If something isn't immediately (ie within 5 seconds) apparent to a user of a piece of computer software (whether its the OS, java, anything) then THE DEVELOPER IS A F***ING IDIOT.

Above ALL though, cryptic install problems make me want to kill people. Literally. If the developer of the piece of software I'm struggling with right now was sitting next to me I would literally punch them in the face, and then kick them while they were down.

This is just some friendly advice from one developer to another. I know how programs should be made so don't be lazy. Put effort into your UI's and install experiences.

/end rant.

PS. Not targeted at anyone on maemo.org. So far all the software from this community is intuitive even if some of the ports are still rough around the edges.

The problem with this is that people are not all the same. Of course, if they were we wouldn't need computer-human intefaces, as we'd be computers ourselves.

The result is that what seems obvious and intuitive to one person seems baffling to another: that can be down to culture, experience or just the plain orneriness of human nature.

I'm sorry to hear you are struggling with something that seems not to be straightforward. The most annoying thing is that it almost certainly seemed perfectly intuitive to the person who created it like that.

In an ideal world, all software (and hardware, for that matter) would be tested on a large number of people for 'obviousness of UI'. But even in that situation, you might still occasionally find youself in the minority for whom it isn't obvious at all.

I can recommend a deep breath and a nice cup of tea - the ability to wrestle with software that thinks differently from you is inversely proportionate to adrenaline and temper levels.

Human-Computer Interaction

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/01/sex.robot/

Dang! Rant for sure.

Have you considered giving some specific examples, so that the idea of more appropriate HCI attention could be paid by developers? Its not like they won't listen if you give them a means to create an application in a way that would gain them more notoriety.