake the forest for the trees, which is why I'm usually very happy to work with a good UX researcher.

[zeroq]

> contributors of free software tend to be power users

or, simply put, nerds

it takes both a different background, approach and skillset to design ux and interface

if anything FOSS should figure out how to attract skilled artists so majority of designs and logos doesn't look so blatantly amateurish.

[WD-42]

My guess is that, as has always been, the pool of people willing to code for free on their own time because it's fun is just much larger than the people willing to make icons for software projects on their own time because they think it's fun.

[array_key_first]

They're not just nerds, they're power users. These are different things.

Pretty much everyone is a power user of SOME software. That might be Excel, that might be their payroll processor, that might be their employee data platform. Because you have to be if you work a normal desk job.

If Excel was simpler and had an intuitive UI, it would be worthless. Because simple UI works for the first 100 hours, maybe. Then it's actively an obstacle because you need to do eccentric shit as fast as possible and you can't.

Then, that's where the keyboard shortcuts and 100 buttons shoved on a page somewhere come in. That's where the lack of whitespace comes in. Those aren't downsides anymore.

[Panzer04]

The person who is going to bother adding stuff to a piece of software is almost certainly by definition a power-user.

This means they want to add features they couldn't get anywhere else, and already know how to use the existing UI. Onboarding new users is just not their problem or something they care about - They are interested in their own utility, because they aren't getting paid to care about someone else's.

It's not a "nerd" thing.

[8note]

UX and interface designers are also nerds.

i think the bigger issue is that the power users usecases are different from the non-power users. not a skillset problem, but an incentive one

[phendrenad2]

I'm optimistic that the rise of vibe coding will allow the people who understand the user's wants and needs to fix the world's FOSS UIs.

[DrewADesign]

I have been beating this drum for many years. There are some big cultural rifts and workflow difficulties. Unless FOSS products are run by project managers rather than either developers or designers, it’s a tough nut. Last I looked, gimp has been really tackling this effort more aggressively than most.