Hi, GNOME Shell could benefit from having a better understanding of how people are actually using it. The truth is, we don't really have much hard data about this. It could be that people are running into unforeseen troubles or that some use cases are not being properly fulfilled. Moreover, it would be good to have real-world data with which to validate/challenge our assumptions and design decisions. Lab user testing, while very useful, does not give us the big picture of what is like to use a tool for an extended period of time. The solution that I am proposing is to create an extension to gnome-shell that logs as much user interaction as possible for a given period of time (e.g. 2 weeks). Besides logging interaction, we might want to add an easy way for the user to add comments in case a problem appears. A couple of advantages for this approach are that it could be carried out remotely and that many participants could take part on it. We would gather the resulting data and analyse it statistically, being able to answer questions such as: - how many windows are open at a given time? - how are they distributed among workspaces? - how often is the Overview accessed? - how is Search used? - are notifications being missed? - are there problems that can be inferred from the logs? - etc... (of course, these are just examples) The goal would be to eventually have a procedure that, while not as detailed as other evaluation methods, would fit the characteristics of our design&development process and provide us with valuable information. We could even run it periodically. The Firefox team regularly performs this kind of evaluation. For instance, they analysed the usage of menu items [1,2] and then used this knowledge to guide the design of the new unified menu [3]. This idea is still far from mature and it would be great to have some feedback on it. I think that it could really improve our understanding of how GNOME is used and help us make it better. Felipe [1] : https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2010/02/menu-item-study/ [2] : https://mozillalabs.com/testpilot/2010/03/17/popular-menu-buttons/ [3] : https://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2010/07/18/details-about-the-firefox-button/
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