alt Hacker NewsThis is also why the wacko and bizarro concept that "removing options and configs from programs" aka Gnome's big purge more than a decade ago, is nonsense today.
All those studies about GUI usability were done in the early 2000s. Before phones. When most people were just learning how to use a computer. The idea of options certainly was confusing, because "clicking on things" was even confusing.
Yet today, we have a populous which, more and more, grew up with computers. And loves to personalize. And wants options. So just keep that in mind, all you frontenders, config options aren't necessarily bad. Ancient studies have little relevance 24 years later.
Sorry to hijack a bit, but felt it was relevant to courses, teaching, and the state of time in 2000 vs now.
I think Gnome removing options was more about having a smaller and more manageable set of features that need to be QA tested. I'd much rather have well-designed and well-supported defaults than 500 buggy customizable components that don't work well together.
https://ometer.com/preferences.html
I'm not sure about you, but I find Gnome very easy to use, although I miss some features. Those features can be added with Gnome extensions that are maintained by third-parties. Meanwhile I find GIMP extremely hard to use, as it packs in too many features to allow their designers to figure out a good UX which doesn't break some component.