[Usability] Re: Usability Digest, Vol 14, Issue 10

[Daniel F Moisset <dmoisset arnet com ar>]

On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 17:46, Janne Kaasalainen wrote:
> Subject: [Usability] Introduction
> Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:34:11 +0300
> 
> Hello all.

Hi...

You raise a lot of issues in this email. Some of them are offtopic, some
should be discussed, and other should be reported as bugs.

> User experience: User experience starts when you first hear about the  
> system, but for the sake of simplicity, let's start from the pressing  
> if the power button. Why, why are we greeted with a strange black  
> screen with odd information on it and some statistics? Why do we need  
> to see SCSI card scanning through device IDs? Why can't we just have  
> an area of memory that contains an image to be shown all the way till  
> the OS takes control of what to display? An area of memory that would  
> be separated from BIOS not to allow the computer to crash. With an  
> option to show the POST details, as if often needed when installing a  
> new system.

That's something that might be a valid rant, but nobody in this list can
control. Even more, you seem to be describing an Intel x86 PC booting.
the sequence is different in OSX, or in some workstations (perhaps more
to your liking).

> Speaking of boot loader, the consistency should continue all the way.  
> Get into VGA modes as soon as possible to present it with less  
> restrictions. Some icons to select which OS to load if there are  
> multiple options, some possibilities to customize this to suit the  
> mood of the OS. If there were no options, just boot the only one that  
> exists. Again, if more is needed, use keyboard shortcuts, for example  
> control-o for options menu.
> 
> When OS loads, the same color theme and visual style should continue,  
> if possible so that the user does not much even notice when the  
> display driver kicks in (no NVIDIA logo, that is just tasteless).

Perhaps you should try Mandrake Linux. It follows this idea; it switches
to VGA mode for the bootloader, presenting a graphical menu. perhaps
that's a little deceiving too, because I've seen some people trying to
use the mouse to select things in that menu, and LILO does not support a
mouse :) Anyway they get it almost right: when you select linux, a
progress bar shows the kernel load (if you can see it; it's usually
about 1 second), then the screen switches to a blue background (the same
as the bootloader) with a graphical "System loading, please wait..." and
a progress bar advancing as services get loaded. If any service load
fails (on a normal system, that should happen), it goes back to the
usual text screen showing which services are being loaded and degree of
success. After loading services, X starts, with the same bluish
background and logo, and you get to a login screen. so it's all quite
seamless (more than in any other linux distribution I've seen).

>  No  
> need to show how daemons or processes are being started and how some  
> of them FAIL with a red color to show the user that something might  
> be wrong when it is perfectly normal in their configuration.

Failure reporting shouldn't be normal in any working configuration; if
anything reports failure it's a:
 * false positive (report a bug)
 * a real problem, and it should be reported in taht case (preferably,
offering something to do about it).

>  I was  
> quite surprised that even Ubuntu does this.

Ubuntu has done a great work in lot of things, it should copy some ideas
from other distros (and keep the things that it's already better at)

> Only then we get into the area of logging in and using Gnome or what  
> ever window manager there might be.

Gnome is a WM, is a system comprising a lot of components (one of them
being the metacity WM).

> Consistency throughout the system. Something that Gnome alone is  
> unlikely to have much to say about, but is something that really  
> seems to lack in Linux. Every this and that program works a bit  
> differently, complies with different HIGs or with nothing at all.  

The only more or less complete consisten HIG I've seen at the Linux
world is the Gnome HIG. KDE has something but I've noticed it a lot less
polished.

If you see an official GNOME app not following the HIG, please report a
bug. If you see a non official GNOME/GTK+ app not following the HIG,
talk about it to the app developer. And if you see other app, suggest
them following a HIG, or if it is already following a different HIG,
please tell us where the incompatible differences are, and perhaps
something can be done about it.

> Use Windows-key; most new keyboards have it and it is somewhat  
> presentational to window management.

Remember that not every computer is an x86 PC. :) Try to find a Windows
key in a Macintosh or in a Sun workstation. So it's a bad idea to use
the windows key as modifier in default keybindings.

Of course, you can configure your keybindings as you like. I have
configured the CapsLock key as an extra modifier and use it for a lot of
non-conflicting keybindings :) (No windows key in my 10-year old
keyboard)


> Using keyboard and the mouse: I am very sure it is no news that  
> moving your hand between keyboard and the mouse is bound to get  
> difficult and slow really quick. Keyboard and mouse do work together,  
> assuming that can use both with a single hand. Emphasis should be  
> placed to the shortcuts that would be easy to use with a single hand.  
> For example, closing an application with Alt-F4 means some very  
> trickery hand movements. Why can't it be, say Windows-Q for quitting?  

The Gnome HIG indicates CTRL+W to close a window, CTRL+Q to quit an
application. Same advice here as above about reporting a bug/talking to
the developer.

> Another matter is to make it fast to do searches for programs and  
> quickly run terminal commands. On OS X, you have an utility called  
> QuickSilver, which is un-intrusive (can be set non-visible in any  
> menus/docks) and is quickly to awake. Running text edit would require  
> me; CTRL-TAB, T, E and enter. It is not part of the OS though and  
> needs tweaking (hear about it, find it, installing it, possibly  
> configure it and run it) to be usable in any form.

ALT+F2 (or the keybinding you select for "Run program") and starting to
type the program name (perhaps you need to write it fully the first
time, but it remembers the command you have used, and then completes
them after a couple of keystrokes).

> Drag and drop: I have a Firefox open and am browsing for images that  
> I wish to include into my seminar paper to be used as an example. I  
> have the paper open, I've just written a chapter that needs that  
> image. I found a suitable one, I click and start to drag it from  
> Firefox to the OpenOffice document... A thing to worry about though,  
> I tried KDE on Suse 9.2 some while back, dragged a file from the  
> Konqueror to the desktop, the simplest thing to do. And I get a pop- 
> up menu, do you wish to move the file or copy it. Great, just imagine  
> how annoying that is after a couple of times.

You're right about this. You should report a bug (probably at nautilus;
it should offer the choice of download, besides making a link (the
current behaviour).

> Desktop: I really liked the simplicity of WindowMaker to some extent,  
> but the lack of desctop and fitting file browser is making my life  
> hard with it. A lot can be done with terminal and command line. <- My  
> point exactly. But, consider that I am browsing the web for no  
> reason, finding a quote that I would like to save. But for some  
> reason I don't wish to launch up OpenOffice, since I was not really  
> looking for quotes anyway, so it can wait. Now, I select the text and  
> drag it to the Desktop to be saved into a text file.

If that does not work in gnome, report as a nautilus bug.

> Opening text files with Nautilus: Why does it not open to a text  
> editing program straight away? I may just want to view it, but if I  
> notice a spelling error, I need to do some hassle to have it open in  
> suitable program.
Just set your favorite text editor as default for opening text files

>  The problem is even more evident with images, some  
> I wish to open in Gimp, some in Cinepaint but neither of those are in  
> the right click menu by default. What if I would wish to open it in  
> yet another program?

If it is not in the menu, you should report a bug for the gimp/cinelerra
package of your distribution. It should appear.

> I really see no point of having large applications menus like Windows  
> and Suse, it is not up-to-date anyway, it is bloated and I have no  
> frigging idea how to easily control it. Also, some programs don't  
> install themselves into those by default.

They don't add themselves because their package is wrong. Tell your
packager about it :)

> Why can't applications reside in a single folder / directory?

They can, but most distributions have chosen a different way of
arranging things for a lot of reasons too long to explain here. But you
might want to try rox-filer and zeroinstall (google for it), which
implements what you want, in linux

> Speaking of application installation - Next-/OpenStep model for  
> packaging applications that is now used in OS X is much, much more  
> practical than Windows installers or RPMs. Of course, that needs  
> support from the underlying system and libraries, but that is just  
> why I consider consolidation of systems a good thing.

In which respect is better? I'm not quite familiar, but If I guess right
from what I've heard, it has its advantages and disadvantages.

> Prettiness: Some people are rather utilitarian, and while there is  
> nothing wrong with that, a system could look other than grey  
> rectangular boxes without loosing the usability aspects. Of course,  
> that is in the eye of the beholder, but there could be something done  
> to the default theme.

Work is being done in that :)

> To continue further:
> 
> Seeking a pretty theme often leads to the use of large images. I am  
> not sure about the rest of the people out there, but I have hardly  
> used any display besides the laptops, with anything less than  
> 1600x1200 resolution and even then much of the screen estate seems to  
> be drowning to window borders, menu bars, docks and to what ever. I  
> can only imagine what it is like on a smaller display.

My computer at home still runs at 800x600 :) Gnome is quite good for it
(as good as you can get at 800x600 :) ) with it's upper/lower panel
default layout.

> Open/Save menus: Many, many applications on Linux seem to show  
> directories and files starting with . when you try to browse with the  
> open/save dialog. Why, of why is that? Can't we conclude that  
> manipulating those files would be a thing a casual user would rarely  
> need to be doing in the first place? 

You are right. Report bugs to the application developers.

> On general level, it feels that  
> a user needs to do an awful lot of things outside his home directory,  
> whether that is to find a file, external hard drive, what ever.

Are you talking about hiding parts of the filesystem hierarchy? It can
be done, but carefully.... I read some files from other homes quite
frequently (given that I work in a multi-user environment). /mnt can be
abstracted (it already is quite a bit with the "Computer" desktop icon).
Other places are certainly less usual, but still I sometimes open files
from /usr/share (specially /usr/share/doc), /usr/include, and /etc.

Probably I wouldn't complain if /boot, /proc or /sbin weren't visible
from the UI. I use that directories only from the command line.

> Top of that, attaching the save dialogs to the documents you are  
> saving in OS X is not that bad idea at all; the implementation is  
> annoying on OS X as it hides the top of the document and quite  
> possibly a lot of information you would need to name the file.

True. It has been discused here. Any suggestions?

> Staying out of your way: Now, I have been doing pixel by pixel image- 
> editing in Photoshop/Gimp for some hours, I've had a long brush  
> stroke that I have been doing tediously and am just about to finish  
> it. Windows decides to inform me that new updates are available,  
> popping up a menu that takes my focus off the image I was editing.  
> Click okay, the downloads arrive and you keep on working. Next, every  
> 15 minutes you get a new pop-up that asks you to restart the system,  
> if you don't react, it makes a restart automatically.

Hey pal, that sucks. Why you keep using windows?

Metacity (in its latest revisions) has functionality to avoid annoying
popups. If any app raises a popup that you didn't requested explicitly,
or raises it while you are working in something else, notify the app
developer that it's a bug.

> Handling multiple documents and windows: Common way seems to be to  
> handle running applications in a panel at the top or bottom of your  
> window. Some programs launch multiple windows, each of them having a  
> vertical text that describes what they are (if we are lucky, that  
> is).

vertical text? could you give as an example?

>  Problem is, that you can't really position those to anywhere but  
> on the top or bottom since if you wish to keep the text readable, you  
> need to have it quite wide. That in turn needs a lot of screen  
> estate. And even still you run into problems really, really quick  
> where to find the window you are looking for among all the possible  
> ones.

OK, I guess that's it (I snipped some portions that I didn't have
anything to say about). Thanks for the feedback. It seems you have a lot
of bugreporting to do now :)

	Daniel

-- 
Must it be assumed that because we are engineers beauty is not our concern,
and that while we make our constructions robust and durable we do not also
strive to make them elegant?
Is it not true that the genuine conditions of strength always comply
with the secret conditions of harmony?
    -- Gustave Eiffel, 1887