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I see people railing at the affront of #libre software that they find 'hard to use' and how that's elitist and shouldn't be the case. That it's the software designers' or developers' fault.
The #libre software world certainly needs more good designers, accessibility, & UX people, but they seem rare. Unlike those design-focused people, who require software devs to realise any sort of functioning app, devs can throw together an interface that *they* can use without too much trouble... 1/n
... but they might not be very sophisticated in terms of UX or accessibility... because that's not part of the skill set of the people who put it together. That's just the way it is. I can't think of any #libre sw communities who wouldn't *love* some good designers/accessibility/UX people to join them.
Another issue is that libre sw makes it possible for non-specialists to get access to very specialised apps from esoteric domains they'd never use if not libre... 2/n
... In many cases, these domains require very specialised, *accurate* mental models of their users, because the domain is just complex. They can be only a simple as possible... but no simpler. Many #BigTech apps make things 'too simple', glossing over technical complexities & user conceptual competence, which is why we have computer viruses & malware among other issues plaguing modern computer users. It's also why many fear computers: their mental models are invalid, offering no guidance. 3/n
@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nzThe bottom line is that many people, who generally come from using almost entirely proprietary software & the constant reinforcement that the software they're using is 'user friendly' (even though it's generally not) which gives the users an expectation of access that's simply not valid (nor is it really desirable) with a lot of #libre sw. That said, there's quite a lot of libre sw that's head of class with regard of usability... what it's not is *marketed*. Because there's no $ extracted. 4/n