Re: [Nautilus-list] Results of MIT usability testing

[John Sullivan <sullivan eazel com>]

It's always great to read through usability test results.

I found the notes on this page particularly interesting, and highly
recommend that all Nautilus developers read them carefully:

http://web.mit.edu/aui/notebook/beland-usability-notes.txt


A couple things about this one confused me though. Maybe somebody can
explain these?

In the summary it says

    Avoid backward metaphors such as popup menus as
    opposed to dropdown menus

I see no other reference to this in the test results. Is this a complaint
about terminology (if so, where does this terminology appear?), or is
something working in an unexpected way? (Note that the next sentence of the
summary says "Don't allow important information to be covered by popup
windows/menus/...", which seems to imply that "popup" is the standard
terminology.)

In the "Using the file manager" section is says

    Testers tried to drag file to the desktop. When that
    didn't work they began to look for a copy command.

Dragging any file to the desktop should work in Nautilus. Do we know why it
didn't work for the user test subjects?

Later in that section it says

    Testers had trouble with the instruction to Copy.
    Several looked for a Copy command under the Edit
    menu in the File Manager.

    Suggestion: Provide a Copy and Paste commands under
    Edit that would copy and paste files or at least a
    Duplicate command. If I duplicate command were provided
    then testers could duplicate file and drag that to new destination.

Nautilus does have a Duplicate menu item in the File menu. I guess no users
looked there? It seems likely that the users looking for Copy under the Edit
menu are familiar with Windows. Is there any evidence to suggest that users
not familiar with Windows would expect a Copy command in the Edit menu, but
not expect a Duplicate command in the File menu?

Thanks,

John


on 2/26/01 9:46 AM, Christopher D. Beland at beland MIT EDU wrote:

> 
> 
> MIT Information Systems has finished documenting its formal usability
> testing on a graphical user interface based on Gnome 1.2, Nautilus
> PR2, and Linux-Athena 8.4 (http://web.mit.edu/is/athena/).  The
> results are available for public perusal; see the below URLs to find
> the information you're most interested in.
> 
> Developers and designers alike will probably be interested in our
> findings.  Though all seven users preferred Gnome to the older
> Unix-based interface, some did experience problems completing certain
> common tasks.  We've offered concrete suggestions on how the new user
> experience might be improved.  The AUI project has since moved into
> delivery phase, and we are in the process of integrating Gnome with
> the Athena environment for our major summer 2001 release.
> 
> 
> Test results summary:
> http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/results/results1.html
> 
> User-by-user issue tabulation:
> http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/results/analysis1.html
> 
> Personal notes from one observer:
> http://web.mit.edu/aui/notebook/beland-usability-notes.txt
> 
> The test questions as the users saw them:
> http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/test1.html
> 
> Results of our menu item card-sorting exercise:
> http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/results/menus.html
> 
> and for more general information:
> 
> Athena User Interface Usability Testing homepage:
> http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/
> 
> Athena User Interface Project home page:
> http://web.mit.edu/aui/notebook/
> 
> 
> Thanks, and we look forward to continued fruitful collaboration.
> 
> 
> Chris Beland
> on behalf of the AUI and Usability Teams
> 
> 
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