Those who develop applications should have to support them. If YOU were going to have to deal with people getting confused by your stupid user interface, with the techno-illiterate misunderstanding every icon in your toolbar, with the training of users who feel that using a computer requires no effort on their part (and if they have to expend any effort whatsoever then the software/computer is broken!), then I think you would be significantly more circumspect when making “design” decisions.
Sorry, that first paragraph comes across fairly rant-like. It’s been a long day and whilst few of these issues have reared their ugly heads today, they are things I have had to contend with before. My housemates and I were pondering this at the weekend though. Amongst us we had a number of views … from the usability-centred one that people should be able to “just use” a computer interface (i.e. that they should be intuitive), all the way through to the view that people don’t expect to be able to fly a plane without training … so why do they think they should be able to use a computer without putting any effort in?
Although there is definitely some onus on the user — and personally I think it would be great if people took more of a responsibility for how well they can use a computer — I still think there is a definite need for developers to be aware of their user’s needs. And nothing highlights those needs better than having to support users who are attempting to work your application, website or even use a piece of equipment.
I think perhaps this is one of the key differences between the professional and the open source world. Because in open source your code and your interfaces are there for everyone to see, there is much more incentive to do a good job — to program elegantly, to help users to make the best use of what you produce. To an extent this is aided by the relatively smaller size of more open source application (granted, there are massive ones too, but most open source developers start out with an itch … and produce something small that is often ripped to pieces on the first iteration. They seem to learn from this), but even small applications in the business world will have the testing and the support completely separated from the development.
I realise that a lot of people don’t like doing support work. A lot of developers seem to think that it is beneath them. But I think an awful lot of them would learn a great deal and become much better developers if they actually had to deal with the results of their design and implementation decisions.
Comments (4) Permalink
March 16th, 2004 at 1:55 AM
Does open source really encourage better support? The know-nothing perspective I had on it was that open source was less well supported because you weren’t getting paid and its just a few kids doing all the fun bits before getting bored and going away to do something else.
March 16th, 2004 at 9:34 AM
As well as / instead of supporting it, just using it will help too: http://www.thinkingaboutcomputers.org.uk/index.php/2003/10/03/p18
My first programming job was at a small software house where the programmers did the installation and support too (and, to start off with, the training and user documentation). It certainly focussed the mind on the user, but also distracted from the programming. We took it in turns to wear the Pager of Doom – an unpleasant memory.
I now work for a mega-corp, with 2 lines of technical support between me and the customer, dedicated user documentation and training groups etc. Despite all the stress it brings I miss the direct dealing with the customer. It gives you much more of a sense of purpose, talking to the people whose lives are affected by your work (hopefully improved).
March 16th, 2004 at 9:39 AM
What I meant, Tony, was that if you did something crap, then your name was on it. Not so much structured support (although often you will find that those who develop the software are on the mailing list that helps people with problems with it), as accountability for things.
Admittedly a lot of open source development has a long way to go to be usable … but given the resources it must be worrying for software houses that those developing for free are putting out software that is comparable to theirs. That’s how bad pay-for software can be!
March 17th, 2004 at 11:02 AM
I know partly where this rant comes from, but I’m still having visions of Linus supporting Linux, and they’re not good. 😉