Re: [Usability] Overthinking things.

[kerberos piestar net]

Quoting Jacob Beauregard <deadowlsurvivor gmail com>:

> Note: I may have mixed "Overthinking things." with "Reaching Users".
>
> On Wed, 2009-12-09 at 11:34 +0000, kerberos piestar net wrote:
> > Quoting Charline <charline poirier canonical com>:
> > The main issue with the community is that they are emotionally
> > invested in Linux and the resulting movement so see criticism of it as
> > criticism of themselves (and take it personally) causing most attempts
> > at honest feedback to result in a flamewar - through no real fault of
> > anyones.
>
> I don't believe that criticism is taken personally at large so long as
> it's constructive. Some hackers will reprimand you for disagreeing with
> them. After I read Javascript: The Good Parts, I thought it was very
> good but found that some of my uses of Javascript's syntax that were
> discouraged in the book didn't reflect the arguments that were used in
> discouraging, so I sent Douglas Crockford an email asking him what about
> such and such use cases? I got a response saying that I can write crappy
> code if I want to. In GNOME, at least, I haven't found that attitude
> pervasive, though it isn't rare.

My first experiences with the 'community' were in the Warty days, when  
I was trialling Ubuntu to see if it was feasable to roll it out in my  
internet cafe (I was putting in another bunch of machines and didn't  
want to pay the MS tax (as I could then spend it on beer instead)).   
Unfortunatley there was too many thing that people were having  
problems with, so I made a list (and was optimistic, hopeful and  
polite - I wanted to get involved) and posted it on Ubuntuforums.  A  
host of regulars then proceeded to 'debunk' my points, including  
things like 'How about a bootsplash - the scrolling text scares my  
customers' and 'How about double clickable to install .deb files'.  I  
don't see how either of those things could possibly be a bad idea but  
I was attacked and called a noob for suggesting them.  As far as I am  
aware the forums are the same now - suggesting things just leads to  
arguments.

> I gave my dad a computer that I loaded Linux onto. He complained that he
> didn't know how to use Linux, swapped it out for Windows, downloaded a
> virus, and now wants to go back to using Linux again. His primary
> concerns are that he can't use Netflix, and that OpenOffice doesn't save
> in a format that MS Office uses. The former is complicated, and the
> latter is inaccurate, but saving a file in a format other than the
> default one is something my dad doesn't really understand. In essence,
> Average Joe Developer would mark this as invalid whereas a usability
> expert would try to find some way to correct the misperception.

I actually use OO in the cafe instead of MS Office as I can't justify  
the thousands of pounds that it would cost.  I set it up to save as  
.doc by default (plus other tweaks) and honestly 99% of people never  
even notice it's not Word.

A large percentage of people are scared of any form of change or break  
in routine - It's quite disappointing a lot of the time, but I  
generally discount such people and just give them the new stuff when  
the old is obsolete and their machine breaks.  I would certainly not  
attribute any of the problems you describe as problems with Linux.

> I think this is the kind of bug where filtering for developers would
> make sense. Maybe bugs marked as invalid and worksforme should take a
> different status than "Closed" for this reason.

I think usability bugs should be tackled at a project management and  
'big picture' level, rather than as a coder vs reporter thing as  
neither may fully understand the implications.  There should be a  
seperate system for identifying, reporting and acting on them.

> On Wed, 2009-12-09 at 22:50 +0800, Lincoln Yeoh wrote:
> > If the system requires users to convert a _valid_ "stuff is broken"
> > report into multiple bug reports, before broken stuff gets fixed,
> > then it just makes things less likely to be fixed. The users might
> > actually have alternatives they can use, so they go away and stuff
> > stays broken. The developer may feel that's fine with him/her, but it
> > does not help the project.
>
> I break up other people's bugs at work as a developer. It's not that big
> of a deal.

I deal with raw human bug reports, usually along the lines of 'the  
text isn't displaying correctly' and other such horrifically  
uninformative reports.  I am personally just grateful if they actually  
specify what's wrong in detail.

> With usability, it's probably easier to intercept and pass on, though
> there are some cases where the user is sure it's a bug and the developer
> is sure it's not where it would be a benefit to have someone to take
> perspective to both sides. Some are invalid. Some require further
> dialog. I would suggest adding a "Review" status to bug trackers where
> things need further elaboration. Maybe not the best idea, but it removes
> the black and white of open/closed.

Again, I don't think developers should be dealing with raw human  
usability bug reports at all.  A seperate system where they could be  
aggregated and acted upon by people dedicated to the task who could  
then identify systematic and architectural problems, create a detailed  
plan of action and present that to the developers, rather than having  
them deal with hundreds of unrelated tiny points (which individually  
are insignificant, but together are important) would be a good idea.   
Sure the little issues (such as in Thunderbird 3 the User Accounts  
dialogue doesn't fit into a 600px high netbook screen) are still bugs  
though and should be tracked as such.

Usability bugs, imo, are often far too subjective and open to debate  
to fit into something as rigid as a bug tracker or ideapit - as your  
idea is constantly subject to change based on opinions or alternative  
ideas.  For those reasons a more lax, casual environment is preferable  
for their discussion.