Right. For most people, gimp is not only overkill but also overwhelming. It's hard to intuit how to perform even fairly simple tasks. But for someone who needs it it's worth learning.

The casual user just wants a tool to crop screenshots and maybe draw simple shapes/lines/arrows. But once they do that they start to think of more advanced things and the simple tool starts to be seen as limiting.

But the linked article addresses that. They're not advocating for removing the full-feature UI, they just advise having a simple version that does the one thing (or couple of things) most users want in a simple way. Users who want to do more can just use the full version.

Users don't want "to do more". They want to do "that one extra thing". Going from the "novice" version to the "full version" just to get that one extra thing is a real problem for a lot of people. But how do you address this as a software designer?

I'm not a coder, so I'm not going to pretend that this solution is easy to implement (it might be, but I wouldn't assume so), but how about allowing you to expose the "expert" options just temporarily (to find the tool you need) and then allow adding that to your new "novice plus" custom menus? I.e., if you use a menu option from the expert menu X number of times, it just shows up even though your default is the novice view.

That’s harder than static menus, but it’s not really anything harder once you have customizable hot list menus.

It seemed that way to me but I have done enough work with computers (I am on HN, after all) to know that things people in general think should be easy often are not, and things they think are hard may be simple. Thanks.

Progressive disclosure? If you know your audience, you probably know what most people want, and then the usual next step up for that "one extra thing". You could start with the ultra-simple basic thing, then have an option to enable the "next step feature". If needed you could have progressive options up to the full version.

I don't know if this works well in general, but for example Kodi has "basic", "advanced" and several progressively more advanced steps in between for most of its menus. It hides lots of details that are irrelevant to the majority of users.

And why exactly should free software prioritise someone's first five minutes (or first 100 hours, even) over the rest of the thousands of hours they might spend with it?

I see people using DAWs, even "pro" ones made by companies presumably interested in their bottom lines. In all cases I have no idea how to use it.

Do I complain about intuitiveness etc? Of course not. I don't know how to do something. That's my problem. Not theirs.

> And why exactly should free software prioritise someone's first five minutes (or first 100 hours, even) over the rest of the thousands of hours they might spend with it?

Well, if people fail at that first five minutes, the subsequent thousand hours most often never happens.

The inverse is also true. If you prioritize the first five minutes, your software is worthless in any industry that matters.

And that's why designers are using Photoshop and not Microsoft paint.

See, I feel this is where programmers just don't "get" good UI design.

Photoshop is good UI design. A normie can use photoshop the same way they use MS paint.

Albeit it just loads slower.

A normie doesn't need all the bells and whistles. They can just use photoshop like a glorified MS paint.

You can't do that with GIMP. It's actually really fucking annoying, if you try to use GIMP to do a MS paint job.

Clearly this is not true. Photoshop is difficult to use. I have opened it and tried to use it many times. Its UI is super complicated. There are endless buttons and I have no idea how to do anything.

There are heaps of Photoshop tutorials on YouTube, which wouldn't be necessary if what you said were true.

I used GIMP to do MS paint stuff years ago when I used it fairly regularly.

GIMP is always a whipping boy for UI design on forums like this and I think it is pretty unfair. It is a pretty good program comparatively. If you want to see bad UI design a much better example is something like Visual Studio. What a mess.

> If you want to see bad UI design a much better example is something like Visual Studio. What a mess.

Yeah, big button "Create project" and another, albeit smaller, button for "Run" puts a really high bar for the user to jump over.

Nothin as good as plain old cc followed by a bunch of cryptic flags.

I'm talking about the user interface, not how difficult it to click a button to do basic actions.

VS is incredibly cluttered. Too many buttons, cryptic icons and entirely unclear how to do things in the options.

I'm not comparing it to cc but to be fair that is actually well documented and hasn't changed its user interface in decades.

The main problem is that neither of those buttons make it clear what the fuck they're actually doing and also they don't work.

Download a random solution. Will the run button work? I highly doubt it.

> Photoshop is good UI design. A normie can use photoshop the same way they use MS paint.

This is just straight up not true. You're only saying this because you, presumably, have used Photoshop.

It has a million buttons, layers are a thing, there's a million tools, etc. No, they can't just pick it up because it's complex software for a complex problem domain.

Maybe you disagree. Okay. Pick a different example. 3D Max? Why aren't studios using Microsoft Paint 3D instead of 3D max?

"It has a million buttons, layers are a thing, there's a million tools, etc. No, they can't just pick it up because it's complex software for a complex problem domain."

See this is the thing that software devs don't "get" about UI design.

It's the exact thing the original author is trying to communicate.

You CAN have a powerful tool. And still have it be user friendly for normies!

You hide away it's complexities. So it's not INDTIMIDATING for new users.

You know what. I'm going to reinstall gimp. Just to prove my point.

Let's compare photoshop with gimp.

Before I begin, let me preface. Modern photoshop is an enshitified piece of garbage. I would never use it.

But this is nothing to do with enshitification. That's a whole different thing.

Ok let's start:

- I grab a random image from imgur. Copy paste. Ctrl-V. Both apps passed the test. I was a little worried gimp couldn't even do this.

- On load this is what photoshop looks like: https://imgur.com/a/3uYsm2h

- On load this is what gimp looks like: https://imgur.com/a/DnPcRTc

First impressions:

- GIMP is ugly as fuck. It looks outdated. There's information overload on the left side. Too much shit happening. Too much text squashed together. INTIMIDATING.

- In contrast, photoshop has a more minimalist look. There is a "Layers" window on the right. New users don't need to touch it.

- There is a "Size & Position" window. This is key. Notice how there's only 3 things inside that window. Notice how it's not squashed with all the other shit on the left. Think about that. Why did the designer do this? Because those 3 things are what 90% of normies are looking to do.

- This is exactly what the original author was talking about, with the TV remote. The most common operations should be sectioned off at the top of the remote. Similarly, the most common operations in photo editing should be sectioned off, in clear view.

Ok, Step 2. Let's try and crop this image. A common operation:

- Photoshop. Click the crop button. Shows you a bit more complexity in it's settings. You don't have to touch it. It gives you a helpful grid UI: https://imgur.com/a/tLjL6en

- And then it has a blue "Done" button at the bottom. Finished easy.

- GIMP. We start with a brush by default??? Whoops I accidentally drew on the picture. I didn't want to do that. Thank god I know ctrl-Z.

- So it's that cross thing right? That's the move button. Nope that's not what I want to do :(

- It must be the one next to it. The rectangle. Ok, some random corner thingies appear in the corners. I click on one of the corners. The image gets split into two. But now what? WTF do I do now: https://imgur.com/a/f7TTHJs

I can go on and on and on and on, criticizing gimp's terrible UI design. I hope, the little I have demonstrated, is a tease into what UI design is really about.

Those people will not use software designed for professional use and move to something else.