Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Usability report on Rhythmbox

[Peter <rhythmbox-devel maubp freeserve co uk>]

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Charline
<charline poirier canonical com> wrote:
>
>
>> Hi Charline,
>>
>> As an RB user this was interesting to read.
>>
>> Was everything done in English? I assume so but worth stating. I was
>> having trouble with understanding some of the report...
>>
>
> Yes, it was conducted in English.  I fully agree with you that the report
> needs serious editing.  I thought I would send it along early so you can be
> aware of the content and I could have a chance to integrate your feedback to
> the final version.

I see.

>>
>> Could you clarify task 1, "Download music in the library"?
>>
>>
>> I guessed you might mean "Download music *into* the library" To me
>> that might mean download some music file from the internet onto the
>> local computer hard drive. However, as written it seems to be the
>> other way round - "Download music which is already in the library",
>> which doesn't make sense to me.
>>
>
> The task was to get music from various devices (MP3 player, CD and USB key)
> *into*  RB. At the time of the test, there was no music in Rhythmbox.
>

I think the report should be rephrased to make this clearer. Misusing a
technical word like "download" is going to be confusing to any software
developers.

>>
>> However, from the text is sounds
>>
>
> Did you mean *it* sounds?  :-)

Yes :)

>> like you mean several things
>> including "Copy music from a USB stick onto the local computer hard
>> drive", and "Copy music from an audio CD onto the local computer hard
>> drive". My impression is that in the report the words "download" and
>> "downloaded" are not being used in the sense of copy from remote
>> computer/server to your local computer.
>>
>
> From their perspective, users are dealing with RB and with music and not
> with technology.  Thanks for pointing this, I will make it clearer in the
> final version.
>
>>
>> A more important question is what did you actually tell the users to
>> do? Are the scripts for what the participants were told in the report?
>>
>
> I have not included the test protocol in the report.  Maybe I should.  What
> I did for the test is described to participants a hypothetical situation:
> You just discovered RB and you want to set it up.  You have music on these
> devices.  Show me what you would do.

I am not familiar with how this sort of usability testing is done, but to me it
is like a scientific experiment so you should describe what you did - even
just as an appendix. This is important so that people can read the report
(and ideally the actual data collected) and decide if your conclusions are
reasonable or not.

Also Eli raised a very good point:  "Which music software would you
consider yourself most familiar with?", to which I would add "Which
computer operating system would you consider yourself most familiar
with?". Things like the cut+paste versus dragging will be highly biased
by this.

Peter