dsandler.org/wp

OK, please, please read the Spray-On Usability
addenda. There are some choice passages in there:

1. The user interface — the entire user experience —
   should be designed first, and the underlying implementation
   should be built to support the design.
2. Thus, the traditional Unix/Linux development model, wherein
   back-end implementations are written first, and GUI
   “wrappers??? are written around them later, is completely
   backwards.

Good UI design will never be forged by community consensus. Bottom-up design
won’t lead to a coherent and unified whole.

The key is that there’s never going to be a good desktop user
interface for Linux that pleases the Linux nerds who don’t care
about usability. If the reason you use Linux is that you value
tweakability over usability, or if you get off on the fact that
a normal person couldn’t sit down in front of your computer and
figure out how to use it, you’re probably not going to like a
system that doesn’t even have a replaceable “window manager???.
Trying to create a cohesive GUI system that appeals to these
guys is like trying to write music that appeals to the tone
deaf.

The worst part is that if anyone succeeds at putting together a usable desktop
for Linux, these anti-usability Linux advocates will piss all over it.