While the use of this medium was inevitable, it changed the way we look at our political candidates and ultimately, the way we vote and choose our leaders.
As a college student, I took a political science class just because I needed to offset my less than stellar performance in algebra. GPA matters. Of course in that era, there was no Youtube...the internet did not exist, so we had to use printed transcripts of the debate to study the event itself.
You can see for yourself here. While Nixon seemingly had a better grasp and overall understanding of the issues, he bounced between obvious discomfort and outright aggression or defensive posture during the debate. Kennedy on the other hand looked composed, comfortable and was the obvious more attractive candidate on stage.
Did that matter? The attractive part?
Apparently so.
A poll after the debate was taken between Television viewers and radio listeners. As the link above will state, those who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon to be the obvious winner. Those who viewed the debate on television chose Kennedy.
Let's look at part of a recap from that debate:
"Perhaps the most crucial aspect of Kennedy’s victory, however, was his superior handling of the new medium of television. Having spent the first part of September campaigning in sunny California, the already handsome, athletic Kennedy entered the debate looking especially vivacious and fit. Nixon, by contrast, had lost weight during an extended hospital stay, refused studio makeup, sweated visibly, and appeared altogether less healthy and appealing. As historians and commentators have pointed out, many of those who listened to the debate on the radio, only hearing the voices of the candidates, thought Nixon was the victor, with his authoritative speech and mature voice. But unfortunately for Nixon, the debate was televised, and Kennedy’s calm, attractive demeanor and expectation-defying performance won the day. "
So, do we choose our leaders based simply on how they look?
It's looking that way
In the past 5 months, I've been doing some polling of my own. Of course it's not on a national or global level. In fact, it's been an extremely small sampling, but the outcome of this experiment have led me to some conclusions that I think are important enough to share.
We do between 300 and 400 computer installs for disadvantaged kids in the Austin Texas area a year. During that time, I have the undivided attention of both the parents and the kids. When I see that I have a friendly and open audience, I ask those over 17 to take a 10 minute poll of sorts.
I have to date a sampling of 78 people.
Hardly a large number, but it's what I have.
I ask them what software they are used to using, how often they use a computer and in what environment they use it.
I then explain to them that I am going to show them picture-sets of 3 different applications. We've found that the most-used apps are the browser, the word processor and the music/MP3 programs.
Let me state that this is no where near a controlled or scientific endeavor...I simply choose participants on their willingness to do this.
The Browser...A virtual Wash.
The results here were pretty much split down the middle. Both of the shown screenshots were taken in VirtualBox in order to maintain font and consistency.37 people chose Internet Explorer 8 while the remainder of the people chose Firefox. Please note, my observations show that besides some icon theming, the two browsers render themselves almost identical in these screenshots.
Theming seems to be the key here in many of the things we discovered. We did not discuss much about the different browsers except that Microsoft Explorer comes "bundled" with Windows and Firefox is a stand-alone browser that can be installed in most any recognized Operating System. In A Word...
The Microsoft Office component, Word got the nod from 53 people in contrast to the 25 who chose the OpenOffice offering of Writer. Very little was explained to the viewers except that Word, bundled in the latest Microsoft Office offering could cost them in excess of $200.00 US while OpenOffice was free to use and modify.It didn't seem to make much difference.
Cosmetically, one could see why people chose Word over Writer at 2-1. It has a pretty blue theme contrasted by the rather stark and blocky presentation of Writer. But again, to a point this is more of a theming issue I believe. Some interesting things happened when we moved on to the music apps.
Music makes the world go around...
Consistently, whether it's a teenager or an adult, our experience shows few applications on a computer share use as much as music programs. Of course, Windows dominance prevails in this area as well. Most people we talk to define their computer music experience as being dominated by Windows Media Player.But we cannot definitively say that it's because it is a superior application.
It seems that looks matter here as well.
We played with this a bit, simply because a direct comparison between one open source application against WMP didn't tell the whole story.
They were of course talking about the album art that showed up in WMP. That app automatically queries the net for the appropriate album cover while Ryhthmbox needs configuration in order to do so.
71 percent based their choice on how the application looked.
When we went further to explain the the open source offering did not encumber their experience with (explained) DRM, that number improved by another 9 percent. We then showed these folks the default picture of Ryhthmbox along side of the differently themed version with album art enabled and told them it was the exact same application. We explained to them that Linux allowed them to change themes with a couple of clicks.The majority of them showed various degrees of surprise or disbelief until I actually re-themed their Linux boxes on the fly.
Then they understood.
Amorok won that contest 56 to 22.
When we asked why they thought that Amorok was a better application, the majority of people said that it offered some cool features and that it looked good.
All of this was done of course in a Gnome environment, on our customized version of Ubuntu 10.4.
I'm not sure any of this bears significance except to note that some computer users are first drawn to an application from physical appearance.
But then again, apparently this is how many of us choose our political leaders and most likely our spouses.
No real surprises here.
Maybe some of the battles can be won with a simple default makeover.
Maybe not.
All-Righty Then
29 comments:
I agree with your assessments, and that's why I think projects like Elementary are really important because they give GNOME a much fresher face than what it has now (and will thus help it get into the hands of more people). First impressions really do matter.
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a Linux Mint user since 2009 May 1
Having spent 4 years cooking in a restaurant, I have a very deep understanding of this rule:
The first rule of culinary excellence: We eat with our eyes.
Our brains are hard-wired to be attracted to people, food, things, or in this case software that looks nicest.
Microsoft learned this a while ago, and has fine-tuned it to an art.
Analytical minds like mine HATE the flashy fancy graphics and effects in the latest versions of Windows. But I am in the minority. I much prefer a functional, stable environment over a pretty one any day. If I can make it pretty, and maintain the functionality and stability, it's all that much better, but it's not a requirement.
X
Very Interesting.
Now what do we do? Computer wise, no
need to talk about that other stuff.
I've said this to friends and associates for years. Basically, and I don't mean to come off elitist, but many people will say, "Ohhhhhh, look it's shiny"!
I've worked with people that would rather use glitzed-up Windows software that limits or stalls their work instead of using a program that will just let them get their work done.
Of course, most of my friends who are hypnotized by shiny software are MacBoys.
That should go without saying.
Chelle
TEH PRETTIES FTW!! WE CAN HAS PURPLE AND PINK FOREVERRRRR!!
Well, when you have nothing else to go on...
Show a picture of two cars to a random person. Ask them which one they prefer. Refuse to answer questions regarding unimportant matters like gas mileage or safety ratings. Eventually, they will have nothing to go on except appearance. Rinse & repeat.
Most people do not understand computers beyond clicking. That is a monstrous ratio when you think about it. Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, there is a high probability that you are the only person in a half mile stretch that knows how much RAM you need in your computer to stay sane and productive. Heck, you are probably the only person in a quarter mile stretch who has even SEEN RAM!
Knowing what an OS is, being able to use more than one, being able to upgrade your own RAM - these are things that put computer geeks at a whole other level. So yes, we tend to look down upon others who choose their apps based on pretty pictures, and to a certain extent we are justified.
Then again, eating some humble pie every now and then is also a good idea. We cannot all know everything.
What happens to a typical guy in a perfume and candle shop?
"Uhh... flowers! Yes, flowers. And, uhh... it smells! Yes, it smells like... something..."
Or a typical woman at a hardware store?
"Uhh... shiny screws! Yes, shiny. Do I need shiny screws? And what does the plus on the end mean?"
Not to be sexist or anything here, even though I just was. Although I find women who know what nickel-plated means far more than I find men with an aroma preference...
In any case, it seems to me that computers - while certainly a topic more common to males - is hardly common among anyone. Unlike fragrances or hammers, it does not seem to enjoy a majority by any stretch of the imagination. People who know about computers are few and far between, and that makes it a topic of exclusivity.
So what are the odds that pretty pictures can sway the masses? Extremely high. Which is why I am glad that some people in the world of computers are actually doing something about it. They could be doing better, sure, but they could also be like the curmudgeons who think that GUIs are just as evil as "Micro$haft" so I cut them a little slack.
Xetheriel - "Microsoft learned this a while ago, and has fine-tuned it to an art."
I really do not think this is true. While each particular version of Windows as a whole looks more polished than your average GUI-based Linux distro, this is primarily because everything is developed all at once. And even then, there are some inconsistencies. Moreover, there are design elements that are just plain goofy, and third-party programs that do not follow the rules at all, just like in the world of Linux. Even more befuddling, MS makes it a point to change things with each new version just because. So Win95/98/ME all looked mostly similar to each other, but WinXP inherited a lot of its GUI design elements from Win2K, and of course Vista/7 are completely different. Sometimes this is good, sometimes bad. Then you have MS Office, which seems to alternate between becoming more functional or looking prettier, but never at the same time. 2007 and 2010 are particularly frustrating if you happened to become proficient with 2003 - not to mention there seems to be a conspiracy to force everyone to upgrade to bigger monitors because the only way to see all the options in some picture-heavy panels is to view them at 1920 x 1200! And the consistency inside versions is entirely broken if you run WinXP (old MS style) with Office 2010 (new MS style). The only benefit to upgrading is that functions seem to work better or be more stable with each passing version. Office 2003 could do some awesome things, but only for 20 minutes at a time. Office 2007 looks like a regurgitated rainbow, but it works for almost 4 days in a row! And of course the former of those versions will never receive more patches to functionality, only patches to security issues (for a few more years).
So this idea that MS is doing any better is almost entirely fictional. I tend to think Apple has shown us the real reason that anything ever looks good or consistent - the fewer entities involved the better! Apple controls almost everything and so their systems are far more consistent and tend to look very good. Windows has a few tricks up its sleeves, but its openness to third-party programs detracts from consistency a great deal. Linux is a collection of thousands of design elements, so consistency is almost entirely absent, but at least there is a lot of customization!
Customization is key here and mostly goes against consistency. There are ways to change the "theme" of Mac OS X, but it is a ton of work. Windows is far easier, but of course you risk breaking something along the way. Linux has it built-in, and the only "but" to that is the fact that you have dive into a sea of near limitless options to find your own "feel". No matter how you dice it, though, most people accept the defaults because "theme-ing your apps" is beyond their understanding or takes too much time, etc. This is why defaults are so important and have such a profound effect on the user experience. On the bright side, at least the Linux community is able to have such a debate. Windows and Apple users can only debate about third-party options - there is no such thing as "changing the defaults".
I happen to agree with you. Recently a co-worker was showing off an old laptop he was going to setup for his young daughter. I said what are you going to run on it? XP was his answer of course. We all know there are many Linux distributions that handle those specs with flying colours. I asked him why not put Linux on it? His chief complaint was his daughter was used to XP's environment. I have met his daughter and she is a very bright girl. I have no doubt she would take right to any GUI put in front of her. I think it is his own ideas of the GUI and how it looks, the familiarity that keeps him blinded. I plan on demonstrating to him a less that 30 second boot with Puppy Linux on a laptop with lesser specifications using a cd to boot. And Puppy even looks pretty.
Post again more results someday. I find it very intriguing.
Let me start by saying that I agree with this author on the basic point he is making. Windows, by default, presents a more attractive and consistent user experience.
For the sake of disclosure, I make my living fixing other people's computers. Let me also state that over the years, I have grown a healthy disdain for computer users who won't take responsibility for their own computers. Masking this has become harder as time goes by.
Maybe Helios just implies this or possibly he did not take it into consideration. Most computer users settle for what is put in front of them. They rarely if ever, delve into anything more than changing their wall paper and even then, some consider themselves L337 for being able to do so.
We often install Linux on troubled computers and as an "upgrade" offer to install XP SP3 in VirtualBox for any Windows needs. Even then, this doesn't necessarily ween the user from Windows as ActiveX rarely works in a VB environment. Still, we find a lot of these users spend more time in the VB guest environment because they are more accustomed to that GUI.
When most people go out to shop for a computer, they neither have the opportunity or the willingness to shop two different operating systems. They buy what they are told to buy and the user experience in Windows is extended for the life of that machine.
I must say though that the screenshots presented here make a compelling argument. Maybe this demonstration is pointing out the obvious but is is also obvious that the major Linux distros could benefit from a GUI makeover. Look at the difference between the default Linux player vs Windows Media Player and anyone can see the ugly brother next to his football star sibliing.
I don't know if this is really a cosmetic issue more than it is a user comfort issue. People use what they know. When presented with a different environment, they will balk.
Truth is, many people who own a computer hate their environments changed. It doesn't matter how much better the alternative is. If the buttons are not in the same place, with the same look and same function, they will dislike it.
Sure there are the exceptions. They are called Linux users.
JRaz - "His chief complaint was his daughter was used to XP's environment."
This is a great example of someone explaining something without getting at the root of the issue. You realized what he really meant: he has to support this laptop for his daughter and he is not comfortable enough with Linux to support it on this laptop. What he said was a corollary of the actual complaint, which means that he really did not explain himself fully. I often wonder if people realize just how transparent they are when they say things like this.
I think your demonstration will wheedle out of him even more "explanations". ;) Eventually, you may even get to the root of the issue!
Mike Regan - "Let me also state that over the years, I have grown a healthy disdain for computer users who won't take responsibility for their own computers."
The wording here is key. It is often difficult to respect anyone who does not take responsibility for something. If it was their fault, through inaction or a lack of understanding, then they should own up to that. Nothing wrong with making mistakes, as long as they are recognized as such. Even if someone makes the same mistake over and over again, it is infinitely easier to deal with them if they recognize the fact that it was indeed a mistake on their part.
The flip side of the coin in the service industry is the issue of expectations. If a computer user does not recognize that they made a mistake, it makes servicing their computer a huge hassle. This is the point at which the legal forms have to come out and make everyone's day a little more grey. (I often find it amusing that the people who complain the most about legal fine print being everywhere today are the very same people who forced the rest of us to use it!) If the computer user is responsible yet will not accept that, you darn sure do not want it transferred to you! Best to deflect it and treat the computer user like a child - pat their hand, tell them that NO ONE is responsible, and do the best work you can do.
Anonymous #1 - "Truth is, many people who own a computer hate their environments changed."
I think you are giving them more credit than they deserve. They do not merely hate their computer environment being changed, they hate anything in their life being changed!
The people who balk at the "truly insane level of change" that WinXP to Vista/7 entails are also likely to be the type of people who balk at changing cars, moving to a new home, having to choose a different coffee-derived beverage in the morning, etc. They like stability more than anything because it requires less thinking and decision making in the long run. They know what the problems are in their lives, they know how to work around them, and that is enough for them. They hate change in their lives, pure and simple.
Do not take it personally if they fight you for the right to run WinXP until their computer explodes. The fact is they probably fight just as hard with their spouse about which toilet paper to buy. It is their nature. The only thing you can do is recognize the symptoms of such people so that you can pick your battles better.
I too work fixing other people's virus-ridden machines. I used to extend my services for free to family members until I just got sick of it. I was fixing the very same problems time after time after time.
No matter what I told them, they would insist on reinstalling Limewire after I specifically told them that this was the problem.
Now, I treat these beloved morons just like my customers. 75.00 dollars an hour and God help you if you don't have your driver disk.
It's amazing how many decided that they would like to try Linux then. Of course, my regular customers don't know a thing about Linux and I won't tell them unless they ask.
The people Helios talks about are putting my kids through college.
Very little was explained to the viewers except that Word, bundled in the latest Microsoft Office offering could cost them in excess of $200.00 US while OpenOffice was free to use and modify.
But what happens in the real world.
Sure MS Office may look better, but when people on a tight budget are faced with putting the money out for a "pretty" program as opposed to using one that costs nothing, I bet they are inclined to bypass pretty for free.
Yes definitely. This is why LibreOffice's attention to the improvement of the interface and the branding makes me so pleased.
It's like Billy Crystal's Fernando character (You look... mahvelous!) says, "It's better to look good, than be good."
People judge a book by its cover.
People will accept sucky software that looks pretty over something that works fine yet looks spartan and utilitarian.
In the 80s if you wanted to use a computer effectively you needed to really know how it worked. Today, the average person knows more about comparison shopping for cars than for computers and software.
My daughter doesn't have a problem using openSuse 11.3. It's just that she prefers to use the re-themed, pink, princess-orized version I put together for her rather than the original green lizard motif. Just 'cause the app says "Princess Office" (with appropriate startup splash graphics) instead of "Open Office" makes a difference to her, though all the rest of the program is the same.
I believe the problem is with expectation. Above comments identify the problem of bland or down-right ugly UI's but if the public wasn't already used to MS and Mac glitz and glamor, it wouldn't really matter.
The current attitude among many Linux and Open Source Developers is to make it "good enough".
Working in a development field, I can attest to the fact that the people who develop software for my large fortune 500 company are mystified by people clamoring for attractive GUI's Being an open source enterprise, all they care about is that clicking field A produces result B.
No doubt Linux can use a GUI overhaul on some fronts. Hiring or getting the people to develop that attractive GUI is another.
Getting those who understand the importance of such a makeover will probably be impossible.
I thnk this is why default themes matter. Sure, you can change the colours and backgrounds and everything on any distro. But there are some distros that disgust me just from the way they look. They'd have to be a LOT better than the distro I currently use for me to get over the initial negative feelings.
But I think we are fast moving in that direction. We've gone from a WindowMaker or CDE environment to the beauty of Gnome 2.30 and KDE 4.5.
At the same time.... a lot of this can be overcome if people are sat with and have the benefits demonstrated or explained.
On theming. The prevalence of varying shades of blue and the brushed metal themes are not slapped up there arbitrarily. Hundreds of hours of focus group study and polls were considered before any of these schemes were used en mass.
While I use Ubuntu primarily, their color scheming and use of the default Gnome icon theme has been a lousy choice. First halloween orange and baby crap brown then we "evolved" to purple?
There is nothing more unattractive and generic than the Gnome icon theme. I have to agree with those here.
Present the OS like you give a sh** about public opinion
I would be interested in a comparison between the current Amarok and the (IMHO better) Amarok that came with KDE3.5, now known as clementine.
I would be interested in a comparison between the current Amarok and the (IMHO better) Amarok that came with KDE3.5, now known as clementine.
There is nothing surprising about that software which looks better is believed to perform better.
You don't have to believe in the first impression of a software product, most of us have learned this fact too. Sometimes in the hard way.
The really interesting in the article is how many people are changing opinions about politicians during a debate.
My wife asked me if I could do anything for a friend who's children were doing there homework on Microsoft Office 2007, she didn't realise (or wasn't told) it was a time limited demo that was bundled with the machine. She can't afford the license fee to upgrade so at the moment the kids are locked out of doing their homework! We'll be popping around to install something for free over the next few weeks, I wonder how many others have fallen into this trap and many cases just coughed up the license fee to unlock their own data?
Barnie
>> The people Helios talks about are putting my kids through college.
Are you telling us that you can't figure out any extra services to perform for Linux users? Have you considered an email newsletter or a custom distro that makes it easy for them to buy from you or from third parties that go through you or whatever?
For an example, look at Ken Jennings' comment about "Princess Office". I'm sure you can find many that would be attracted to a Princess Office setup. Automate the process with a bit of personalization involved and then make it easy to buy that package.
>> Hiring or getting the people to develop that attractive GUI is another.
Find out how to contribute to beautification projects, try to make it easy to participate, build this into the distros you produce, and see if users will find it extra interesting in becoming participants and perhaps even getting their ideas spread widely and adopted by others.
>> There is nothing surprising about that software which looks better is believed to perform better.
We judge on what we can understand (corollary is that we can't judge well what we can't understand). Appearances are easy to understand. Appearances over which we have built up habits (think "neural investments") are naturally to be preferred whenever possible (we already overcame the learning curve). Also, if we have to look at something frequently, aesthetics is an important part of the experience, especially if we aren't doing anything too deeply. We also care about what others think (in part because we develop biases towards those appearances as well), and we expect to be judged by the appearances of things we use. [Note how many biases against what we term as "uglier" are in movies and popular culture. The hero and heroin are attractive while the usually uglier bad guys have some serious personality flaws or other weaknesses.] [Note that calmness, control, and many positive qualities tend to be associated with facial expressions and behavior that we find attractive.]
Aesthetics counts for very practical reasons.
Thankfully, open source software can excel here as well once we get our aesthetics contributors participating in large numbers and taking this freedom to contribute seriously.
>> many of those who listened to the debate on the radio, only hearing the voices of the candidates, thought Nixon was the victor, with his authoritative speech and mature voice.
Voice quality is also a feature that can be judged superficially.
The real test would have been to simply read a transcript or hear each speech interpreted through an impersonal robotic voice. Of course, it pays to their bottom line to make promises even if they can't keep them but if the promises are more spectacular than the opponent's ones. There are many ways to woe the voters.
>> There is nothing surprising about that software which looks better is believed to perform better.
We judge on what we can understand (corollary is that we can't judge well what we can't understand). Appearances are easy to understand. Appearances over which we have built up habits (think "neural investments") are naturally to be preferred whenever possible (we already overcame the learning curve). Also, if we have to look at something frequently, aesthetics is an important part of the experience, especially if we aren't doing anything too deeply. We also care about what others think (in part because we develop biases towards those appearances as well), and we expect to be judged by the appearances of things we use. [Note how many biases against what we term as "uglier" are in movies and popular culture. The hero and heroin are attractive while the usually uglier bad guys have some serious personality flaws or other weaknesses.] [Note that calmness, control, and many positive qualities tend to be associated with facial expressions and behavior that we find attractive.]
Aesthetics counts for very practical reasons.
Thankfully, open source software can excel here as well once we get our aesthetics contributors participating in large numbers and taking this freedom to contribute seriously.
>> many of those who listened to the debate on the radio, only hearing the voices of the candidates, thought Nixon was the victor, with his authoritative speech and mature voice.
Voice quality is also a feature that can be judged superficially.
The real test would have been to simply read a transcript or hear each speech interpreted through an impersonal robotic voice. Of course, it pays to their bottom line to make promises even if they can't keep them but if the promises are more spectacular than the opponent's ones. There are many ways to woe the voters.
@ Jose_X
>> The people Helios talks about are putting my kids through college.
Are you telling us that you can't figure out any extra services to perform for Linux users? Have you considered an email newsletter or a custom distro that makes it easy for them to buy from you or from third parties that go through you or whatever?
Out of a customer base of 200+, three of them use Linux on the desktop and all three of them are businesses.
I have one main purpose in life and that is to insure that my wife and children have the best life I can provide them.
First off, I spent two years trying to tell my home user customers about Linux. I demonstrated, explained and demonstrated again, but ultimately they chose to stay in their problematic Windows environment. If they are happy to pay me my fee for fixing variations of the same problem every six months, I am more than happy to take their money.
I use nothing but Linux and I use it exclusively. It doesn't matter how pretty we make it. It doesn't matter how easy we make it. The majority of mom and dad home users are used to Windows and whether they are just too lazy or they are simply unintelligent, it doesn't matter to me. I present them a solution, they refuse it for whatever reason, I then do what I do.
The last time I took my car into the shop, I did not get phone calls from my mechanic reminding me to check my oil or transmission fluid between services. Maintenance on my car is my responsibility. Maintenance on a person's computer is their responsibility. The fact that they did not perform that maintenance is not my fault. I only fix it after they screwed up.
It's the same with my customers. If they cannot research the answers to their problems on their computers, then that's on them. I share Mike's feelings on many of my repeat customers. Most of them just abuse their machines with suspect software until it stops working and I mentally categorize them as idiots and take their money.
My kids (12 and 17) are a perfect example. They garble up their computer regularly and no matter what antivirus or spyware stuff I put on it, they manage to circumvent it and screw things up.
I told them, "use Linux or your machine stays messed up."
After a week of an unusable computer, I installed SuperOS on their machine and showed them the basics. I have not had a complaint in weeks.
The fact that people are too stupid or lazy to embrace a solution until they are forced to is sad.
First impressions are formed in the first 20'' after meeting someone and they rarely change. 20'' is not nearly enaugh to tell something about a persons ideeas or personality. It's all about charisma. I live in Romania. Two presidens had 3 mandates after comunism. They had the charisma in their advantage ...
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