Random Computer Bits

Usability and design is an often-discussed topic when it comes to operating systems. Zealots of a particular operating system will argue that theirs is the best, the easiest to use, the best design. Fools! If only you knew that usability can't be measured that way; that there are so many factors affecting these two "qualities" that it's difficult to know even where to begin.

First of all, what is usability? This is obviously a very subjective term, and the root cause of why there is so much dissent among even experienced users of various operating systems. For the time being, let's say that usability is inversely proportional to two things: firstly, the degree of the learning curve required to use a particular software interface, and secondly, the average amount of work required to complete a task using said software interface. These two things are also very subjective, but it will help to break things down a bit when examining operating systems.

In this article, we will examine two main roots of operating systems: Unix and Microsoft Windows. They are both extremely different, have different philosophies of how interfaces should be, and have almost created cults following them.

Unix is, and always has been designed for use in the command line. Even the directory structure is designed around command-line use, keeping short folder names to save typing. It's been designed so that all its system configuration is stored in a number of easily-editable text files distributed around the hard drive. All a user needs is a root shell and a text editor, and they can configure almost any area of a Unix system. Not to mention that these shells have been designed for remote access, allowing a user halfway around the world to do at a command prompt exactly what a user sitting a foot away from that same Unix server can do. The design of it is superb, having networking built into its core, and being able to be fully operational from a simple command prompt.

Microsoft Windows, on the other hand, has a completely different approach. While it too started with a command line known famously as MS-DOS, it was nowhere near as powerful as Unix. Doesn't anyone remember that horrid 8.3 filesystem naming scheme? Naturally, Microsoft was soon trying to get rid of it in favor of their even-more famous GUI operating system, Windows. Windows has the philosophy that the user is incapable of configuring a system through the use of text files, and that they need a nice pretty GUI to do everything for them. Instead of text files holding configuration options, Microsoft instead opted for a database containing configuration for the entire system, even third-party applications. This configuration database is known as the Windows registry. If the user wanted to configure anything, they were supposed to use the GUI tool that Microsoft provided. Forcing the user to manually edit the registry was unheard of, and only leet hackers who wanted to risk messing up their system did it. As for MS-DOS, it was still there, but Microsoft had sort of pushed it under the carpet. By Windows XP, many DOS applications refused to work anymore under the provided command prompt, and developers were expected to write GUI applications if they wanted any chance at all of getting people to use their software.

Now, before we go any further, which is the technologically superior operating system? Which seems to be more powerful? I'd say Unix is. However, here is where people go wrong: they assume that good design means that an operating system will have good usability. Not necessarily! In fact, the reason Windows is so easy to use despite its bad design is because of its bad design. By having a crappy base system like DOS beneath Windows, by having a database that the entire system depends upon, Microsoft has essentially forced software developers to create nice pretty GUIs for every piece of software they want to have a chance at selling in the market. In fact, it is safe to assume that the average Windows user has never even used a command prompt before! GUIs are clearly easier to learn than a command line interface, as people tend to learn better through the use of pictures and diagrams than through text. The goal of Unix was never really to be easy to use in the first place. Power and flexibility was the central goal, and continues to be.

In fact, it really isn't fair to compare Windows and Unix, as they're two very separate beasts, with entirely different mindsets. People just have to choose whichever operating system suits their needs the best, or in the case of me, both. Suit yourself.