Post #3143598

2026-05-21 20:43 UTC

@odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange @Gargron@mastodon.social I mean you're both painting with too broad of strokes in your generalizations and missing wide swathes of populations while neither of you is technically wrong about the specific users you're talking about. Usability is a spectrum and creating a one-size-fits-all UX is an antipattern no matter how much or little it abstracts away decision making possibilities from the user. Open standards, data, and interoperability enable these experiences for the whole spectrum. MySpace was a great example because you didn't have to understand HTML/CSS to use it, but if you wanted to understand it then you could use it to personalize your page, if you didn't care one bit about learning any of it but still wanted to personalize your page then it opened a market for templates and style generators with better usability, and if you had no interest in any of that then the app was no less usable.

Replies (3)

@odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange 2026-05-21 20:52

@thief_of_fire@infosec.exchange @Gargron@mastodon.social usability is a spectrum in terms of "how hard is it to use", but that is always connected to task completion. Customisation is nice and may be important to some users, but only to a certain technical level. What you're describing is mainly a function of two things: target audience and investment volume. Customisation options require higher investment. If you want a broad audience but want to be cost-efficient, there will be less options to customise.

Open ##3143599
@thoralf@gruene.social 2026-05-21 21:22

@thief_of_fire@infosec.exchange @odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange @Gargron@mastodon.social I disagree. The biggest issue of the whole Fediverse is usability. Functionality is mostly fine, but usability is a big problem here. How do I know? Because I see it every day. My wife is somewhat interested but still hasn't gotten the hang of it - because it requires technical knowledge she is not willing to acquire. And she shouldn't have to. There is no such thing as "Too much usability." But often there is "Too little usability."

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@debe@mastodon.nz 2026-05-21 21:26

@thief_of_fire@infosec.exchange Different people and different stages of life. I used to type up HTML webpages from scratch. I learned CSS for a little while. But my life has since become full of non-tech stuff (plus the technical level I need now has far outstripped my skill or time available to learn). I'm super grateful that one of my sons is getting into building & running servers. I don't know if he'll ever get into code, & there won't be low level paid opportunities to learn. I was fortunate to get paid by one of my lecturers to convert the webpages he'd generated in PowerPoint into light weight HTML that could work over slow modems, which pushed me to learn animated gif creation. Where would such opportunities be now? @odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange @Gargron@mastodon.social

Open ##3143604