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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    RE: KDE usability study
From:       "Jonathan Bacon" <j.bacon () delta ! wlv ! ac ! uk>
Date:       2001-08-31 9:58:20
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> >- conduct tests on the applications usability
> 
> I think that the optional part should be our next
> step and not an option. The objective part comes
> from having the statistics on user performance
> during usability tests. Of course, the subjective
> part is the choice of test tasks. 
> 
> One of the issues I see so far with our approach
> is that the usability reports are nothing more
> than bug-tracking at this point. The reports
> should really be veiwed as a means to create a
> usability test as described in Jakob Neilsen's
> book "Usability Engineering".

The current system that I am writing is nothing more than a way of users
submitting usability issues and maintainers tracking them. It is one
part of many ideas for the study.

> While R&D is all well and good, we don't even
> have common paradigms and metaphors well
> implemented. Creating new interfaces is fun, but
> can detract from the usability.

My thoughts on this are part of stopping KDE from being a GUI and
environment that copies current metaphor and attempts to innovate. One
thing I have noticed from setting up this study is how many new people
who are not coders want to help KDE...I am sure that some innovative
developers are out there who would enjoy researching new interface
metaphor. If nothing is used by them then so be it...but one of my
primary goals in my work for KDE is enabling the environment for people
to contribute.

> I think we may better be served by putting lots
> of efforts into a few applications than putting a
> small amount of efforts on a wide array of
> applications. Having the reports is only really
> helpful if a study is performed to confirm the
> problem. A couple of vocal people that don't like
> some aspect of a perfectly adequate application
> shouldn't be in a position to have their
> suggestions implemented without independent
> verification that their issue is truly a
> usability problem.

This is a *very* good point. We need to ensure abalute integrity in our
reports. Fewer better quality reports are better than lots of low
quality ones I agree. I think the key is in good documentation on
maintaining reports and quality testing.

> Don't be fooled into thinking that you can get
> accurate, reliable, and complete information from
> a quesitonaire. Users may hate those annoying
> javascript popup windows when they fill out a
> form wrong, but it may lead to a reduction in
> their error rate. Taking a questionaire approach,
> you may be tempted to remove the popups, but then
> your error rate would go up. Where's the benefit.

Agreed. Users are not usability engineers, and to be honest neither am
I. We need to harness the knowledge of the current team to percieve the
reports and usability bugs as best we can.

> I'd like to write some guidelines for:
> 1)Designing a usability test
> 2)Getting subjects for a usability test
> 3)Running a usability test
> 4)Interpreting the results
> 5)Relaying them to the developers

This is great! One thing we have a sever lack of is a suitable knowledge
base of documentation for KDE related usability testing and design. If
you can write some documentation that would be great.

> Jono, Your work does not go unnoticed. I
> appreciate the work you have done on keeping this
> project going.

Cheers. :-) My focus is on making KDE better, and I think every one of
us is doing a good job at doing this. We just need to figure out a good
plan (which is going well here) and implement it. It's nice to hear that
this work is noticed. :-)

> BTW, getting subjects for tests is not always
> easy. It's made simpler by having a token of
> appreciation given to the participants. I know
> this project has no money set aside for this, but
> I'd like to know if anyone has ideas on what we
> could do to entice people to do the tests?
> 
> My ideas are:
> * Having bumper stickers we can pass out (print
> them to bumper-sticker paper individually)
> * Left-over vendor give-a-ways from conferences
> (pens, pencils, keychains, etc.)
> * home made cds of Linux w/KDE...
> * refer them to paypal for $5 referral bonus.

This is maybe something we need to discuss more. I honestly don't think
an asset based incentive such as money or a gift is an option. We may be
able to give the first 20 candidates a free SuSE CD or something, but
the problem comes when people after that demand a CD also.

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