Open source software sux at UX. Why?
Lots of reasons, of course, but one is that these interfaces and their creators are often focused on users abilities, and the full expressiveness of the software’s functionality, not on the users’ needs or capabilities.
For example, often, the free software drive to make everything controllable by the user leads to an approach to interfaces that make all that is possible, visible. They treat all functions equally, since the goal is just to provide all the tools and let the liberated user decide. This equality of features often also leads to interfaces that lack clear hierarchy, or are overloaded with menus, options and configuration preferences. Lastly, in these projects, design and particularly visual design are “extra”, and often not in the skill set of participants. The reasons for that are, really, I think, a separate discussion, touching on the gender of aesthetics and traditional roles in software.
But, all that said, full user control is a value worth preserving as software evolves. It’s something people who focus on licenses and patents as the core of free technology lose site of: if software is truly libré, everything a user wants to do, or change, should be possible, even if it is hard. Software may be freely licensed, but if it is impossible to use, or very difficult, is it really free for all? If it is to be a real practical freedom, free software must also be useable for all.
Finally, for software to be broadly successful, it needs to be not fully featured, but useful. It need not be fully customizable, but it must be intuitive. So how do these tensions get resolved in a way that pushes free software forward?
Larry Wall has a phrase that he applied to PERL, but could also be applied to open software interfaces: make the easy stuff easy and the hard stuff possible.
This is the way to bridge these tensions: make the things people most need from the software easy and intuitive. Don’t make the user invest in configuration, or understanding complex metaphors, or unique interface paradigms. But also, make the hard things possible. Don’t enclose everything in black boxes and “smart settings”. If the user wants to turn something off, let them. If they know better than your recommendation model what they want to see next, let them manage their own queue. For everything you make easy, also make it controllable, and understandable. Then it will be truly free.