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Comment by rplnt | Hacker News Reader

I used to use GIMP as an example of OSS desktop applications having bad UX, I mean back around 2010 maybe. The UX felt plain horrible. Anything I every tried there was pain to achieve. And there was plethora of desktop applications having the same issue back then. "Geeks can't do UI".

I feel like that has changed? Even Blender felt good the last time I used it, Firefox became kinda fine, though these are probably bad examples as they are both mainstream software. But what about OSS that is used primarily by OSS enthusiasts? What about GIMP now?

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This is just my personal experience, but even with the current UI, there can tend to be a learning curve with GIMP. Alot of it probably comes from figuring out where tools and functionality that are readily available upfront in other paint programs are hidden 2-3 menus deep in GIMP

GIMP in my opinion has a very good UI when you're looking at graphics as a programmer: threshold this, clamp that, apply a kernel ("custom filter")... Everything seems to click with a mental model of someone who does graphics programming.

Whereas Photoshop and other "mainstream" software use terms and procedures non-programmers are more likely to be familiar with: heal this area with a patch, clone something with a clone stamp, scissors/lasso to cut something out (not saying GIMP doesn't have those)...

A simple trick to make GIMP perfectly usable (exists since ages):

> To change GIMP to single-window mode (merging panels into one window), go to "Windows" in the top menu and select or check "Single-Window Mode"; this merges all elements like the Toolbox, Layers, and History into one unified view.

That’s what happens when you let people do other people's jobs. UI/UX design is a profession, and there is a reason for that.

Unfortunately, designers are rare among the FOSS community. You can't attract real casual or professional users if you don't recognize the value of professional UI/UX.

I've never understood the negative comments around UX for GIMP. It always feels just fine for me. Some stuff is in menus, but its a complex application with a lot of parts so I understand that

Blender feels like an outlier amongst open source software. Outside of programmers tools the great majority of open source feels mediocre. I wonder what the Blender people did differently.

unlike most FOSS, blender gets millions of dollars a year to support development

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