[Anjuta-list] Usability [Was: question]

[Biswapesh Chattopadhyay <biswapesh_chatterjee tcscal co in>]

<snip>

> I think we need to do some sort of USABILITY testing/survey.

Exactly - as I said a week or two back, I did some informal usability
testing on some VB users at my office and the results were *most*
disappointing :-( It seems that some of our best features are hidden
away behind obscure menu items, context menus and badly worded text :-(
I've some urgent work that I need to finish today but I'm hoping to do
something about it in the coming weeks. Hopefully some of the
improvements can go in before 0.1.10.

Take this Dock/Undock for example. I encountered the following with it:

1) People get confused when the windows are undocked by default. A
simple solution would be to make docked windows the default.
2) The text 'Dock/Undock' makes little sense to most people. Solution:
Make it 'Dock Window' when the window is undocked and 'Undock Window'
when the window is docked. We might also think about calling it 'Attach'
and 'Detach' instead. Another option is to have seperate menu items for
Dock and Undock and disable the one not applicable.
3) The 'Dock/Undock menu item should be accessible easily from the
context menu as well as the main menu (this is fixed now).

A couple of (random) things I noticed:

1) The 'Detach Current Document' is difficult to find since it makes no
sense under the Format menu (in fact, the whole 'Format'menu makes
little sense to me but that's a different issue). It should be in the
'View' menu and/or have a context menu option for the document between
'Find Usage' and 'Close'.
2) The CVS menu has no context in the File Manager window. The first
seven options in the CVS menu should be available (and
activated/deactivated accordingly) in the file browser, i.e, 'Update',
'Commit', 'Status', etc. Also, people expect the version number to be
shown after the file name in the file browser if CVS is activated.
3) People get confused between the 'Edit' and 'View' options in the
project and file browsers. They should be made more explicit, like 'View
in Gedit..'. This would mean creating the context menus dynamically, but
we can live with that I think.
4) When the user selects something, right clicks and selects 'Find
Usage', he/she expects the selected string to be searched, not just the
word under the cursor. If nothing is selected, then getting the current
word is fine though.
5) Virtually nobody knows how easy it is to change the accelerator key
for a menu item (by focussing on the menu item and pressing the key
combination you want). This information should be easily accessible.
Maybe, we can have a menu option 'Customize key bindings', which will
simply popup a dialog and tell the user to do this ? This can go under
'Settings' IMO.
6) Anyone using the bookmark menu ? People are thoroughly confused about
it (including me). What is it supposed to do ? In the current build,
when I do 'Toggle Bookmark', a marker is placed. But when I say 'First
Bookmark' or 'Next', etc, nothing happens ! Isn't it supposed to work
exactly like a browser's bookmark stuff ? Navigating messages using the
toolbar also does not work as expected - try it out to see what I mean.
PLus do we really need menu items for things which are much more
intuitively achieved by focussing on the messages window and pressing
the Up and Down keys ?

I'll be working on these (and hopefully some more) usability fixes to
make accessing functionality easier. Please update this list with the
issues you find, or add your own comments to mine. Let's improve the
usability a bit before 0.1.10. These little bits go a long way as I
found out here.

Another option is to open a meta bug in SF 'Anjuta Usability' which can
double as a discussion forum as well ? It will also make discussions
easier to track than the ML. What do people say ? Should I open such a
bug ?

Also, is there any opposition to a 'Tip for the day' feature. It's MSism
for sure, an I personally always disable it, but it definitely serves a
useful purpose for more complex applications. Feel free to open a RFE on
SF if anyone thinks this is a good idea.

Rgds,
Biswa.

> 
> --
> Regards,
> -naba
> 
> "The Avis WIZARD decides if you get to drive a car. Your head won't
> touch the
> pillow of a Sheraton unless their computer says it's okay."
> -- Arthur Miller
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> Don't miss the 2002 Sprint PCS Application Developer's Conference
> August 25-28 in Las Vegas -- http://devcon.sprintpcs.com/adp/index.cfm
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Anjuta-list mailing list
> Anjuta-list lists sourceforge net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/anjuta-list
>