Re: [Usability]Insert/overwrite, how should i do a usability study?

[Joaquin Cuenca Abela <e98cuenc yahoo com>]

--- Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> 
> Some one on the abiword list also suggested the
> cursor change and it has
> been approved in theory.
> Dom fundamentally disagrees with me that it is worth
> interupting the user
> about this, which is why i need to produce some sort
> of imperical data.

Well, I agree with him.  Popping a dialog box just
because you used the insert button is plain wrong. 
And you don't need scientific studies to prove that,
usability starts with common sense.

The original user was hopeless.  If you don't know
that you're in insert mode, even when you realize that
the cursor is eating your letters, you're lost.

The "change the cursor" hint is a solution to another,
related, problem.  That's, when the user knows what
the insert mode is, but he just didn't realized that
he was in insert mode because the information was
somewhere far away from your current focus, the
cursor.

Btw, in our usability courses, we only used video
tapes to:

1) spot user problems with current software (problems
that we're not always able to discover after the
interviews)

2) see and discuss brainstorming ideas ("implemented"
with paper, not with real software)

Cheers,


=====
Joaquin Cuenca Abela
e98cuenc at yahoo dot com

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