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

["Galton, Simon" <galtons aecl ca>]

Yes, the older release that ran on my machine didn't seem to have this, but
I just got an hourly build working on one of my systems and it looks good.
This menu works well.

All my other systems give me GConf errors:

** WARNING **: GConf error:
  Configuration server couldn't be contacted:
 Adding client to server's list failed, CORBA error:
IDL:CORBA/BAD_OPERATION:1.0

And then they die... :)

Simon
-----Original Message-----
From: John Sullivan [mailto:sullivan eazel com]
Sent: Sunday March 11, 2001 12:44 PM
To: Galton, Simon; nautilus-list eazel com
Cc: Arlo Rose; Andy Hertzfeld
Subject: Re: [Nautilus-list] Results of MIT usability testing


Umm... Nautilus already has this feature, pretty much exactly as you
describe it. Have you tried? If you right click on an icon, you get a menu
that includes

    Open with > gedit
                gnotepad
                <others>
                --------
                Other Application...


I've heard several people say that users expect to have editing applications
open when they double-click. I think this statement is almost useless in
determining what Nautilus *should* do. All Windows and Macintosh users are
used to editing applications opening when they double-click, and the user
tests ask people to edit a text file. It would amaze me beyond belief if in
such a user test the subject didn't double-click a text file expecting an
editing application to open. However, concluding from this expectation that
the only good design is one in which the editing application opens on a
double-click is saying that the only good design is the one that the user is
used to. In other words, never change anything because people will be
surprised. This design principle prevents innovation. If this were the
design principle used by Apple in the early 80's, we'd all still be running
DOS and DOS clones now.

Note that I am *not* saying that Nautilus's behavior of opening a viewer by
default when the user double-clicks a text file is necessarily better than
opening an editing application. All I am saying is that we can't rule it out
as a possibility just because users are currently accustomed to something
else.

Nautilus's display-a-text-viewer-by-default design is something of an
experiment, and certainly an unfinished one. It's clear to me that the path
to editing a text document isn't as clear as it should be to many users. But
it's not clear to me that we have to toss out the viewer approach as the
first step to improving it. Suggestions I've heard for improving it so far
include: adding text to the sidebar explaining that this is read-only;
otherwise re-wording or re-laying out the sidebar to make the editing
choices more obvious; putting up a dialog explaining how to edit the file if
the user takes some action that seems like an attempted edit (e.g., typing
into the text view); changing the appearance of the text view to make it
look less editable (e.g. changing the background color). We should
definitely try to incorporate some of these ideas into Nautilus to see how
well it improves users' experiences.

Another argument I've heard is that the "Open With" buttons in the sidebar
essentially are invisible because users have the Tree view up all the time.
This is definitely a serious problem if true, since it also makes all the
rest of the sidebar useless (Help, Notes, etc.). I'm curious why people
leave the Tree up all the time -- maybe there are ways to make that not
necessary. I personally use the Tree extremely rarely, and I know I'm not
the only one, but I can certainly imagine that some people use it all the
time. We hope to turn the list view into a hierarchical one a la the
Macintosh someday, which would greatly reduce and for some users eliminate
the need to ever use the Tree view again.

To me, probably the best thing about the Viewer approach is that it lets the
user choose a text-editing application from the set of available ones.
Different users have very different preferences in text-editing
applications. If the default were to open xemacs, emacs-haters would hate
it. If the default were to open gedit, emacs-lovers would hate it. Most
non-experienced users would go on to use the default specified text
application for a long long time (since most non-experienced users don't
futz around with settings much), whether or not it was really the
appropriate application for them. Unlike Macintosh (and to a lesser extent
Windows), there is no "natural" choice of editors for a given file. The
Viewer approach lets the user make the choice, which is one of its good
points.

Clearly performance is a problem. If it's faster to view a text file by
launching an external application than to view it in Nautilus, that's a big
strike against using the viewer. We obviously need to work on this.

This discussion (and especially the evidence from user testing, biased
though it necessarily must be) is extremely useful I think. Don't let my
counterarguments make you think that I believe Nautilus's behavior is
currently optimal. I don't speak for Eazel as a whole, but I'm sure it's not
optimal, and I'm sure that others realize that too. However, I do want to
make sure we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater and decide that the
only possible approach is the Macintosh/Windows design. Unix is different
from Macintosh/Windows, and sometimes those differences will take the design
in different directions.

John

on 3/10/01 2:56 PM, Galton, Simon at galtons aecl ca wrote:

> I've been reading this thread with interest, and I have a quick
suggestion.
> 
> If a user double-clicks on a document or editable item, they expect an
> application
> to appear and for the document to be loaded.  They are not expecting a
menu,
> or anything
> else for that matter.
> 
> Might I suggest that an enhancement be made to the menu which appears with
a
> right-
> mouse-click on the item, which Windows folks sometimes call the "context
> menu".  I'd 
> like to see a list of open with... options:
> ____________
> |other       |
> |menu        |
> |choices     |
> ==============
> |Open with...|
> |  gedit     |
> |  gnotepad  |
> |  otheredit |
> |____________|
> 
> This cuts down on complex clicking and poking.  As I'm sure you all know,
> under 
> Windows Explorer you can hold down shift and right-mouse-click an icon and
> get an 
> Open With item in the menu.  Choosing Open With brings up a dialog box
which
> slowly 
> populates with all registered executables.  Most of these can't even
> intelligently 
> deal with the item you're trying to open - ie: you're opening an .mp3 and
> one of
> the options is Notepad.  You have to scroll up and down the list, find the
> item,
> select it then hit Okay.  That's one keypress and two clicks and a big
> scrollbar
> drag.  The Open with... menu options get the job done in one or two
clicks.
> 
> Just my 2 cents.
> 
> Simon