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Posted on 10/11/2005 12:56:54 PM PDT by N3WBI3
Welcome!
Better Desktop is a project dedicated to sharing usability data with Linux developers. Over the past year, we have conducted many usability tests on different parts of the KDE and GNOME desktops. We created this site to serve as a place where developers can watch videos of these tests. Here you will find over 200 videos of people using Mozilla Firefox, Evolution, Open Office, Banshee, F-Spot and other applications. All of these can be found in the data section of this site.
The video repository on this site is growing. We will continue to add video as we produce it. Please visit us again soon to see what is new.
Better Desktop is sponsored by Novell. It is part of the OpenSUSE project. Why We Do Usability Testing
We do usability testing at Novell because we want Linux to be easy-to-use and easy-to-learn. Usability testing provides us with a reliable way to measure how well different software designs meet these goals. We do usability tests for three main reasons:
1. To find out which parts of a given design work well for our target audience and which parts don't. For example, we ran general tests on the F-Spot photo organizer because we wanted to gain an overall understanding of what its interface did well, and what it did poorly.
2. To compare the effectiveness of various designs. For example, we ran comparison tests on KDM and GDM to figure out which program was more usable for members of our target audience.
3. To verify that our specific usability goals have been satisfied. For example, after running several iterations of tests on the Gnome sound capplet, we proposed a set of changes to its user interface. After these changes were made, we ran a round of usability tests on the capplet to ensure that our changes did in fact help us to meet our goals for that tool. Data
Our testing methodology allows us to collect many kinds of data, including behavioral data, qualititative data, and quantitative data. Each of these types of data helps us to build better software in a different way:
1. We collect behavioral data simply by watching our test subjects use our software. By paying close attention to what they are doing and saying as they go through our tests, we learn about their habits, their workflows and their expectations. This data helps us to gain a more complete understanding of how people in the real world relate to computers.
2. We collect qualitiative data by videotaping our subjects as they think outloud about our software. This data helps us to make educated guesses about how to improve our designs. It helps us to understand how our test subjects feel about the software they are using. By paying attention to our test subjects' expressions, tones of voice, gestures and pauses, we can learn to improve the quality of their experience. We use qualititative data to help us make using our software pleasant.
3. We collect quantitative data by keeping track of statistics like how many test subjects completed a given task correctly, the average time it took to complete a given task, the percentage of test subjects who gave up on a given task, etc. Over time, we will add more statistical data to this site.
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Woo-Hoo! I'm cancelling my NetFlix account! I've got free video entertainment for months to come!!
I see youre a software tester thought you might find interest in this..
"Linux" is not difficult. In fact, I can make the case that it is easier to use than Windows. The learning curve may be steeper, but the ease-of-use once you have learned it, is better.
lol
When you're talking about ease of use though mostly you're talking about learning curve. Something with a steep learning curve which is easy once you figure it out is what we generally call "expert friendly". Expert friendly isn't entirely a bad thing, it's good to have strong features for power users, but if you want to bust into the mass market you need a shallow learning curve that eventually leads to power user capabilities for those that want to dig that deep. To rule the desktop world you need to get as close to possible to appliance level of initial usability, pretty much anybody that's ever heard of a microwave or toaster or Foreman grill can take one out of the box and cook something with it in the first 10 minutes. Really Mac has consistently come the closest to that, depending on who you're buying from pre-configured WindowsXP comes in anywhere from a close to distant 2nd, Linux and company are sitting near the bottom slightly easier than Win3.1 (which had some horribly counterintuitive things about it). But they're improving the Linux variants, the hard part is keeping the power users happy while dumbing down the first 10 minutes, seems like they're on the right path though.
I'm not trying to start a flame war here--it's an honest question--but why do you rank Linux below Windows? Why is Apple above them? I've never used a Mac, so I don't kow anything about them.
In initial out of the box usability by people who go in knowing functionally nothing about it, absolutely. The general test used for this stuff these days is connecting to the internet, right out of the box you can get an XP machine on the net in 10 or 15 minutes, Linux isn't there yet (not talking about how long it takes somebody who knows what they're doing before hand, we're talking about the green newbie) by a long shot, Apple's been there for a long time. Apple has been geared towards the complete newbie for a while, they were the first guys to color and shape code plugs (as far back as 93 at least the only way you could plug something into the wrong outlet on a Mac was with a hammer), they were the first guys to pretty much throw the final stage of configuration at the user in easy to understand wizards. Not that I'm a Machead (actually I don't really like them, still scarred from System 7) but really anybody who generally knows their way around computer logic can figure out Macs to the point of being a power user in minutes, they are really easy to learn.
First, My linux distro usually is on the net as I install it--with no input from me.
Second, how do you define "power user?" Someone who can push the right buttons? Or someone who actually knows what's going on and knows why he's doing what he's doing?
I understand why you say what you say--I jsut happen to disagree. I was coming from the point of a user who, once he's learned the ins and outs of his system, can perform necessary tasks far easier than his countepart in Windows.
As a really simple example, take this arbitrary exercise: You want to move five lines (paragraphs) from the middle of a text document to the end.
In MS Word; MS WordPad; or MS Notepad; all "user-friendly" Windows text editors, the quickest way to do this is:
- Ctrl-Shift-Down
- Ctrl-Shift-Down
- Ctrl-Shift-Down
- Ctrl-Shift-Down
- Ctrl-Shift-Down
- Ctrl-X
- Ctrl-End
- Ctrl-V
(That's assuming you use the keyboard. Otherwise, you need some Click-and-Drag mouse operations and a reliable autoscroll.)
In vi, however, it is:
- d5d
- Shift-g
- p
Now, understanding that learning the software (learning curve) is harder, the task itself is easier for someone who has learned the software. With vi it is only 3 steps. Under Windows text editors, it is 8 steps. 3 steps is generally easier than 8 steps.
Did you mean to indicate that it is a more difficult to learn?
A steep learning curve would indicate that something is relatively easy to learn.
Not true. The "tree view" portion that works like "Windows Explorer" is much more difficult to navigate, you can't just click on most "exe" files and have them start right up (most require command line activation) and installing 3rd party software can lead to ulcers.
My wife and kids (all MS users) pretty much refuse to use my Linux PC because they find it too daunting, yet they picked up Windows right away.
Having said that, I find Linux to be a pretty good operating system and it's "bundled" software is much more plentiful than Windows. There are the above mentioned problems but only the "dependency" issue is totally frustrating.
Linux is close, but not quite there yet. The future for this OS is limitless.
But you have to install it, part of the difference here for Linux is the general (though not complete) lack of availability of pre-installed. Newbies use the OS on the machine, once a person gets to the point of acquiring a Linux distro they've already moved past the point of a pure newbie.
Power users, the general definition, are people that can perform their own maintenance functions, and are fairly functional in keyboard shortcuts.
Quickest != easiest. That's one of the differences between power users and regular users, power users use the keyboard short cuts (actually your shortcut is wrong, to do that the keyboard shortcut way it's hold shift-down down down down down, ctrl-X, ctrl-end, ctrl-v; you don't need control and shift for that edit actually control makes it not happen). Regular users are going to use the mouse, click-hold-drag, menu, scroll and no you don't need a reliable autoscroll you can use the scrollbar, menu. Not as fast but easier to learn, it's actually very intuitive and requires no more knowledge than you can gain in 5 minutes of screwing around with the mouse and the menu options are pretty obvious ("hmmm Edit.... cut, sounds about right").
Which is exactly my point, vi is a classic example of expert friendly, incredibly powerful, incredibly fast, a stone bitch to learn. Counting steps is the wrong way to do it, when deciding if something is easier for the new user you look at the intuitiveness of the steps. Just how much knowledge would a person have to have in order to accomplish the task, regardless of the number of steps, it could take 100 steps but as long as each step is intuitive and can be readily deduced by some idiot you just dragged off the street who's never used this app before and possibly never used a computer before it's still probably pretty easy. Your definition of easy is power user centric, that's not the real world's definition of easy, in fact it's the exact opposite of what we use in real world usability testing. Sure if you know vi that's easy, IF you know vi, grab some guy off the street that's never heard of vi and ask him to perform that task it'll take him an hour if he can do it at all, dump the same text file and the same guy from a cave in front of Notepad and it'll take him 5 minutes tops and that's only if he's never used a mouse before. Notepad easy, vi expert friendly.
I tried to install Suse on my PC and it had could not recognize my USB ports and wouldn't load. It just hung there in permanent limbo. Eventually I gave up and tried Mandrake 10.1, which I like a lot. The dependancy issues with Mandrake are ridiculous, however.
I recently installed Mandriva 10.2. All I needed to do to get on the net was click on the little globe icon on the bottom of my screen. Firefox came up, ready to go wherever I wanted to.
That is why I insist on installing software via RPM's. Everything usually goes where it's supposed to go. No command line BS. RPMFind[dot]net usually has what I'm looking for, packaged for my distro and platform.
I have tried every release of Mandrake since 9.0. The latest, Mandriva LE 2005 (Mandrake 10.2)has been a joy to use. It comes with Firefox already bundled in. Most of the things that didn't quite work right before now work flawlessly.
I'm not a computer techie by any means, just a regular user that has waited patiently for an affordable alternative to Microsoft's virtual monopoly on the desktop world. Not that I'm against them selling a product, just believe that competition is a healthy thing.
There's at least 300 versions already, and no they're not all compatible, not even close.
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