System Administrators Prefer Command Line Interfaces, Don't They? An Exploratory Study
summary
An online survey of 306 respondents who work with firewalls finds that 70% primarily use GUIs and 60% prefer GUIs while only about 32% prefer CLIs; recruitment relied heavily on a specialized subreddit that supplied over 80% of participants, median completion time is ~2.5 minutes and the completion rate is ~59%. Respondents value CLI flexibility and completeness but cite steep learning curve and poor visualization; they praise GUI usability and memory aid but complain about missing advanced features. Recommendations: lightweight GUIs, integrated scripting, easy GUI↔CLI transitions, command verification and examples.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:08Graphical User Interface
- 2:43Research Question
- 3:11Outline
- 3:48Online Survey
- 5:46Recruitment
- 7:41Demographics
- 8:19Time Spent
- 9:02How Good Are They
- 9:33What They Prefer
- 9:46What They Use
- 10:48What They Think
- 12:05Bad things about CLI
- 13:00Good things about CLI
- 15:17Shifts in graphical user interface
- 17:41Design recommendations
- 20:41Results
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