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List: kde-usability
Subject: Re: No, not just yet! ;)
From: Eric Ellsworth <whalesuit () softhome ! net>
Date: 2002-10-23 4:37:23
[Download RAW message or body]
On Tuesday 22 October 2002 8:58 pm, Jason Bainbridge wrote:
> I am planning to start semi-formally gathering requirements for the new
> design and look at it as a real life project using the proper methodologies
> as I think this has been one of the major problems with the way things have
> been developing.
Glad to hear it. What you propose sounds to me like a spec. I thoroughly
support writing a spec for the website - especially as it might help the
usability team establish some practices in this regard - and, I will
hopefully improve my own spec-writing skills through the discussions.
> I will be doing my best to trawl through
> past mailing list posts and recording anything that is usable as a
> requirement, but not any of the "I like this one better" comments unless
> there is a reason given that can be used as a requirement.
Excellent idea. Perhaps you can post a summary of this trawling to the
usability.kde.org?
> I think this step backwards is going to end up being a huge step forward in
> the long run, we shouldn't be rushing into anything as when you rush you
> make mistakes.
Yes. I also think this is a good opportunity to think about KDE's interaction
with people outside of the tech community. The project would be well served
by making clear information about itself readily available.
> Eric's analysis is a perfect example of the kind of stuff we need so it is
> a good starting point to expand upon as suggested by Irwin.
Can I suggest set up some usage scenarios, act them out, and review the
results? And also decide roughly how many usage scenarios we need to cover a
reasonable cross section of people?
Attached is a usage scenario as I've described. Please let me know if you
think this is useful. Likewise, if someone could post this to the web for
review, dissection, and modification, it would be much appreciated
Cheers,
Eric
["usage-scenario1.html" (text/html)]
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CONTENT-TYPE" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<TITLE></TITLE>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 (Linux)">
<META NAME="CREATED" CONTENT="20021022;21134600">
<META NAME="CHANGED" CONTENT="20021022;21344500">
<STYLE>
<!--
@page { margin-left: 3.18cm; margin-right: 3.18cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; \
margin-bottom: 2.54cm }
-->
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY LANG="en-US">
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Usage scenario for kde.org</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Eric Ellsworth 22 October
2002</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Scenario EE-22-10-02-1</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">"Intermediate" user - wants
support</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">User has a sound problem - sound won't
play under KDE</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">This person is a moderately tech savvy
person, who knows enough to seek information from a website, though
new to Linux, and definitely does not understand either /dev, or the
presence of artsd.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Availability of appropriate
information: 7/10</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Ability of site to direct user
appropriately: 3/10</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">After scanning the site (as this user),
I found two possible places to look:</P>
<OL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Documentation</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">FAQ</P>
</OL>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Process</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">On my first, scan, I chose "FAQ",
but as it had dense text, I backed up to "Documentation".
The first link on documentation, called "Getting Answers to your
Questions"points to the page <A \
HREF="http://www.kde.org/faq.html">http://www.kde.org/faq.html</A>. However, \
immediately below that is a link to "KDE FAQ", pointing to: <A \
HREF="http://www.kde.org/documentation/faq/index.html">http://www.kde.org/documentation/faq/index.html</A>.
I backed up to <A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">www.kde.org</A> again,
and looked at FAQ. This time I read FAQ more closely. After reading
through "General KDE questions", I
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Recommendations:</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"> Merge documentation and FAQ elements
on the front page into a single element called "Help with KDE".
Merge <A HREF="http://www.kde.org/documentation/index.html">http://www.kde.org/documentation/index.html</A>
with <A HREF="http://www.kde.org/faq.html">http://www.kde.org/faq.html</A>,
placing all under www.kde.org/help/. Move license notification to a
link to license terms document (this should preferrably be something
a little friendlier than the plain old GPL).</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">I thought about a wizard or search
engine approach, but I think this is not something I or others will
devote enough effort to to make it really work. However, if there
were a decent way to collect mailing list and IRC questions in a
database, this would be a useful help tool.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
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