One complaint that’s often made about free and Open Source software is that its usability is lacking. This article by Celeste Lyn Paul (who works with a number of Open Source projects) takes a look at usability in Open Source software.

She notes:

Being a designer in an open source project is not easy. For many years, usability specialists were disregarded, under appreciated, and ignored. This attitude probably sounds familiar to many of you because it was not too long ago that professional usability specialists encountered the same resistance.

That observation also applies to the development of a lot of commercial and in-house software, too. And it’s not just the designers and usability architects who face the obstacles. Technical communicators who act as user advocates (and shouldn’t we all?) often face an uphill battle against developers in this situation, too.

Related posts:

1. Usability guidelines for enterprise software
2. Tech writing and the Free Software Open Source Symposium
3. Favourite posts from 2009: Open Source