[Usability] Bad experiences migrating user from Gnome 1 to Gnome 2

["Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <gilbertd treblig org>]

Hi,
  I thought it was appropriate to relate my experiences migrating
my father from Gnome 1 to Gnome 2.

Some background
---------------
My father has been using Linux as his desktop for a
few years now; he knows very little about the installation
of Linux or how it works under the hood. He can wrangle DOS fairly
well and has been note to write a couple of dozen line BASIC program
on old micros to do the occasional bit of financial stuff, but
thats the limit of his programming.

His existing desktop is a Gnome 1 desktop using Sawfish based on
an oldish Mandrake install, his main applications are OpenOffice,
Netscape, Mozilla, gimp (with scanning), and a few amateur radio
apps (in particular gmfsk).

The hard drive his current install on is reaching the end of its life
and together with some other factors we bought a new machine and
I installed it.

The new setup
-------------
Debian/woody with the Gnome 2 packages (TToTD: Remember if
you are migrating to delete /tmp/orbit* on doing the upgrade
otherwise it hangs). One reason for choosing Gnome 2 is that the 
new and much improved version of gmfsk is built using Gnome2.

The problems
------------
This installation works fine - in a functionality sense
(barring some slight font problems on gnome-terminal with
the default font) - but my father did not like it.

Now admittedly - he does not like change.

He had carefully made notes on his old system just how he liked
it setup; what he had on the panel; just how the fonts were setup,
the icons he used for each application etc.

His complaints included:
  1) It just doesn't look as nice.
  2) He can't change the setup as easily (for example he had the
  panel set up with a texture with patterned backgrounds on each
  button - he couldn't find a way of doing the same things).
  It just isn't as flexible.
  3) Many of the icons had changed, and the old ones weren't
  included.
  4) The default 'simple' theme had very poor contrast on highlighted
  list items - we changed theme and this was better.
  5) On Nautilus the default seems to be have a menu for opening 
  CDROMs and floppy's and the like; he was used to icons on the desktop
  and it wasn't obvious how to get these on.
  

At this point he asked whether he could have Gnome 1 reinstalled from
his old machine.

In the end (sorry) I've given him KDE 3.1; I tried him out with it
and he immediatly found it much more to his liking; in particular
he found the control centre and panel setup much more flexible.
(Comments included 'Oh they've copied that from Gnome').
He'll still use a handful of Gnome apps I expect.

I think the consensus here is while the very plain, very simple
setup might be OK for first time computer users, it doesn't
give the flexibility a more experienced user might expect, neither
is it aesthetically pleasing to everyone.  Note we're not talking
about a young hacker who wants wizzy things to light up everywhere
and everything pretty wacky - just a normal user.

It would seem to be important to consider usability from the point
of view of users migrating from Gnome 1 or other systems as well
as the computer illiterate.

(Personally I find the loss of the 'apply' buttons irritating
when trying out changes - especially font and style, and also
find the recommendation against tabbed windows in the HIG very odd;
tabbed windows I find have improved the usability of Gnome greatly
and it will be a pity to loose them).

(For the record I've made the same switch; although I still use
Gnucash and Gnumeric - the desktop itself I've switched to KDE3).

Dave

 -----Open up your eyes, open up your mind, open up your code -------   
/ Dr. David Alan Gilbert    | Running GNU/Linux on Alpha,68K| Happy  \ 
\ gro.gilbert @ treblig.org | MIPS,x86,ARM,SPARC,PPC & HPPA | In Hex /
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