@gabek

Usability is really hard, it takes a lot of effort, and I think the kind of work it takes is uniquely hard for hobbyists to pull off.

One person programming in mom's basement can create functionality and maybe even write unit tests, but they are going to be hard pressed to bring in 100s of users and sit them down for strictly administered in-person usability testing sessions.

Horizontal "free" structure of development means that there are no "KPIs" and "engagement metrics" ruling everyone's existence, no marching orders... I think it boils down to, usability and accessibility work isn't fun to most people, so it rarely gets done. Instead, nerds bicker over nerd stuff and build nerd software for nerds only.

Communities route around bad UIs, the only people in the user community are people who WANT to be there, or they have no other choice, whatever the reason, they have _motivation_ to get the software to work, even if they have to put up with bad UI along the way.

I like to joke that "the user interface of **insert free open program here** is located on StackOverflow". Blender, SSH, ffmpeg, you name it. I think this effect has even started to bleed into money-backed corporate products as well. Experienced users with good search-fu and community connections are becoming almost immune to bad UIs, like some kind of pop-under-resistant strain of bacteria.

It's a different world from the early 90s and 2000s when no one would've had the patience for computers at all if it weren't for the buckets of cash Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others poured into meticulously researching and testing UI affordances.

@gabek Honestly I think you have been doing a great job, whoever is complaining about owncast's UI is just meme-ing or something IMO.

You made a bunch of design choices, like insisting on keeping things as simple as possible, that I think really helped.

I'm sorta curious to hear what concrete things people point to and say that it's bad UI. Are they saying the viewer experience is bad or the streamer experience is bad?

In terms of how to "fix" it, I would recommend just taking a moment to re-contextualize what these people are saying; rest easy knowing that you created a really great tool with best-in-class usability. IMO there will always be negativity around anything even if what you did was perfect.

Sure, it can always be improved, but I think largely, the complaints about open/free software UI are not about Owncast.

I don't know if I believe that it's possible to fix those problems, to for example, fix the usability issues in SSH and CLIs and the linux man pages, C, all the old stuff. It would be like trying to force people to change how they speak, read, and write English to make it predictably phonetic like German. It's just not going to happen.

IMO there has to be some meeting in the middle, computer users have to grow thicker skin and bring a little bit of motivation into their computer use, instead of letting the computer use them.

At the same time, IMO developers have to abandon old norms like manuals that start with "how to read this manual", and build new norms around obvious "intuitive" affordances, airtight error handling of processes, honest communication with the user (checklists over progress bars), and error messages that always contain the word "because".

I think you have already done a lot of the latter with owncast. Don't listen to the haters.