Re: Where is the data?

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

More selective answers... :)

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Giovanni Campagna
<scampa giovanni gmail com> wrote:
> Il giorno sab, 20/08/2011 alle 12.04 +0100, Allan Day ha scritto:
> This is the first time I see the amount of users tested, and the exact
> tasks involved. I think it should go somewhere in the wiki, especially
> alongside the exact results (what was trickier? why?)
> Thanks anyway!

I really did want to write a proper report but I never found the time.
Jon, Jimmac and Owen got a quick run down on the results and there's a
bunch of bugs that I filed as a result of the testing.

>> > Where we developers can find hard facts proving the NOTABUG and the
>> > WONTFIX we mark in the most questioned and hot issues?
>>
>> You can always mark a bug with the ui-review keyword if you want a
>> second opinion.
>
> You misunderstood me. I didn't say that I don't know when to close, I
> said I don't know how to explain to the users why I'm closing. You need
> facts to prove your points, or people won't understand and refuse to
> agree.

Oh right, sorry.

There is evidence available to back up the current design but it's not
all super hard and scientific. If you want a better justification for
certain decisions, just ask the designers to add to the documentation
on the wiki. Maybe we'll be able to do more user testing one day too.

>> > I'm not a designer, so I may not understand all the papers you provide
>> > in your support, and I may not understand what are the rules and laws of
>> > Human Computer Interaction, as you call it. But I understand numbers,
>> > and would be convinced by seeing that 66% percent of people find this
>> > method of working more productive, or 3 out 5 tested users where able to
>> > discover the functionality without guidance, or all 8 people interviewed
>> > did not use the feature just removed.
>> ...
>>
>> More user testing would be a good thing, and that might provide some
>> of the numbers that you crave. In the mean time, we're not operating
>> in the dark however: we can tell a lot from a combination of the UX
>> literature, dog fooding, feed back from users and comparison with what
>> other OSs/DEs/whatever are doing. It's not numerical data but it is
>> data all the same.
>
> Usual example: the shutdown button. There is no UX literature proving
> that "suspend is the right way to shutdown a system". Other systems
> (Windows, Mac OS, KDE) are keeping power off as the primary method. Feed
> back from users is far from enthusiastic. So... is there anything that
> proves your points?

The best examples of this kind of behaviour are mobile phones and tablets, imo.

> As an example, it is said that the user wants to focus one specific task
> at time, and thus the taskbar was removed and all task switching moved
> to the overview. I can concede that the premise is correct, but it is
> hardly self evident that the overview helps with this, given that a task
> often involves more than one window and more than one workspace (which
> forces the user to alt-tab to avoid the "overview distraction").

I *really* don't have the time to properly discuss these issues with
you right now, I'm afraid... :) I think the main thing is that
launching isn't always visible, and that that changes the experience
for the better. (Yay for more baseless assertion! ;) )

>> I thought that the responses to the top ideas
>> on Ubuntu brainstorm were a good example of how this can be done,
>> actually [5]. Doing that kind of thing requires time and effort, of
>> course...
>
> I see. Well, we could ask the feedback reporters to do the work. After
> all, it is in their interest to have the developers focused on the
> problems.
> Or we could have voting in bugzilla. I know many people are against to
> this, but it would immediately show the hottest issue, that surely
> require reconsideration by the design team. Plus it would avoid +1
> comments that spam our mailboxes.

The main thing would be to visibly demonstrate serious consideration
of the most popular suggestions. There are a few different ways that
those suggestions could be made; it'd be interesting to evaluate the
different possible approaches.

Hope that helps; sorry if it doesn't.

Allan
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