Re: [Evolution-hackers] PIM application suite

["David A. Desrosiers" <hacker gnu-designs com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


> I have taken courses in usability.  I haven't done usability tests on
> evolution, but I have no need to because my basis for comparison has done
> far more usability testing than you: Apple and Microsoft.

	<snip>

> 2) Previous usability testing done by large corporations (Apple and
>    Microsoft)

	I've been quiet, lurking, but I must take a small issue with this.
Microsoft, though they happen to be the market dominator right now, is not
in that position due to their "superiority" in the usabliity space. People
received Windows for free on their store-bought pee-cees for the most-part
(at least until the last couple of years), and the exposure and usability
was gleaned from that, not through the "evolution" (sorry, bad term here) of
multiple previous iterations of their interfaces.

	Microsoft is pretty-well-known, industry-wide, to have the least
intuitive interfaces of all of the companies out there selling graphical or
GUI applications. As Jeff pointed out, just because they have the top number
of installed units, does not mean that they are "right".

	There is a good site out there (and the url and some quick
google'ing didn't bring it up) that basically contrasts how Microsoft and
Apple disregard the HIG and other "standard" guidelines, in order to make
their application "look better". Nested rows of buttons, boolean options
that don't make sense, inconsistant ordering of button options, haphazard
menu option placement, etc.

	How many times in a Microsoft application have you found yourself
fishing through menu after menu, looking for some option that should have
been intuitively obvious to find?

	We (the Linux/OSS/Free Software community) should strive to appeal
to those users, by making something that is intuitive, but not necessarily
something that provides a "clone" of what they're used to. What they're
probably used to, isn't always going to be the best way to present the
interface to them.

	Just my 0.02 euros on the matter... back to lurk mode.

d.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD4DBQFAhsy9kRQERnB1rkoRAh3SAJi+xyXZ3Vzv0keRBb8n3Cv03sG8AJ4+UfgI
gm1gcTfjWw0KDDqrTmwnGQ==
=+0VS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----