Re: Arlo, a little QA comment regarding your interview withlinux.com

[Kevin Cullis <kevincu orci com>]

John Sullivan wrote:
> 
> on 10/25/00 1:20 AM, Kevin Cullis at kevincu orci com wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> I understand your point, which is that some "preferences" are really just
> features that aren't used much, and are thus relegated away to a preferences
> dialog rather than being put into a more obvious place in the program.

As the "Default," the frequency of most users would be the default. 
However, if I was one of the 20% who use 80% of the features, then I
should be able to customize it based on my 80%, or at least getting to
most of what I want ;-)

> 
> However, many preferences are not of this nature. For instance, in Nautilus,
> whether single-click should select or activate is a choice that is "truly a
> preference". It is very unlikely that a single user would switch this back
> and forth from time to time (unless they were just experimenting). And it is
> a fundamental part of how the user interacts with Nautilus. So it doesn't
> seem to have anything to do with the 80/20 rule you mention.

Agreed, not everything belongs under the 80/20 rule, but looking at the
80/20 rule does help in identifying features which belong closer to the
user and those that do not.  

For example, in GNOME in the File Manager, in order to show the hidden
files I have to go to the settings menu and select preferences and then
select the hidden files option.  While I normally don't have the show
hidden files selected, from a user's perspective of time, it would be
nice to have this in the menu itself rather than bringing up a dialog
box.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks, John, for your comments.

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