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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    User feedback before beta?
From:       Alastair Nicol <calaban.madness () blueyonder ! co ! uk>
Date:       2001-08-20 1:16:42
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I had an intresting thought about KDE usability after installing 2.2. 
There are a few new features which, for me, makes KDE less usable.  Now i'm 
not to bothered about these because "peer" review from users will get feed 
into the next relase and i'm sure i'm not alone.

Technical issues are black and white. they are easy ;-) to test. Usability is 
very subjective, gray. So requires a large number of users to test.

anyway my point is that the current peer review process prior to final 
release  is only acessable to technical users of kde. Now i know 2.2beta was 
out for a month or so, available via RPM. but a month is too short a time to 
get feed back from users and too late in the development cycle, usability 
testing shoulld be performed VERY early in the development cycle.

Also downloading 20 large RPM's & fighting through installing with -nodep 
options, and other missing libraries that the new version requires isnt the 
job you expect a user to do.

I think a lot of "users" would be very happy to beta test usability features 
if a) quickly downloaded - 2mb? b) easily installed on their machine c) 
Uninstalled very easiliy.

There might need to be a different feedback mechanism, rather than a normal 
"bug" report.  a bug is black and white, its just reproducing the problem is 
a pain.

Usability is easy to reproduce. "why do i have to do a+b+c+d+e to do task z, 
rather than g+h which would be quicker." but would require LOTS of feedback 
to get trends on whats good & bad.

what are peoples feelings?? 

erm. im new here! background.....

Application developer for tooooo many years. mainly IBM MVS / Windoze. 
Discovered Linux recently and havnt had so much fun since the bbc micro! 
(suse7.1+kde)

Alastair Nicol






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