From kde-usability Fri Aug 24 11:48:47 2001 From: "Jonathan Bacon" Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:48:47 +0000 To: kde-usability Subject: RE: Usability Bugs and.....? X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-usability&m=99865405313434 Hi Rob, You make some *excellent* points here. Let me explain the ideas floating in my own head. The whole concept of usability bug reports is only part of the study. IT is one thing that needs to be integrated so usability issues can be identified on current software. There are so many other things that can and need to be done. These include: - KDE Research A subset of the study is to built a research project to identify future areas where KDE can be improved and extended. This would be a precursor to development. - Test suite development We need to built plans for gathering information. For example, we need to find out the type of people who use KDE. This can be done with a profiling test suite to gather this data from users. Maybe a poll on dot.kde.org could be done or on www.kde.org. We also need to develop test suites for parts of KDE. For example I would like to see a test suite on the icons in KDE to see if they are understood by users optimally. We need to develop questions, tests and the like. This is where work on the Question API will continue. The simple truth is this study is whatever *we* make of it. If you feel you have an idea for a usability test or concept that could help, then let us know and go ahead. The more help we have and work the better. :-) Jono -----Original Message----- From: Robert Watkins [mailto:robert_maria@yahoo.com] Sent: 24 August 2001 12:14 To: kde-usability@mail.kde.org Subject: Usability Bugs and.....? When I created the Usability Report for KPlato, I was struck by the fact that the reports are designed solely to be bug reports. This bothers me. Usability needs to be on the front-end of development and not just the back-end. It is not a User Acceptance Test type of activity, it is an activity that starts during requirements gathering.=20 Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself because I know that introducing Usability into any development environment is difficult. I'm just afraid that we'll give the wrong impression that bug tracking is all that Usability is good for. I think some of the efforts on doing a study with users is a good idea, but we need to introduce the topic of Usability to the developers so that they understand and apprecite the benefits of this aspect of application development. Am I off base? Robert Watkins =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability