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

["Joaquin Cuenca Abela" <e98cuenc free fr>]

John wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 09:24:25AM -0800, Joaquin Cuenca Abela wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> So, "common sense" says that users have an innate knowledge 
> of what "insert mode" is, is that it ?

You're taking my words out of context.  I said that usability starts
with common sense.  Sometimes (most of the time) you don't need large
users groups nor expensive material to do something usable, you just
need common sense.  I was not insulting nor being despective with users
that don't know what the insert mode is.

I never said that it was natural to use a key named "Insert" to go out
of the "Insert" mode, nor that users should have innate knowledge of
whatever.

*BUT* AbiWord is not a e-learning tool.  It not our job to explain the
user what the "Return" key means, nor how to shutdown a computer, nor
what "Insert" is used for.  We're not a do-all-be-all tool.  We can not
explain to the user how to scape from the insert mode without disturbing
99.99% of the users.  We're not going to put a dialog box to say "hey,
do you know what is the "insert" that you just pressed?", no more than
we're not going to do it for the "return" or for any other key (even if
it has a "don't bother me anymore" checkbox).

We do a fair job explaining to the users (no matter how much newbees
they are) how things work, and I think that we even explain the insert
mode in the manual.

If the user doesn't know what the different keys in its keyboard means,
he has several choices:

1) try it and see
2) ask to anybody
3) rtfm

Probably in that order...

> And it's natural for a key saying "Insert" to do something 
> completely different, yes ?

No.  I never stated the inverse.

P.S.: [Absolutely off-topic] oprofile rocks, but is there any remote
chance to get call graphs in the output?

Cheers,