[PD] PD usability

[alex cook]

hello all-

having taken more than my share of classes on human
computer interaction at university, i agree with
thomas grill that usability issues are the biggest
flaws with PD.

keep in mind it is very easy to fall into a symptom
known as "folk usability." meaning "i can use it, so
it must not be that difficult for other users."  many 
new users are intimidated by the PD install and
without better documentation, they don't know why they
should go through the trouble. the advantages are not
immediately clear to them.

personally i don't think max is an example of prime
usability either. while it may make a good model for
PD initially, i think PD could do far better.

alex cook
ms in information, design, technology
georgia tech
 
I've complained a few times that PD suffers (to my
mind) from the 
following
problems:
- source code documentation is hardly existent, hence
it cost me a lot 
of to
understand what it's going on in there.
- there is a nasty entanglement of the messaging/dsp
core with the GUI
subsystem
- the current TCL/TK GUI hinders all kind of
interesting GUI stuff
- the audio-IO is not changeable at run-time (... i
heard this will 
change
in 0.37)
- installation and configuration is still notoriously
complicated for 
people
that are not that familiar with system issues


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