Re: [Usability] Introduction

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Janne Kaasalainen wrote:

> Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 21:34:11 +0300
> From: Janne Kaasalainen <janne kaasalainen uiah fi>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Introduction
>
> Hello all.
>
> I'm not sure if it is a habit of this list or not,
...
> to introduce myself and describe a little why I am here.


It is not but it might be a good tradition to properly introduce
ourselves.  (I'm Alan, I'm Irish, I'm not an expert but I know what I
like.)

I used the Apple Macintosh in school so like many others have fond
memeries of it, but I have only had rare chances to use OS X.

> To give a bit of a feeling of my thinking and such, I wrote somewhat
> of a rant to explain what I would prefer, what I would see wrong with

"Rant" is a four letter word!  There are no shortage of things wrong so
the best thing we can to is try to provide constructive criticism
to convince developers to change things.  No one likes being told they are
wrong and you are right but if you can show people a better way they might
just follow your advice.

> 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

I largely blame Dell for the BIOS screen, after that I am shown a nice
menu provided by GRUB for a few seconds and then Fedora Core 3 shows a
picture of a computer and progress bar telling me things are loading.

If my hardware were from an enlightened Manufacturer that shared the
necessary specifications with the Linux BIOS project I might be able to
shorten the boot time even futher.
http://www.linuxbios.org/index.php/Main_Page

And as I think Calum Benson mentioned I woudn't have this problem if
I were using some of the non x86 (Intel/AMD) based systems which have
quite a different startup system.

If I had the money to buy a laptop I could probably use hibernate and not
need to boot my computer quite so often, and instead it would start almost
instantly.

> Consistency throughout the system.

As a former user of Microsoft Windows I value consistency highly, because
even if it is badly designed at least if it the system consistently makes
the same mistakes at least you can learn to work around them (and
sometimes you can even be tricked into believing you like it that way).

> Something that Gnome alone is unlikely to have much to say about,

We certainly try.

> may be um-comprehensible thing on the next one. To clarify, Ctrl-C
> should copy in each program when it is appropriate in all programs.
> Radio-buttons should look the same within the same environment,
> unless there is a specific reason not to do that (be that artistic,
> design issue, whatever).

You might be interested in Meta Theme http://metatheme.advel.cz/
It is only a new project but I am optimistic it will help remove some
of the superficial user visible difference between Gnome and KDE.

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

We could cop out and blame the Distributions or allow ourselves to be held
back by the absense of this key on some keyboards but the truth is a whole
lot users expect things to work in a certain way and we are failing them.
We should be able to add the keybidings these users are expecting, we
just need to make sure not to exclude users that do not have this key
available.

(Some of the keybidings I seriously miss:
Windows Key, Open Main menu;
Windows Key + M, Hide All Windows;
Windows Key + R, Run Dialog;
Windows Key + E, File Manager;)

If anyone knows of an approrpriate bug report or the tools that might be
necessary to sort this out once and for all please do let us know.

> If windows key does not exist, there can always be an option to
> configure it to be for example alt & ctrl together.

If I recall correctly Microsoft provided such a combination for users
that did not have the keybinding, and I think it was Ctrl+Alt


> 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...

I bet that would work on Mac OS.  If you are lucky you might be able to
drag from Firefox to your desktop but I think that would depend on your
setup.


> 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.

The KDE developers are getting better and the Open Usability team have
started to work with them.  If this is still the behaviour in the latest
version of KDE you might want to encourage them to change it.

Not much we can about that here on the Gnome Usability list.

> point exactly. But, consider that I am browsing the web for no
> reason, finding a quote that I would like to save.

> 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.

I quite like the Sticky Notes panel applet, you might give it a try.

Being able to drag and drop "scraps" of text to the desktop might be
interesting.

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

Some of the Eazel developers who originally created Nautilus must have
been high on on all that Internet boom Ventuer capital money because I
have no idea what they were thinking.

It sounds like you might be using an older version of Nautilus and I
believe more recent versions do not try so much to have embedded viewers
for everything.

> suitable program. 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?

With only a little tweaking you can set the default application for
opening images, and setup which other application appear in the open with
menu.

> 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.

It is more user friendly, certainly in the short term but there are
trade-offs in all package management systems and no one seems interested
in trying that approach for Gnome anytime soon so I wont go into it any
futher as it has been previously dicussed in great detail.  (A search of
the web should turn up many discussions and flamewars on teh topic.)


> 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.

You are lucky enough to have high quality hardware.  Developers and
graphic designers tend to have good hardware and mistakenly assume others
do too (the computer I am currently using is 1280x1024 but I often work
with much smaller displays).  It is worth looking at the w3 schools page
to get an idea of what size displays ordinary users have
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
and you can see most still use 1024x768 and some use even smaller
displays.

That is not an excuse, we should certainly try to make themes that will
look good on large displays.  You might want to try the SVG Themes, or
try to adjust the settings on your existing them (maybe use a large print
version of the theme if it is available)

> 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? 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. On
> windows, why, why do you need to go to your external usb stick / hard
> drive, through my computer? Why do I need to visit Program Files so
> often to remove the craps from there? Why do I need to know a
> directory /Windows even exists? (or /System, /bin, whatever).

There is certainly potential to reorganise things so that the user only
sees their home directory and the few other resources they need to be able
to see.  I expect developers will at some point find the time and
resources to give this approach a try.


> 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. In OS X, I would be really, really glad if I could
> position my trash can to such a corner, but no, there remains a few
> pixels that just make it impossible.

Using a distribution like Ubuntu which includes the relatively new
Trashcan panel applet you could put the Trash can on your Panel and
position it in the extreme corner (the Gnome developers are well aware of
Fitts Law and the Panel is designed explicitly to allow such behaviour).

Not much we here on the Gnome usability mailing list can do about Apple
though.

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

I don't hate the single button mouse at all.  I would almost go as far as
to say I love the idea because of the discipline it enforces on
developers.

The UFO saucer shaped mouse from Apple was a particularly horrid version
of the single button mouse but aside from that I think it is an exteremly
good idea.

You see the single button mouse forces developers to consider their
designs more carefully and if prevents them from burying features in
context menus.  With a single button mouse all features must be made
clearly available.

You mentioned consistency earlier and the consistency required to write an
application that properly fits in with Apple is very important and another
reason why I dont mind the single button mouse at all.  You see Apple
is so consistent that you can use ctrl+click to get the equivalent of
right click, so on those occasions I am using a Apple computer I can hold
the mouse in one hand and hit Control (ctrl) with the other.

Apple have designed their system so that you can always add a two button
mouse but you are never forced to have one to get things done.

It doesn't stop there, the single button mouse has an important impact
when it comes to accessibility.  Many accessibility devices are only single
button clickers (similar to devices used to click through presentations)
and if you start requiring more complicated systems you exclude all kinds
of people.  (And if you have ever suffered from Repettive Strain Injury
(RSI) you might have a better appreciation and already understand that
Accessibility is something everyone can benefit from.)

That doesn't mean that more complicated input systems cannot also be
supported but it does mean we need to have sane defaults that are usable
by the most people possible.

> I've started to think that as a good ground to design interfaces for
> computer. Not because it would be better as mouse, but because it is
> very close how one would operate a tablet, something I would like to see
> as a way to interact with the computers.

As you seem to be a graphic designer I am not surprised a tablet seems
like it would be the the most comfortable input tool for you (and pen
devices are often only single click, so it is a good thing Apple Macs are
designed to work best that way).  The beauty of open source is that you
can get involved and help make Gnome work well for pen+tablet interfaces.
The challenge for those of us interested in usability is to make a system
to that not just works for you but work well and also work well for as
the many other kinds of people with different needs.

(Phew, that was long.  Next time if you might be better off making one or
two short points and then waiting a while until people have a chance to
respond.  You will likely get more and better quality responses that way.)

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/