Re: [Usability] Linux Desktop Usability Report

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On 12 Aug 2003, Ramzi Ferchichi wrote:

> Date: 12 Aug 2003 20:35:23 +0200
> From: Ramzi Ferchichi <razheer bredband net>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Linux Desktop Usability Report
>
> The german company, relevantive, have published a report on linux
> desktop usability which may be of interest, although they tested KDE ;).
>
> http://www.relevantive.de/Linux_e.html

It was mentioned on slashdot although the English version was not
available at the time.

You would think a Usability group would have the sense to provide a HTML
version and not just a PDF.

> "To make a decision on migration to Linux as a desktop system, a
> usability evaluation is essential. However, there is no available and
> detailed data on how Linux performs usability-wise.

The GNOME Usability Study Report was really good but when they
say Linux they really meant KDE rather than Gnome.   The Gnome usability
report covers quite a lot of the same ground as this new report.
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_report/report_main.html

There are a whole lot of issues as a result of user expectations formed by
previous use of Microsoft Windows but it is after all a study about
migrating from existing systems to Windows XP or KDE and there are
difficulties in the report for users upgrading from previous versions of
Windows to Windows XP.

The report seems to vindicate the simpler menu naming approach taken by
Gnome, "one of the central weaknesses of the Linux desktop is its wording,
in particular the naming of menu items." but they point out that Windows
user upgrading to XP have the advantage of experience and consistancy.

I will use this opportunity to mention the term "Druid" as the most
unpleasant piece of wording I can think of in the entire Gnome desktop.
It overstretches an already weak metaphor (Wizard), at least the AutoPilot
terminology used by OpenOffice is far more likely to be understood by
users unfamiliar with computers even though it does also suffer the
inconsistancy disadvantage.

The survey mentions quite a few usability problems that were as a result
of ambiguous Translations.


Nice, the survey has hit on this old classic:
"To 46% of all test subjects it was unclear whether Ordner (folder) and
Verzeichnis (directory) were synonymous."

http://developer.gnome.org/documents/style-guide/gnome-glossary-generic-terms.html
Gnome style guide has pretty much got this covered (for the sake of
brevity I wont nitpick here).


Skim reading I can see that quite a few pages are all about
usability issues in OpenOffice, and as this is a comparison there is also
quite a bit of space given over to problems found in Windows XP.

The CD burner K3B looks very tempting ...

The negative comments about tightly integrated software (Address book in
mail client) were interesting but an external menu shortcut to allow it
to be opened directly would seem to at least help the discoverability
issue.

I would have read more of the _Ninety-One_ page report but 'The West Wing'
is on soon :)

An intersting enough report and it does have a few things of interest that
were not covered by the Gnome Report.


Sincerely

Alan Horkan.