Re: [Usability] user levels, etc.

[Luis Villa <louie ximian com>]

On Mon, 2001-11-12 at 20:09, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Luis Villa">
> 
> > It has a selection bias towards the uneducated and inexperienced (the
> > educated and experienced have better things to do than sit and play with
> > boxes while being watched.)
> 
> They are usually paid. ;) GNOME may have some issues with this, however, so
> tie your family and friends to the computer chair and make some happy home
> videos.

Participants in psychological testing are also paid. And there is still
heavy, heavy concern with selection bias. It's not about money, it's
about time and opportunity. There is an extremely extensive literature
on this that the UI people I've known (not really having a psych
background) ignore.

> > User testing also prioritizes short term UI issues over long term UI
> > issues. Not to harp on this example, but... everyone I know who has tried
> > using ~/ as their desktop has found it vastly superior (from a utility
> > perspective) and stuck with it. User testing won't reflect that.  It'll
> > reflect that when given 30 seconds to find something in the configuration
> > screen, the additional option of using ~/ instead of ~/Desktop clutters
> > things up.
> 
> Did we actually get any really good usability testing done on this? Did
> Eazel? I really do agree that ~ as the desktop is better. *Hackers* may have
> a lot of files in their ~, but everyone else? :)

As an aside (because I don't think this has much to do with the main
discussion) the hackers I know who have tried this actually love it
because it forces them to clean up ~, which makes them more productive
in the long term.

> > Because user testing is biased towards these things, it is not and cannot
> > be the end all and be all of UI design. A strong notion of common sense
> > has to be injected, and many of the things we're talking about here don't
> > pass that second test.
> 
> I don't really agree with your points though; I think user testing
> can/should be targeted specifically to round these problems out. Whenever I
> try something on people, I take those who care, those who don't, those who
> are familiar, and those who are not.
> 
> You inject the common sense into your analysis, based on the findings of
> your nicely rounded group of people.

But what I was saying earlier is that no matter how hard you try it's
hard to really have a nicely rounded group of people. 

> > More importantly, and this brings us back to where I started, I don't
> > think we have to make a choice about being people-friendly and being
> > hacker-friendly. It's a false dichotomy; it's the lazy way out. There
> > are very compelling reasons to work past that and allow both camps to
> > coexist, and so we should.
> 
> Yes, I agree with this. But I don't agree that it means throwing simplicity
> and minimalism out the window. ;)

Yes... but... simplicity and minimalism are not tied that tightly. I
agree 100% wholeheartedly with simplicity. And I agree that there are
cases where no matter how much work is done, one can't have the
seriously crack pipe options and simplicity. So minimalism shouldn't be
rejected out of hand. But it shouldn't be the final arbiter except when
there are no other options.

> > > [1] I can't wait for the "usability is communism" argument. It will be
> > > hilarious for the Australian/European participants anyway.
> > 
> > The topic in my home lug's channel at the moment (total coincidence, long
> > story) is 'marx, engels, lenin, luis'. So... it may come up but I won't be
> > the one starting it.
> 
> In a small channel on gimpnet:
> 
>   "USABILITY is COMMUNISM: Have you, or have you ever been interested in
>   GNOME usability?"

:) brand me a red, then.

BTW, just to make it clear- I'm in this conversation not to flame
people. I'm in it because I want both me and my mom and my little sis
(now 9) all to be able to use GNOME. It cannot be one-size-fits all for
all three of us. But I'm also aware the current format isn't workable
for my mom. So... we'll keep working at it :)

Luis