Re: [Usability] Introduction

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 19:34, Janne Kaasalainen wrote:

> I am a student at Helsinki University of Technology, reading  
> 'Interactive digital media' as my major and doing my second masters  
> degree at the same time at University of Art and Design Helsinki.  

Welcome aboard!

> 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?  
> Not a big problem alone, but merely a demonstration what I mean.

Ctrl-Q should already quit any GNOME application, and Ctrl-W should
close any open document window.  Alt-F4 is really just a legacy CUA
shortcut.

> Another matter is to make it fast to do searches for programs and  
> quickly run terminal commands. 

Alt-F2 pops up a 'Run command' dialog, from which you can run a terminal
command, or type the first few letters of an application and have it
auto-complete.  (Or it used to, I believe this has recently been
removed).  Coincidentally, I have this mapped to Cmd-Space on my
Powebook, since that's what Quicksilver uses :)

> 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.

Nowadays OSX has Spotlight, of course, which is built in to the OS and
works just fine as a 'quick launch' tool... although you can't use it to
run arbitrary terminal commands.

> 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 need to take that one up with the KDE folks :)  On GNOME, you only
get that menu if you Alt+drag, or drag with the middle button.

> Now, I select the text and  
> drag it to the Desktop to be saved into a text file.

This feature has just made it into nautilus IIRC-- or at least, somebody
submitted a patch for it.

> Opening text files with Nautilus: Why does it not open to a text  
> editing program straight away? 

? It does for me.  Text files open in gedit by default.  Which version
are you using?  Nautilus hasn't had an inline text view for ages.

> 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.

Again, they are for me (well, GIMP is.. I don't have Cinepaint).  Sounds
like you need to upgrade :)

> 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.

Up to a point, but there's no dependency checking, which is a big
advantage of Linux package managers.  Also, despite first appearances,
they don't really keep everything together... when you delete an
application on OSX, you still have to go around afterwards hunting for
leftover preference files, plugins, and whatever else the application
actually installed.

> 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. 

You should use Ubuntu. It's brown and curvy :)

> 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.

GNOME's open/save dialog hides these by default, and has for the past
couple of releases IIRC.

> Using corners: It is somewhat easier to just slam the pointer device  
> to the edge of the screens, not caring if you aim exactly where it is  
> supposed to be.

The GNOME panel already exploits this, although the desktop itself
doesn't.

> PS. Last things going through my mind has been a bit of a turn; How  
> much everybody hates a single button mouse

I rather like mine actually :)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            Java Desktop System Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems