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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Hello all...
From:       Adam Sweet <any1fancyadrinky () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2001-08-22 1:35:06
[Download RAW message or body]

Hello to everyone, my name is Adam Sweet. I've been
lurking on the list for about a fortnight getting a
feel of it and waiting until I have something worth
saying and if 25+ emails through your box in a day
doesnt provide that then...
Anyway I'm a kind of standard end user thats just
starting to get to grips with the workings of
Linux/KDE (the first signs of geek stubble as it
were), but before you groan I'd say that I'm pretty
good at seeing how things work/should work and I like
getting my hands dirty with stuff like this, you don't
learn if you don't try etc. I'm starting a Comuter
Science degree in October so there will be something
academic to back this up and I am a member of a Linux
User Group, thats where I heard about this project.

I am willing to administer a usability study upon
potential and current users of KDE once I have a
satisfactory setup running (see the 'Install' bit), I
have a wide spread of computer users amongst my
friends plus potentially a Computer Science degree
student body ;)
I have a few usability issues that I will raise, but I
also have comments to make on several other threads
that have been going on, so I decided to write one
mail and break it up into headed parts so you can just
read whatever thread you're on. I have a tendancy to
waffle as you may have noticed, I'll try not to.
As other people have done, I will include the
disclaimer that these thoughts are my own from
personal experience or opinion, I certainly don't want
to tread on anyones toes this early in the game ;) The
format of this email does appear like I have appeared
from nowhere and said that this, this and this is
wrong, this is not my intention and I hope no-one
takes it that way, it's just I thought it would be
better than to drop 5 separate mails into the the list
at once. Where I have made suggestions I have tried to
explain my reasons. I don't wish to annoy anyone whose
work/thread I have commented on.

#1 Newbie tasks
#2 LWE Questionaire
#3 Installation
#4 Suggested KDE features


#1 Newbie tasks

Looks pretty good to me, one suggestion I have though
is rather than 'write a 1-page paper and print it out'
how about 'write a letter' and print it? This will
require wider use of formatting tools and menus
getting the user to give the software a bit more of a
workout (letter writing is a common task, as is a CV
though I imagine this would stretch the timescale for
the study to take place). I may be just being a bit
over specific here and this was something you had in
mind in the first place but just hadn't specified it
as such.

#2 LWE Questionaire

The questionaire looks pretty good, but don't forget
to include the possibility that some may have never
used Linux/BSD/other Unix before, some of them might
be just looking into the possibilities for their
companies rather than already using Linux etc. There
may well be some interested, yet 'Open Source shy'
corporate types who currently use
Windoze/MacOS/commercial Unix that would like to jump
across to OSS but are scared of where their support
will come from when it all goes wrong and the costs of
retraining staff, which poses the usability issue we
already know, corporate/office staff need to feel
*immediately* comfortable, capable and productive in
KDE and if they don't we need to know why. So perhaps
you could also add the question:
Do you use KDE at work? Y/N
Why/why not?

#3 Installation

This installation issue is a good one. Certainly the
process under Mandrake 8.0 (presumably simailar to
RH7.1) is pretty galling. I still haven't got some
stuff running (therefore I will need to before
undertaking a usability study) and had to uninstall
some packages that conflicted (Evolution and KDevelop
2.1.1 spring to mind amongst others) and forcing deps
at every corner turned.
The idea of a KDE Installer is a good one. I wrote a
big thing here about the possibility of an install
routine that has a look around in 'the usual places'
for all of the necessary libs and include files
required but realised that I don't have the facts to
back up what I was gonna say so i deleted it, but the
starting point was the Netscape 6 installer, does it
contain all the necessary files (ie distro specific
downloads) when you get it? I don't think it does, but
if someone else knows better... Anyway perhaps this
could use some thought. It creates it's own folder in
/usr/local/ and does all of the hard work at install
time, finding what it needs etc. Well whatever. As I
said I don't have the facts :(
Standardisation of the filesystem and where certain
config and 'installation necessary' files reside would
be excellent but as someone said, this would require
co-operation of the major players, many of whom may
have incompatible ideologies and is likely to be
wishful thinking for a while. It probably will happen
in the next few years, but it does take people like us
to keep prodding the idea.
Sorry about the rant, it's just that the idea of a raw
newbie installing a fresh KDE release is a big issue.
Certainly it was enough to make me clear the error
messages, logout and return to Windoze for a good
while. As someone said, a Windows or MacOS user will
look at Linux for the first time and think, "This is
Linux, this is what it LOOKS like", rather than "This
is Linux running KDE/Gnome etc. If it's hard to
upgrade who'll use it?

#4 Suggested KDE feature

I had quite a few issues, but waited to see if they
got sorted in 2.2, most of them did but this one still
remains. Would it be possible to invoke KPPP whenever
a program (if not, then maybe just KDE programs) comes
across an address that begins htyp:// or ftp:// etc or
requires internet access such as irc etc. This may be
redundant soon as broadband rolls out, but if British
(I don't know about anywhere else, I know North
America is ok) ISPs continue to be anally retentive
about broadband then it is still of use, it is also
useful in developing countries where broadband or 24/7
internet access will not arrive for the foreseeable
future. A little issue really but it helps.
Also, in Konqueror, it would be good if you could set
your homepage from within the program rather than
having to use the KDE Control Centre. It took me a
while to find it.
The history tab or menu was a good idea too.


Thanks for listening, sorry it's so long,
Adam

=====
Use Linux. Because it's better.

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