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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Mini usability study
From:       James Richard Tyrer <tyrerj () acm ! org>
Date:       2004-09-29 15:53:44
Message-ID: 415ADA88.30309 () acm ! org
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Maurizio Colucci wrote:

Some of this is Windows Disease and some of it could be improved by 
configuration.  That is, some of this represents valid points and some of it is 
just useless junk.
> 
> - in the panel config dialog, which he found by right-clicking, he said 
> he didn't understand why sometimes he read "panel" and sometimes "taskbar".

Proactive inhibition.  Windows has different names for things.  Many fail to
understand that the TaskBar is a Panel applet.

> - he complained that he clicked a picture and he couldn't see it all, 
> only one piece at a time. (konqueror has no resize capability).

It does help to understand that Konqueror doesn't actually display pictures.
We have two embedded viewers: one with magnification control and one without.

> - when I suggested to right click and use kuickshow, he complained about 
> having to remember the name.

> - when using kuickshow, he couldn't use it because it has no menu and 
> didn't try to right-click.

And we have two image viewers one with toolbars and one without.

I think that you should have suggested he configure the system to use the type 
he wanted.

> - "what's this home folder? Where are my disks?" he didn't understand 
> how to access the files on the windows partition (mounted in /win). When 
> I showed him the "devices" tab in konqueror's navigation panel, he said 
> that wasn't the right place to put the disks, and that "they should be 
> the first thing you see when you click home". When I explained the 
> concepts of "mounting", and the fact that the disks appear in a folder 
> determined in suse's YAST, he said it seemed complicated.

Yes, the HOME folder is not a good concept.  I have made suggestion, but 
everyone seemed to think that I was wrong.

> - he was very annoyed by not finding how to read the free space on the 
> disks.
> 
> - When I suggested kdiskfree for that purpose, he said that he doesn't 
> want to remember all those names.

Well, "disk free" is really hard to remember, isn't it?  Did you have the 
comments turned off in the menu.  The menu says: "View Disk Usage" on my system.

> - he didn't like the fact that kicker doesn't stick from the rest (it 
> has the same light color, whereas winXP has a dark blue, with white 
> characters in the taskbar)

This is the opposite of the way KDE is designed -- so that everything matches. 
But, this is possibly a valid point: background for TaskBar items could be set 
like the background for the icons.

> - he said the start button was too small and didn't stick from the rest.

You can change the background color of the start button.  I would like to be 
able to have the button and ALSO set the color.

> - he complained there wasn't any "show desktop" button on kicker. He 
> couldn't find the way to add it to the kicker.

Perhaps a good test should include reading at least the basic manual.

> - in k3b, he did not succeed in burning a cd by continuing a 
> multisession (when shown the option, he complained that k3b should 
> understand the session must be continued, because it's obvious)
> 
> - he was annoyed by the fact that the suse control center didn't allow 
> him to disable the integrated sound card of his motherboard in order to 
> use the soundblaster.

Hardware setup is a distro issue.  But, perhaps this is an idea for a KDE 
application -- something to configure ALSA and edit "/etc/modules.conf".  The 
database already exists on the ALSA web site.

> - he liked kwin's snap-to-grid positioning.
> 
> - he said when you drag a file from konqueror to the taskbar (in order 
> to activate k3b) the mouse cursor should not appear as a circle with a 
> diagonal bar inside, because thaat means it is not working.

Is this a bug or does he need to read the fine manual?  You are supposed to wait 
for that to go away before you drop.

> - When I installed kde 3.3, he had problems right-clicking a file in 
> detailed view mode, because he was not clicking on the name, but on the 
> white space beside the name, so the menu for the whole window was 
> appearing.
> 
> - He complained that left-clicking an avi didn't play it. (noatun was 
> starting, even though I installed gmplayer and kaffeine from packman)

Just like Windows, you have to configure which app will be used.

> - he didn't understand how to change the default association for playing 
> avi files.

Unfortunately, this isn't as easy as it used to be.  The menu item was replaced 
with a "Magic Button".

> - he plugged his digital usb camera in and nothing happened.

You can turn that off.  Personally, I prefer to have the icon there all of the 
time for mountable devices.  For PnP, it would be nice if the icon grayed out if 
they were not plunged in.

> - he couldn't use kfind when I asked him to, because he wasn't entering 
> the asterisks in the "name" textbox.

Isn't this exactly the same as Windows?

> - he asked if it was possible to rename "yast" to "control panel" 
> because he doesn't want to remember names.

Well Duh@

> - when I explained him there are actually two control panels, the kde 
> one and the suse one, he said this is madness.

Yes, it is madness.  Distros with extra features are not an improvement.  If we 
keep adding such features to KDE, we are going to need a KDE distro or a very 
stock distro like LFS.

> - his final comment is that "this linux is confusing and not friendly".

Many people make that mistake.  He wasn't really using Linux, he was using KDE. 
  Would it be better on Solaris or BSD?

--
JRT
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