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

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005, Vidar Braut Haarr wrote:

> Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 00:18:40 +0200
> From: Vidar Braut Haarr <vhaarr+usability gmail com>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Can the GNOME desktop survive an encounter with my
>     parents?
>
> 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? :-)

You should have kept that nugget of information to yourself, we have been
rather unimpressed by the slant of many of the reviews in the past.

> 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.

First off I must say it is tragic that Ubuntu has failed to escape the
elitism of another project which I do not think needs to be named.  I had
always hoped Ubuntu would provide a user friendly alternative to that
other project which has allowed an intolerant and hostile atmosphere to
grow.  Like it or not these people represent their projects and project
leaders have a responsibility to tell these people to behave and be polite
or say nothing at all.  This kind of attitude is by far the most
unnattractive aspect of Open Source and Computers in general Shame on
them, I hope they will make more of an effort to discourage this kind of
attitude and make it clear it is entirely inappropriate.

> 1. Middleclick-drag bookmarks from "Places" to Desktop does nothing,
> as opposed to middleclick-dragging things in nautilus.

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

I'm interested and a little suprised by your parents use of middle click
and right click.

> 3. Wants to see a slideshow of his images; 3 applications (f-spot,

I think Eog could stand to learn a lot from the Image/Slideshow viewer in
windows.

There are some keyboard navigation issues in gthumb which bother me but
other factors bother me more (so in an act bordering on hypocrisy I use
the more functional but far less user friendly GQView).

> 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.

It is situations like you describe that make me wish like Apple we were
able to force developers to design for a single button mouse and have the
right click used only as an optional extra.  It is quite possible any task
which requires right-click is an accessibility bug.

I'm surprised your parents were using right click and frankly amazed they
were using middle click (i find it quite awkward and use it only rarely).
Did they really develop this habit by themselves or was it after much
prompting and tutoring from you?

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

I guess this could stand to be improved not sure how though.

> 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.

Might help if the icon had the recycle logo emblazoned on it.

> 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.

I really hate those widgets.  I've been meaning to bring it up for over
six months[1] but never gotten around to it yet (I only do this part time
for my own amusement).

I dont know what they were thinking thinking when the replaced what is
usually represented by a drop down menu or a text entry and a
[_____________________][Browse...]
button with this stange new and confusing widget.

I'm hoping the API was well written and flexible enough that this can
eventually be compensated for.

[1] This bug report addressed the need for a stock Browse button and
around about the same time I noticed Gtk2.4 had ignored the standard
convention and introduced this new widget
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158009

> 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.

This be a case of Ubuntu not setting up the defaults properly as Gnome
would default to Evolution.

> 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.

That is a difficult and awkward task to do.  Fun though, I remember using
tonnes of custom icons on the Mac and giving half my folders a unique
icon.  If this is really desirable (and quite possibly it is but would be
a hard sell) then the whole process really would need to be overhauled.

An alternative to this might be what some other Image Browsers do and to
automatically generate a Folder Thumbnail previewing a sample of 4 images
as a folder icon.  (Microsoft Explorer innovated* this idea from some
other image browser.)

> 9. Prior to letting him use the computer, I installed smeg to

Ha, ha, ha.  I cannot believe the rude names people give their programs.
I thought gimp (and to a lesser extent Pan) was an innappropriate name but
that takes the biscuit.  You might need to refer to a medical dictionary
to get a definition of the word "smeg"/"smegma").  Oh dear.

Ross Burton wrote:
>> Smeg needs to be more explicit

:P

still laughing :)
smeg is pretty explicit/vulgar already

It is just so silly, funny how Red Dwarf got away with it for so many
years.

I really hope Ubuntu rebrand this program with a more appropriate name.

A rose by any other name ... would just be confusing and unhelpful now
wouldn't it?

> 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

I'm thinking Network and Connect to Server should be hidden in certain
situations like a home user with effectively no network.  It annoyed me
immensely that Microsoft left similar icons lying around which only caused
trouble if clicked them because the functionality was effectively
unavailable for whatever reason.

>  * The entire System menu.
> But finds that it's not possible, for unknown reasons.

It should probably be possible to create a user account with this kind of
information hidden especially if the user is not expected to do any of
their own System administration work.  I expect this is a minor setup
issue which could be resolved.


> 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 default screensaver used in mandrake is an image slideshow.
It seems to be called GDadou (simple names are so much better) and can be
configured to use the images of your choosing.

I have no idea if Ubuntu include this screensaver or an alterative to it.

> 11. Continuing his quest of scanning all his family albums into the
> computer, he opens the GIMP.

Not enough hours in the day for me to even start discussing the usability
of the GNU Image Manipulation program again.  It is an independant
application and not directly part of Gnome as their lead developer Sven so
proudly blurts out every so often (I dont understand it either) so you
should take your comments to them directly.  Perhaps you could take
your comments to OpenUsability.org as the gimp has recently signed up for
evaluation by them.

> didn't see any buttons, only widget soup), the overwhelming number of
> widgets on the screen was just insane.

Sorry, there is really very little we can do about it.

> 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 ?

Historically some unusual themes did not neccesarily provide window
decorations but generally the decorations are small, unclear and difficult
to hit.

I read from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom, so
the logical place to have the Close button is at the "end of the sentence"
which is the bottom right corner of the dialog.  Having a clearly labelled
button makes for a nice big obvious target which is relatively easy to
hit.

> 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.

The slider is a metaphor for a real slider.

Rather than dragging he might prefer to click on the larger area and have
the page scroll towards the click point.  From my observation it easier to
familiarise users with the scroll wheel or the Page Up Page Down buttons
(but unfortunately some applications designers have decided they have a
better idea and use Page Up and Page Down for something other than going
up and down the page).

> 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.

Yeah that is bad, some kind of progressive loading would probably be
better.  I'd be surprised if the Nautilus developers were not generally
aware of this and interested in addressing it in various ways, most
likely they would want to make things faster and make the whole issue
moot.

> 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.

Really?  As a rabid ;) supporter of Abiword I must insist you qualify that
statement and if possible provide some sample documents so I can help the
abiword developers to improve their software.

Most people seem to think Abiword is able to open a lot more Microsoft
Documents however we are well aware it does not format them as precisely
as OpenOffice does.  You may be interested in trying out the 2.3.x testing
series of Abiword.

>  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.

It is a shame we haven't been able to get people to settle on standard
folders for Documents and Pictures and provide them for you but it gets
horrible convoluted and confusing really fast and several attempts have
been able to make much progress.  It will probably take one of the
distributors forcing their way forward and doing something, *anything* to
force this forward.  (I think some evil distributions have gone so far as
to create a "My Documents" folder when even Microsoft has had the sense to
finally drop the "My" prefix.)

> 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).

I entirely disable workspaces and stubbornly refuse to use them on
principle.  I know Unix old timers and Power Users love their workspaces
but it is not something I would ever recommend turning on by default and
it has long been used as an excuse not to fix other problems.  Certain
programs which open many consfusing windows all at once cop-out and
recommend you use a whole seperate workspace to compensate for their
cluttered design.

I will leave it to those interested in multiple desktops to address how
this might be improved but personally I would recommend turning it off
unless a user specifically wants it.

> 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.

Not sure exactly what the point was of stretching icons.  I think it was
maybe that you might want a larger preview for certain things like photos.
I'm not sure the idea really works and I would love if it could be
properly evaluate and repalced with something better and or deprecated.

Phew! Long mail.

Thanks for your feedback.  For future reference if you get rude responses
like you mentioned above please contact a responsible adult (eg an
official represntative of Ubuntu, or if it were someone involved in Gnome
a mature developer) ask politely request they ask people to behave in a
responsible and civilised manner.  Like it or not we all server as
unofficial representatives of our projects and we have an obligation to be
civilised.  It is easier to say nothing at all than to fire off a rude
flaming message.

Hope that helps.  Thanks again.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/