Nerve-wracking, inflexible, and unintuitive.

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Nerve-wracking, inflexible, and unintuitive.

via Scott Rosenberg: David Pollard did an interesting <a href= "http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/04/11.html#a168">survey on Radio UserLand usage among the bloggers at Salon.com. Reading the responses for the question "what do you like/dislike about the existing Salon/Radio features?", one gets the impression that using Radio is not a very pleasant experience. The words cumbersome, nerve-wracking, inflexible, and unintuitive are used to describe the software and the words pathetic, sporatic, and impersonal are used to describe the support. One respondent: "ask other bloggers, not Userland, when you need technical help." Hmmm... didn't Dave Winer say open source software makers were the ones who did not care about users? Sounds like us open source guys are not alone ;-)

But seriously folks, I bet that many of those complaints also apply to Blogger, Movable Type, and, of course, Roller (OK, I have no idea about Movable Type). Blogging software makes web publishing a lot easier for non-geeks than it was with tools like FrontPage, but we've still got a ways to go.

The responses for "what additional functionality is needed in Salon/Radio?" are interesting as well. Better get on it UserLand, Dave Pollard just did your market research for you. Good ideas for Roller too.

Dave Johnson in Blogging 07:14PM Apr 22, 2003 Comments [3]
Tags: Blogging

Comments:

Thanks for the mention. To be fair to Radio, I should note that Salon bloggers are a somewhat unusual community. Definitely not techies, more focused on content than style. A lot of us are in journalism, education, and professional services, working way too hard, with neither the time nor the inclination to tinker much with HTML. So we're a tough crowd. You may be overwhelmed by what we have to say on our blogs, and at the same time underwhelmed at the boring, vanilla appearance of our blogs. And our technical faux pas are downright embarrassing. -/- Dave

Posted by Dave Pollard on April 23, 2003 at 03:12 PM EDT #

I was so fascinated with the survey that I did not look to see who did the survey. I have updated my post to give you proper credit. Thanks!

Posted by Dave Johnson on April 23, 2003 at 06:08 PM EDT #

MoveableType is a cult. Most of the bloggers in KC use it and just sing it's praises.

Posted by Keith Sader on April 23, 2003 at 07:42 PM EDT #

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