Re: [Usability] Special Open Source Issue of Interactions Magazine

[Lennart Borgman <lennart borgman 073 student lu se>]

Hi Phil,

Phil Bull wrote:
> Hi Lennart,
>
> On Tue, 2007-01-16 at 03:32 +0100, Lennart Borgman wrote:
> [...]
> > Antoher of my favorites when it comes to usability is my frustration 
> > about the continous wheel inventing. One time when I installed GNU/Linux 
> > everything went very, very fine -- until I should login and start using 
> > it. I had no mouse on that system. I tried Ctrl-Esc, the Window Keys, 
> > Ctrl-Alt-Del and everything else I learned from my MS Windows 
> > experience. Nothing of it worked.
> >
> > I never got to test GNU/Linux on that system because of that. Too much 
> > waste of time. Of mine and a lot of good developers that had worked hard 
> > to get the system to me. It all failed because of that reinvention of 
> > the wheel. Was it Alt+F2 that I should have hit? I am not sure, but I 
> > believed I heard that a month later. However I do not care, I do not 
> > want to learn that. Why should I? Instead I tried to get my point 
> > through to the developers and usability groups working with GNOME: Try 
> > to let the user use their experience. Even if they have experiences from 
> > the big EVIL MS. Do not bannish the users for their experience. That is 
> > just not the way forward!
>
> There are often good reasons why keyboard shortcuts are different to
> those on Windows. In the case of the Windows key, I believe the reason
> it's not used for the Applications menu (which you can access with Alt +
> F1) is because some of the platforms which GNOME can run on don't
> traditionally use keyboards with Windows keys. Not everyone is switching
> to GNOME from Windows! Note that many of the keyboard shortcuts on Mac
> OS are different too.


MS Windows has the key combination Ctrl+Esc to bring up the start menu 
just for that reason that the keyboard might not have those keys. This 
did not however work either. I see no reason why it should not work in 
GNOME.

Yes, not everyone is switching from Windows, but the majority of PC 
users are using MS Windows and I think we should try to welcome them to 
GNU/Linux.


> Apart from Alt + F1 and Alt + F2 (the Run dialog), I don't think that
> there are very many other differences. I do agree that the changes can
> be confusing, though.
>
> In GNOME, the recommended shortcuts are defined in the Human Interface
> Guidelines [1]. If you do find problems navigating in GNOME with the
> keyboard, please file a bug in the bugtracker [2].


Thanks for the pointers. I hope the guidelines will include Ctrl+Esc for 
the start menu too. That would have made it easier to start the system 
and maybe read the HIG ;-)


> Thanks,
>
> Phil

Thanks for your kind answer,
L

> [1] -
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input-keyboard.html
> [2] - http://bugzilla.gnome.org/