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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Cardsortinig KMenu (was:Re: [another PATCH]: Kicker find as
From:       seele () obso1337 ! org
Date:       2005-05-05 12:30:54
Message-ID: 52885.209.116.240.11.1115296254.squirrel () webmail ! halcyonhosting ! net
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absolutely.  this list is certainly evidence that developers think
different than every day users.

From what Ive gathered from previous discussions about audience, KDE's
target audience is every day (moderate) users in a work or home
environment that are fairly competent with computers but are far from
being sysadmins, developers or serious hobbyists.

After doing more research on card sorting apps, there seem to be a few
which are java apps that would eliminate users having to install software
(other than a missing plugin) and allow us to control the sort and data.

Would it be more beneficial to come up with possible categories for users
to organize data in or should this be a more exploratory experiement to
see how users want to organize their data. Two scenerios I can think of
are task-based organization (different apps related to a specific task
such as the koffice suite and PIM) and relation-based organization (all
editors, all webbrowsers, all crypto apps), but there could be more. The
current kmenu seems to be a mix of both.

Does anyone on the list who has a cog-psych background have any important
pointers for this kind of card sort?

> Card Sorting is an excellent tool to find out how users structure data.
> But if we do a card sorting with the members of this list (or other
> KDE-lists), we will get the opinion of kde-savvy users only. This will
> make KDE better for the members of this list, but not for normal users.
> Therefore: If card sorting, then take normal users (we can define this).
>
> jan
>
>
>
> seele@obso1337.org wrote:
>> there are also webbased card sorts where the admin sets up the sort and
>> users log in and do the sorting.  NIST actually has a card sort called
>> WebCAT (http://zing.ncsl.nist.gov/WebTools/WebCAT/overview.html) that
>> uses
>> a java applet.
>>
>> it seems as if a card sort would be a beneficial endevour.  are there
>> any
>> comments as to what kind should be performed? (fixed categories or user
>> added categories)
>>
>>
>>>seele@obso1337.org wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>mozdev has a crossplatform card sorting tool we can use:
>>>>http://uzilla.mozdev.org/cardsort.html
>>>>
>>>>i havnt personally used this before, but it is the best referenced
>>>> cross
>>>>platform cardsort app.
>>>
>>>I have personally used it before (plus a lot of the other card sorting
>>>programs out there). Back then, it must have been 6 months or so ago, it
>>>was pretty difficult to install. I have just tried it again and it
>>>failed to download some needed extension. From my quick experience it's
>>>unusable in its current state. So sticking to cardsort would in my
>>>opinion be a very bad choice.
>>>
>>>I'd go for http://cardsword.sf.net It looks promising and doesn't depend
>>>on Mozilla as a browser since it's written in Java. I got it to work on
>>>both Mac OSX and Linux without any problems and suppose it should be the
>>>same with Windows.
>>>
>>>Nevertheless most card sorting programs in my opinion have one problem
>>>in common: they still need too much interaction from the user. They ask
>>>users to download the software, run it, in the end probably even mail
>>>the results to the card sorting administrator. That's too much for a
>>>rather strenuous task people do not profit from at once. That's why a
>>>card sorting tool should be web based, easy to use, and request from the
>>>user as little interaction beyond the actual sorting as possible.
>>>
>>>Florian
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>kde-usability mailing list
>>>kde-usability@kde.org
>>>https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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