Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Usability report on Rhythmbox

[Mister Ribble <ender27182818 gmail com>]

The huge question that should have been asked of users for this report
is:
 "Which music software would you consider yourself most familiar with?"

We know that the users are 'heavy music consumers', but most users
opinions of how things *should* work will be heavily biased towards
whatever software they feel most expert in. Based on some of the users
comments, it sounded to me like most of these users weren't used to
Ubuntu and its paradigms. Those of us who are find Rhythmbox
significantly easier to use. Things like "Participants are used to a
rating column in their library" tell me that primarily this report is
designed not to make Rhythmbox more usable, per se, but to make it
better fit users expectations based on previous experience with other
software.

Furthermore, I hope that Rhythmbox developers don't take comments like
"Users need prompts and feedback to successfully download their music
from a USB key. " as gospel. I would hate to have Rhythmbox intrusively
trying to tell me how to do things all the time. I like the specificity
of Rhythmbox's language. Statements like 

"...a new window gave a choice between importing file or folder. This
dialogue box confused participants since, in their minds they were not
dealing with files or folder but with songs. "

are disingenuous - I would argue that if a computer user doesn't realize
the difference between a file and folder, they need some basic education
before they should be doing anything with a computer. I realize that Mac
people like imagining that they can get away from the concept of a file,
and knowing where it is and what to do with it, but such a view
oversimplifies. If a user works with nothing but 'songs', do we expect
them to keep all of their music in a single directory? If so, how do we
conceptualize them importing a large, coherent group of songs? If not,
wouldn't it seem intuitive to them to import an entire directory from
their collection?

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm just one user of Rhythmbox, and
I would hope that no one would take all of these recommendations as
authoritative. I prefer Rhythmbox to the myriad other music software
packages because of what it is - if you make it more like others, I
would like it less. This doesn't mean it can't stand improvement, nor
does it mean that some of the recommendations aren't excellent. I just
find this report rather damning of Rhythmbox, which is not
representative of how I see it.

-Eli Ribble


On Thu, 2010-07-22 at 16:38 +0200, Charline wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have just completed usability testing of Rhythmbox.  I am planning
> to publish the results on CanonicalDesign.com on Tuesday.  I would
> like you to read the report, if you have time, and send  me feedback
> or any questions you might have.
> 
> I hope the report will be helpful.  
> 
> C.
> -- 
> CHARLINE POIRIER
> User Research Programme Lead
> Canonical
> 27th floor, 21-24 Millbank Tower
> London SW1P 4QP UK 
> 
> Tel: +44 (0) 20 7630 2491
> Mob: +44 (0) 78 8695 4514
> www.Ubuntu.com <http://www.Ubuntu.com/>
> www.Canonical.com <http://www.Canonical.com/>
> 
> 
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