Thread: iPod Touch (threads merged)
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cairn is offline cairn
2007-09-06 , 02:39
Posts: 45 | Thanked: 1 time | Joined on Aug 2007
#83
On Ari's blog, he said
Third, open source based UIs and end user experiences, build by communities and hackers, are not that good. It is not easy to find community built software that provides UI W-O-W and high level of usability. It seems that high quality integration and user experience requires a stong central mechanism, such as a company, to run the implementation. Now, please, prove me wrong!
I didn't interpret that comment as necessarily relating to Nokia's UI at all, but to open source projects in general. In that regard, I agree with him. I think lack of a well-designed, efficient, and attractive UI is a common complaint of open source projects. I think Ubuntu in particular has made some strides in this area precisely by having a strong central control over the look and feel of the UI. I'm making some really broad generalizations here, but I've seen this argument come up a lot.

That doesn't mean that corporate produced UIs are necessarily any better. I'm sure we can all think of many different examples of a poorly implemented UI that was made worse by the fact that it's closed source and difficult to change.