hello all-
having taken more than my share of classes on human computer interaction at university, i agree with thomas grill that usability issues are the biggest flaws with PD.
keep in mind it is very easy to fall into a symptom known as "folk usability." meaning "i can use it, so it must not be that difficult for other users." many new users are intimidated by the PD install and without better documentation, they don't know why they should go through the trouble. the advantages are not immediately clear to them.
personally i don't think max is an example of prime usability either. while it may make a good model for PD initially, i think PD could do far better.
alex cook ms in information, design, technology georgia tech
I've complained a few times that PD suffers (to my mind) from the following problems:
- source code documentation is hardly existent, hence
it cost me a lot of to understand what it's going on in there.
- there is a nasty entanglement of the messaging/dsp
core with the GUI subsystem
- the current TCL/TK GUI hinders all kind of
interesting GUI stuff
- the audio-IO is not changeable at run-time (... i
heard this will change in 0.37)
- installation and configuration is still notoriously
complicated for people that are not that familiar with system issues
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