Command-line interfaces remain mystifying to many people. Usability hobbyists seem as inclined to ask why the terminal exists<\/a>, as how to optimise it. I\u2019ve also had it suggested to me that the discipline of User Experience (UX) has little to offer the Command-Line Interface (CLI), because the habits of terminal users are too inherent or instinctive to be defined and optimised by usability experts.<\/p>\n As an experienced terminal user with a keen interest in usability, I disagree that usability has little to offer the CLI experience. I believe that the experience can be improved through the application of usability principles just as much as for more graphical domains.<\/p>\n To help demystify the command-line experience, I\u2019m going to lay out some of the patterns of thinking and behaviour that define my use of the\u00a0CLI.<\/p>\n New CLI tools I\u2019ve learned recently include snap<\/a>, kubectl<\/a> and nghttp2<\/a>, and I\u2019ve also dabbled<\/a> in writing command-line tools\u00a0myself.<\/p>\n Below I\u2019ll map out an example of the steps I might go through when discovering a new command-line tool, as a basis for exploring how these tools could be optimised for CLI\u00a0users.<\/p>\n Considering my own experience of CLI tools, I am reasonably confident the following recommendations make good general practice guidelines:<\/p>\n Some of these recommendations are easier to implement than others. Ideally every command should consider their subcommands and options carefully, and implement –help. But writing auto-complete scripts<\/a> is a significant undertaking.<\/p>\n Similarly, packaging your tool as a snap<\/a> is significantly easier than, for example, adding software to the official Ubuntu software\u00a0sources<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although I believe all of the above to be good general advice, I would very much welcome research to highlight the relative importance of addressing each\u00a0concern.<\/p>\n There are a number of further questions for which the answers don\u2019t seem obvious to me, but I\u2019d love to somehow find out the\u00a0answers:<\/p>\n If you know of either authoritative recommendations or existing research on these topics, please let me know in the comments\u00a0below.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll try to write a more in-depth follow-up to this post when I\u2019ve explored a bit further on some of these\u00a0topics.<\/p>\n Originally published at <\/em>design.canonical.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been thinking about the usability of command-line terminals a lot recently. (I originally posted this on our company\u00a0blog). Command-line interfaces remain mystifying to many people. Usability hobbyists seem as inclined to ask why the terminal exists, as how to optimise it. I\u2019ve also had it suggested to me that the discipline of User Experience… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-info"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tSteps to learn a new CLI\u00a0tool<\/h3>\n
\n
– First, I might try apt install {tool} (or brew install {tool} on a mac)
– If that fails, I\u2019ll probably search the internet for \u201cInstall {tool}\u201d and hope to find the official documentation<\/li>\n
– Type the first few characters of the command name (sna for snap) followed by
– Hit space, and then
– I\u2019m probably following some documentation at this point, which will be telling me the first command to run (e.g. snap install {something}), so I\u2019ll try that out and expect prompt succinct feedback to show me that it\u2019s working
– For basic tools, this may complete my initial interaction with the tool. For more complex tools like kubectl or git I may continue playing with\u00a0it<\/li>\n
– Now I\u2019m likely no longer following a tutorial, instead I\u2019m experimenting on my own, trying to discover more about the tool
– If what I want to do seems complex, I\u2019ll straight away search the internet for how to do it
– If it seems more simple, I\u2019ll start looking for a list of subcommands to achieve my goal
– I start with {tool}
– If that fails I\u2019ll try, in order, {tool}
– If none of those work then I\u2019ll try man {tool}, looking for a Unix manual entry
– If that fails then I\u2019ll fall back to searching the internet\u00a0again<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nUX recommendations<\/h3>\n
\n
Outstanding questions<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n