RE: Arlo, a little QA comment regarding your interview with linux.com

["Tom Musgrove" <TomM pentstar com>]

Hi Kevin,

a while back I posted to a list (not sure which, can't find the email), a
suggestion for having some software to track feature usage in the assorted
gnome programs to find out which are the most used, as well as tracking what
features are used with each other for grouping purposes.  It could be built
into the standard distribution, and be an opt in thing (Would you be willing
to have your feature usage tracked, for the purpose of improving the Gnome
GUI?).  Although some would opt out for privacy purposes, I'm sure that many
would be willing to participate.  We could easily end up with a much larger
user base than most GUI research gets.  If we accompanied this with an
interview about the type of work they do, we could find out what features
are most relevant to what professions.

Also, if we have a general interviewing tool about what software they are
familiar with, they could have the option of using familiar key bindings and
layouts if they so desire, also it would provide a method for explaining the
relevant differences in the software and thus reducing training times.

Tom M.
TomM pentstar com

-----Original Message-----
From: gnome-gui-list-admin gnome org
[mailto:gnome-gui-list-admin gnome org]On Behalf Of Kevin Cullis
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 3:20 AM
To: GNOME GUI
Subject: Arlo, a little QA comment regarding your interview with
linux.com


Arlo,

I read your interview with linux.com and I have a few comments.  You and
John made the comments:

John Sullivan: An interesting (and well-known) UI lesson this emphasizes
is:
John Sullivan: Preferences are fine, but the default setting is
incredibly important
John Sullivan: Many, many people never change the preferences
Arlo Rose: Yup, and this is what the first study was all about...
"Default Settings"
John Sullivan: So if you don't have the defaults right, you're really
ruining peoples' experiences
John Sullivan: The Linux community is very enamored of preferences
Arlo Rose: I can think of a few apps I use where they really need to get
their default settings correct. :-)
John Sullivan: Many Linux apps have a zillion preferences.

The issue is the "Default Settings," although that's a good term, but I
would think be more accurate saying it's more of frequency of actions:
i.e. the 80/20 rule.  In QA circles the question is always begged: 80%
of the people use 20% of the features, what are the 100% of the features
and what are the 20% features?  That question is answered by noticing
the frequency of use of that feature.

The second question is: of the 80/20 rule, what are the frequencies of
the remaining features?  When that is determined, then it becoms a
matter of placing the rest of the 80% of the features, based on freqency
of use, in places which respond to that frequency?  I.e. the next 20%
belong closer to the user than the last 20%, which should be placed the
farthest (in a Preferences File rather than a menu selection?) away from
the user.

Customization is necessary, but of the rest of the 80% of the features,
how will it be customized?  Find out from the experts how and what they
use their preferred uses are, then figure their requests into the 100%
equation.  Is there an overlap of frequency of features between expert
users and novice? or would they belong in the next 20% batch?

Just some thoughts and I look forward to your document about GUI design.

Kevin

P.S. I'm a former Mac fan since 1984 and the 512ke. ;-)