Re: [Usability] Can the GNOME desktop survive an encounter with my parents?

[Jason Hoover <jasonhoover verizon net>]

My! What an interesting study! There's quite a few bugs here.

On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 00:18 +0200, Vidar Braut Haarr wrote: 
> I recently installed Ubuntu on my parents laptop. We tried with a
> LiveCD first to make sure things were working (like synaptics
> touchpad, wifi, etc), and was glad to see that they did.
> 
> What follows is a numbered list of random thoughts and observations
> from their first days of using GNOME. Please note that I have made
> little effort to "clean up" the notes, cross-link them with bug
> reports or research them to any degree.
> 
> I was planning on using them to write a little article that I could
> send to OSnews, newsforge or whatever, but haven't found the time for
> it yet, and so I thought I'd share it with you guys. Who knows what
> could happen? :-)
> 
> Please note that this is not a criticism of GNOME or Ubuntu, and that
> I'm not demanding any answers or solutions to these problems. Also
> note that my parents are still using GNOME and have no intention of
> switching. None of these observations are "show stoppers" of any sort.
> I mention this because when I approached the Ubuntu Forums for a
> solution to #7, I got two replies saying my dad should either go back
> to Windows or "just learn Evolution" instead of the two other options
> which wouldn't have insulted me: 1) Not answering at all, 2) Helping
> me find a solution to it.

How unfortunate that you received such a reply. I'll try to give some
answers to make up for it, but I don't know how helpful they'll be.

> Anyway, much hype about nothing, here is the list:
> 
> 1. Middleclick-drag bookmarks from "Places" to Desktop does nothing,
> as opposed to middleclick-dragging things in nautilus.

This looks like a serious usability bug with the application menu.
It should probably be giving a menu, but the panel might be behaving in
a non-nautilus lame way. If no one else knows of a bug related to this,
you should probably file one.

http://bugs.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=314252


> 2. Right-clicking on the pathbar elements in Nautilus does not give a
> context menu for the selected path element.

This could probably be considered a bug too. But I'm not too sure what
you would expect here. Open in new window versus what exactly? Shouldn't
be re-naming folders from there, just using it for navigation. Can't
delete parent folders because you're in a child folder.

> 3. Wants to see a slideshow of his images; 3 applications (f-spot,
> eog, gthumb). F-spot crashes. None of them support pausing a slideshow
> (that we have found). None of them support going forwards/backwards
> through the images using the left/right mouse buttons or the
> mousewheel during a slideshow. If you open EOG from the menu, it
> starts as a very small window with only the menubar and the toolbar
> buttons New and Open showing (regardless of the state you closed it
> in).
> He still has not decided which program to use for viewing slideshows,
> but noted that Windows had a way of viewing folders containing images
> just like EOG works (so it would be sort of like embedding EOG instead
> of the Nautilus icon view when navigating into a folder with only
> images), and said he misses this.
> After some testing, we found that gThumbs "Fullscreen mode" support
> next/previous with the mouse buttons (although it's the left button
> and the middle/scrollwheel button and not the right button, which his
> builtin laptop mousepad does not have, so he can't go backwards unless
> he has connected a mouse), but this mode does not change image
> automatically after X seconds.

F-spot seems immature still. It hasn't even hit 1.0.0 yet.  This is
annoying though. A pause/play button does seem wise. The keyboard would
probably be better off for forward/backward navigation. In gQview/gThumb
this is page-up/down but should probably be logically mapped to
left/right as well. An enhancement bug may be appropriate.

> 4. Wants to move the Top Panel to the bottom. Clicks it and drags but
> gets no visual indication that he's dragging anything.

There's actually a massive delay when the panel is moved to re-locate
and re-size all of the icons. I get a nasty 2" bar of doom when it
temporarily re-locates to the side of my screen. This is caused by the
applications panel applet not handling side panels well. Having the
panel stuck there is as equally unpleasant. I imagine there's already a
bug for this. 

> 5. Finds the Trash applet after more than a few minutes of searching
> (it's very small and positioned in the exact position where your eyes
> scan last; bottom right. Moreover, a blue square - which is what it
> looks like to my dad if he's not wearing his glasses - doesn't really
> scream "trash bin", not helping his search.) Tries to drag a file to
> it to delete. The dragged icon touches the applet, but his cursor is
> not over it (still hovers just above the panel), releases and the icon
> is just moved to the bottom of the desktop instead of deleted.

I don't see the trash applet used in Fedora by default, so I'm guessing
this is an Ubuntu bug/Icon theme bug. Having the icon "land" where it
looks would probably be annoying to someone expecting it to 'land' where
his mouse is (especially on a tablet screen). Visual feedback may be a
good idea, but I'm not sure what exactly the trash should do to indicate
it's gonna get dropped there.

> 6. Wants to change the Font. Goes to System->User Settings->Fonts,
> sees the 4 boxes (does not recognize them as buttons) with "Sans" in
> them, clicks the "Details" button, "Go to Font folder", browses the
> fonts, finds one he likes, tries to drag it to the "boxes" without
> success.

The font selector picks fonts from that directory, as a result of the
subsystem used for rendering fonts. One idea would be to have fonts
dragged there automatically added to the fonts folder. I'm not sure how
such a bug should be filed though.

> 7. Rightclicks on a picture, "Send To" uses Evolution. He wants to be
> able to select X images, Send To->Email Recipient and it should open a
> Thunderbird (his default e-mail client) Compose window with the images
> attached.

For now, all it sends is a link to the image. This is annoying to me
too. But this is how it is on windows. Ideally, it should automatically
attach any target you right-click and press send. This may be an
Evolution bug, a Firefox bug, or a Thunderbird bug, or all three. I
think this is something of a safety mechanism, so that you can't force
an attachment to be loaded into an e-mail program with a bug (like image
buffer overflow).

> 8. Categorizes his picture collection in folders. "Home", "Vacation
> Italy 2003", etc. Rightclicks on one, finds Properties and wants to
> set an image from each folder as its customized icon. He clicks the
> button in Properties and is presented with "/usr/share/pixmaps" every
> time. He clicks "Browse..." and is presented with "/usr/share" every
> time. They should both remember the previous location, and there
> should be a button that takes you to /usr/share/pixmaps (Default
> Location, whatever) instead. Anyway, clicks Browse and is presented
> with the default Open dialog where the 10% of the left side of it
> (rendering the Places sidebar useless) positioned outside the screen.
> He moves it in a bit, clicks his "Images" bookmark and is presented
> with a list of images with no preview. Since he is choosing an image
> to use for icon, this is very unfortunate, and he begins a process of
> elimination; "Was it that one? No." Each elimination forces him to
> redo all the steps mentioned above since he must close everything down
> to the Properties dialog to be able to see which image it is he
> selected.

That image selector, and subsequent file chooser are terrible. On top of
being confusing, it doesn't remember the path like you said. Someone
else here might be aware of a related bug, since it's so annoying.

> 9. Prior to letting him use the computer, I installed smeg to
> customize the Applications menu, removing alot of silly applications
> that he will never use. Later, he finds smeg himself, and tries to
> remove the following items:
>  * Places-> Desktop, Computer, Network, Connect to Server
>  * The entire System menu.
> But finds that it's not possible, for unknown reasons.

Unless I'm mistaken, Smeg (ugh, what an awful name) is an Ubuntu thing.
A thread relating to it's development is here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=40219&page=3&pp=10

> 10. Wants to get a slideshow of his images as screensaver. Goes to
> System->User Settings->Screensaver, sees a HUGE list of screensavers
> and tries to locate "Slideshow" in it. It doesn't exist. The search is
> made even harder by the fact that the list doesn't support finding by
> typing. A box pops up when you write, but nothing happens.
> He eventually finds that he can settle for the "Spotlight" SS. He
> picks it and clicks "Settings...", but is unable to find anywhere how
> to specify which image(s) to use. He asks me and I point him to the
> "Advanced" tab. He goes there, finds the "Choose Random Image"
> checkbox and clicks Browse, only to be presented with some type of
> Open dialog he has never seen before (and also without preview).

One of the good and bad things about xscreensaver is that it can use any
image source for almost any of the screen savers. It may be worth filing
an enhancement bug requesting some kind of category/type sorting. I
don't know exactly what to suggest, but it'd make peeling through that
painfully long list more pleasant. Maybe 3d/2d/images/text or something
like that.

> 11. Continuing his quest of scanning all his family albums into the
> computer, he opens the GIMP. After recovering from the sudden boom of
> windows on his desktop (don't forget the Todays Tip dialog), he
> identifies the one with a "File" menu and finds import. Not having the
> slightest idea what "XSane" is, he deems GIMP unable to scan his
> images and calls me again. I talk him through the same process and
> tell him that XSane is, in fact, a scanning program. He says "But
> there is only one option there; 'Device dialog...'". I tell him to
> click it, and the phone goes silent for a long time. He then tells me
> "the screen is full of windows, I have no idea what's going on."
> Seriously, have you tried having GIMP and XSane open at the same time?
> There should be laws against it. Even if he had been able to identify
> which was which, and find out what button he should click on (he
> didn't see any buttons, only widget soup), the overwhelming number of
> widgets on the screen was just insane.

This is a gimp bug. And yes, I would imagine that it's called XSane
because it's enough to drive someone to not-sanity. It's an ugly hack of
a front-end, and could probably use a cleanup. But I don't know how
responsible gnome is for it.

Sane-devel is a list to suggest improvements. On the page, depsite it's
name, it's intended for users as well. Someone there would be more
likely to answer any questions regarding it's usability.

http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html

> 12. I watch him trying to change the background image on his desktop.
> When he wants to close it, he suddenly stops and asks me "This X in
> the corner and this button with X on it that says 'Close', they do the
> same thing, right?"
> Then why are there 2 ?

This is kind of backwards. It might be more appropriate to have "OK" and
"Cancel" here, why it commits changes permanently and right away is
something of a bug. I can't find anything in bugzilla for it, so an
enhancement bug may be a good idea.

> 13. He wonders why the light area of a scrollbar is where you drag,
> seeing as the dark area is both easier to hit (since it's bigger), and
> also easier to see. We adjust some contrasts and change theme, and it
> helps. He still thinks it's funny, though.

This is how it is in windows. This is a theme/compatibility bug. They're
also supposed to look like buttons. What theme are you using? They're
way more distinct looking in clearlooks.

> 14. The folder with the most images contains around 400. When he opens
> it, there is a pause of about 15 seconds where the folder is just
> white with no files in it (apparently). No indication that it contains
> any images (except in the statusbar, where it says '400 entries') and
> no indication that anything is loading (except for the HDD indicator
> on his computer constantly reading). Then they all suddenly pop up
> under his nose.

>From the version of nautilus I'm looking at (2.10.1), this seems to be
handled with a wait cursor until it can render the pre-thumbnail icons.
What version of nautilus does your CD have?

Icon rendering in nautilus is a bit slow for me too. But then, I have a
lame duron, so just about everything is latent.

> 15. OpenOffice.org2 Writer takes AGES to load. He has realised that it
> does, and goes to get coffee or whatever when starting it. AbiWord is
> faster (and looks alot nicer), but its MS Word conversion thingy is
> far from as good as OOo's.

This is a running joke, and OpenOffice is aware of it. Whether or not
it'll ever gets fixed will probably come down to some sort of
quasi-political battle where a fork or three take place. 

I've always preferred AbiWord myself. If you find any bugs with the MS
Word conversion, you should probably report them as payment for using
the fine product. Their bugzilla is a relatively friendly, patient
place.

> 16. After finding the Panel Properties, he adds arrows to both the Top
> and Bottom Panel, drags the launchers for Firefox, Thunderbird and OOo
> Writer to the desktop and creates links to his Images and Documents
> folders on the desktop. He then hides the Top Panel by sliding it to
> the left. Now he has his common tasks readily available from the
> desktop.

That's a cute use of panels. Drawers are another way of doing that.

> 17. Mom opens Thunderbird to send some e-mails. She minimizes
> Thunderbird, locates a document and drags it to the trash to delete
> it. After she has done this, she accidentally clicks again just to the
> left of the trash, changing to Desktop 4 with the Workspace Switcher.
> Unable to locate Thunderbird in the window switcher at the bottom, she
> starts it again, only to be presented with Thunderbirds profile
> chooser (since it was still running on Desktop 1).
> When I arrive to fix this problem, I explain the concept of visual
> desktops to my dad. He graps it, but finds it unusable since he has no
> way of telling what the windows are by looking at their extremely
> small boxes in the workspace switcher (the windows are not maximized,
> so the application icon does not show inside the small boxes). He
> opens the Workspace Switcher Properties dialog and looks over the
> options, realising that he can give them names. He names them
> "Internett", "E-mail" and "Other", and checks the option to show
> desktop names in the switcher. Closing the dialog, he sees that he has
> 4, but only needs 3. He rightclicks on the 4th desktop and clicks
> "Remove from panel". This, of course, removes the entire applet,
> confusing him again. I add it again and point him to the properties
> dialog where he can adjust the number of virtual desktops, reducing it
> to 3.

Hmm. I can see how that would be some dangerously ambiguous language. I
wonder what the others here would think of changing "Remove from panel"
to something like "Remove launcher" or "Remove applet"? Though I think
for now it came down to a mis-understanding of the definition of
"panel".

> 18. Having all his applications on one desktop, he now starts to drag
> the windows to the Workspace Switcher to drop them on other desktops.
> This doesn't work, and I guide him to the context menu at the title
> bar, and he uses the "Move to another desktop" menu to position
> Firefox, Thunderbird and OOo Writer on the appropriate desktops. He
> then asserts that the Window Switcher applet is now useless and
> removes it. He also removes the Show/Hide Desktop applet. This
> effectively turns the Workspace Switcher into the Window Switcher.
> I can't really grasp why he finds this superior to the standard Window
> Switcher, but he does.

Interesting, it sounds like he might like using enlightenment. Some
people prefer the MacOS-like window selector as well.

> 19. Inserting his digital camera, he opens gThumb to import them, only
> to be presented with an awfull error message containing words such as
> <http://www.gphoto.org/doc/manual/FAQ.html#FAQ-could-not-claim-USB>. I
> follow the guidelines on the gphoto page and makes it automatically
> open gthumb with the import dialog when he inserts his camera.
> His current images are all named like YYYY-MM-DD_XXXX.JPG, where X is
> just a counter. gThumb does not (that I could find, at least) support
> this, and the images retain the absolutely useless names the camera
> has given them. He is also terribly confused by the "categories" and
> "film" in gthumb, and does not play well with the mix of folders and
> categories. I point him to F-Spot, which mainly deals with categories
> and dates, precisely like he wants it. F-Spot not only crashes the
> second he tries to do a slideshow, but also fails to import images
> from the camera. Also, when clicking "Import from camera" he is
> presented with a dialog with a list containing two entries like this:
>   <camera name> usb:
>   <camera name> usb:001 003
> or similar. He picks the first one (which is wrong) because the dialog
> is so small that the second item does not show unless you resize it,
> and the import fails.
> (This particular issue ended with me writing a shell script that I
> have attached to this e-mail. The script uses zenity to get a Save
> dialog where you pick a folder to save the images in. All images on
> the camera are then downloaded to this folder and named
> YYYY-MM-DD_X.ext, where 'X' is incremental. You can then unplug the
> camera again.)

This sounds like a bug with gthumb+that dialogue as well as gphoto. With
HAL development, this might change in a while. Interestingly enough,
this exact instance is suggested by it's FAQ.

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fHalFAQ

It's probably just a matter of time until improvements are made in that
direction. In the mean time, you have another Ubuntu bug.

> 20. Finds the "Stretch Icon" option on desktop icons and resizes them
> so they are approx. 200% (so they are easier to hit). The default
> Firefox and Thunderbird icons look so crappy it's not even funny, so I
> download high-resolution PNGs and set them as custom icons.

Another unfortunate icon theme bug. I think they're going to start using
SVG's for this, but I'm not sure.

My input probably isn't worth .02c, but I hope you might find some of it
helpful/re-assuring. There's some really good points and things of note
there.

-Jason