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

[Vidar Braut Haarr <vhaarr gmail com>]

On 8/26/05, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2005, Vidar Braut Haarr wrote:
> > 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.

Oh, note that I did not say "review." I was planning on writing more
of an "novel" type where I would more talk about what I observed
during these first days than just list alot of things I think should
be fixed.

> > 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.

While monitoring all the project representatives of an Open Source
project would be nearly impossible, you'd think they had a foot inside
a site named "ubuntuforums.org".

> > 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.

I first introduced my father to middle click dragging when I helped
him make a link to Documents on his desktop. I then asked him if he
would like any other folders readily available there, and he
immediately opened Places and tried to middle click drag Images (which
I had created and placed as a bookmark prior to "revealing" GNOME to
them) to the desktop.

The right clicking is not something I have taught them. I first saw
him using it when he was showing me some images a long time ago, where
he used left/right click to go forwards/backwards through a slideshow
(this was on Windows). I have no idea how he discovered this was
possible. To start a slideshow on windows, he would right click on an
image in a folder, and choose "Slideshow" (or similar). The slideshow
would then start from that image and cycle through the entire folder.

He was probably right-clicking the pathbar element to see if he could
find a "View Slideshow" option there.

> > 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).

Thank you, I'll take a look at GQView. The UI is not so important if I
can only make it work like my parents expect a slideshow to behave.

> > 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.
...
> 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?

As I noted, the fact that gThumb could navigate with the left/middle
button was discovered by us in unison (although my dad was in control
of the computer). But the habit of using the mouse buttons to navigate
a slideshow has been developed without my input (and indeed, my
presence at all). Maybe a friend of them has showed them.

> > 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.

I seem to remember that Windows draws an outline of the panel (or
whatever it's called there) when you start to drag it, and snaps the
outline to the closest edge as your mouse moves around.

> > 5. Finds the Trash applet after more than a few minutes of searching
...
> Might help if the icon had the recycle logo emblazoned on it.

Anything is better than a blue square.

> > 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 would like to think that this representation would be recognized by
him and he would rather click Browse than go through all the things he
did.

> > 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.

> 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.)

The problem with that approach (4 images) is that the images
(especially if we're dealing with photographs) become so small that it
is impossible to discern what they represent.

Of course, using only 1 image would make it better, but which image do
you choose? The first one? What is the first one, and does it change
if you change sort order in the folder? Random image?

> > 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.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smeg#Smeg_.28vulgarism.29>

Yikes, I had no idea! Haha :-D

> > 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.

Thank you for that pointer, I'll take a look.

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

Not that we have found, but that list is so amazingly long and
useless, we would never bother scanning it all. Especially when the
typeahead find feature does not work.

> > 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.

If Sven reads this list, he already has my notes on this. If not, I'll
send him a copy.

> > 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.

Yes, that would be a good reason to have a close button. IMHO, Ubuntus
default theme (which, by the way, my father found - in his own words -
"amazingly ugly") should just remove the decoration.

> 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.

Indeed. We read the same way you do, so clearly you see how incredibly
difficult it was to find the Trash applet, which is positioned in the
very bottom right corner of the screen.

> > 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).

Yes, he normally uses the scroll wheel. However, when applications
start to hang for unknown reasons (like nautilus does alot with all
his big folders), he discards the scrollwheel and starts dragging the
slider or pressing page up/down instead.

> > 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.

No matter how fast you make the routine, there will always be old
computers around. I think progressive loading would be the only way to
really make this any better (of course optimizations should be made
generally as well).

> > 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.

My father is a teacher at a relatively high level, and the documents
in question are drafts for various exams that he and the other
teachers are passing among them to edit in various ways.

As you probably understand, I can not attach these documents to a
"public" e-mail. If you would e-mail me directly, I might be able to
reply with some of these documents attached, but I would have to ask
my fathers permission first.

> 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.

The documents were tested on the Windows version of AbiWord 2.3.5 or
2.3.4, I can't remember.

> 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.

I thought about this, but not knowing if ubuntuforums.org were an
official Ubuntu resource, I didn't really bother to check or go
through with it. I most certainly also considered getting the thread
locked by an admin, but quickly came to the conclusion that this would
effectively keep others who might want to actually _help_ me from
doing so :-P

> Hope that helps.  Thanks again.

Thank you,

-- 
Vidar Braut Haarr
"Programmers don't die, they
just GOSUB without RETURN."