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So, not only users pay for Adobe products, not only these products are closed-source, but the user is also feeding the business of a profit-making analytics company as well as helping some marketing guys in Adobe justify their bonuses without the user getting any payment. User software usage data have value, so why should the user give up their usage data with no payment? Why should Adobe users give all this value for free without something in return? We do this with free software like Gimp (via ingimp), but I see no reason why one should help closed-source shops this way. One could say that users are paid in terms of better software releases, but I call bullshit: if Adobe was so concerned about this they would make their stuff free. We all know very well that there is no business reason (apart from legalities over code copyright belonging to third parties etc) to keep the code hidden, since making money with free software is not only possible but many times easier (and more ethical, since the user is not coerced in any way). This is the best way to conduct business: Create value without coercion. The popularity of a free software package can quickly be monetised, for example soon-to-be-a-Dr Drupal founder recently got $7 million out of the blue. I actually could go on to even say that not making a piece of software free is stupid from all perspectives (business, ethical, etc).

That may be so (1024x768 being the default resolution for Linux for ages), but 90% of the ingimp users so far are Windows users (see http://www.ingimp.org/stats/system_stats ). So your explanation of the result doesn't explain this finding.

Michael Terry

Well, I wish you luck Prof. Terry, but I see from a mile away this is not going anywhere. For what I know, software is written by humans for humans, and the best way to find out what humans are after is to just do a good old usability study with

a) asking people directly what are they frustrated with

b) monitoring people directly (as: in person, or on video) how they use the program and what they struggle with

This is what commercial software companies do since they don't have years of free time to fiddle with collecting artificial data to "guess" upon. And it works.

In your other post you said how you can use the logs to identify Photoshop users since they accidentally use CTRL+D for the wrong action. Here's a perfect example of overcomplicating things. You could've just asked the people participating: are you a Photoshop user. That eliminates any uncertainty and complexity associated with monitoring logs and "guessing" what the users' background is.

Another example from your post up there:

We also have some emperical data to support the notion that the multiple windows design choice is not the best. Our data indicate that the percentage of the monitor covered by the document window is typically about 50% for most users (again, see http://www.ingimp.org/stats/monitors [ingimp.org] ). Most Photoshop users seem to maximize their document windows; with GIMP, this seems to happen much less frequently, probably because doing so obscures GIMP's other windows.

As a graphics designer who tried to use this program, I could've told you all of the above immediately, and in a much simpler fashion. I know because *I use* the program. I don't guess how other people use it.

You'd ask me "what do you think about multiple windows" and I'd tell you "they suck, merge them into a single window with panels". No need for "empirical data supporting notions", or "statistics for percentage of screen covered by document window".

But I hope in a few years you collect enough empirical evidence to catch up with the rest of us, and finally someone does something about it, before GIMP is completely forgotten by the community.

Because involvement in human-subjects research is voluntary, there will always be a self-selection bias. (That is, we cannot force people to use this software any more than we can force people to come into a usability lab to participate in a usability study.) However, we can still estimate the representativeness of the population by understanding the types of people likely to download and install ingimp, and those who are not. If you fall in the latter camp -- you'd never want to use ingimp -- we really want to talk to you. Send us an email at the email address given on the site: http://www.ingimp.org/contact.

Michael Terry

There is a very active group of individuals who are currently doing things like expert walkthroughs and observational studies: See http://gui.gimp.org./

Our data is intended to complement this data by quantifying the ubiquity of tasks/activity/system setups. For example, what are typical resolutions of monitors? This type of information can help focus design by indicating what types of interaction designs are feasible and not feasible given the hardware of current users. What we've seen so far is a far greater number of 1024x768 resolutions than anticipated. Breaking these numbers down to see where in the world these resolutions are being reported is one of the next steps we plan to do to better contextualize the data. See http://www.ingimp.org/stats/monitors.

We also have some emperical data to support the notion that the multiple windows design choice is not the best. Our data indicate that the percentage of the monitor covered by the document window is typically about 50% for most users (again, see http://www.ingimp.org/stats/monitors ). Most Photoshop users seem to maximize their document windows; with GIMP, this seems to happen much less frequently, probably because doing so obscures GIMP's other windows.

Michael Terry

There is a very active group of individuals who are currently doing things like expert walkthroughs and observational studies: See http://gui.gimp.org./

Our data is intended to complement this data by quantifying the ubiquity of tasks/activity/system setups. For example, what are typical resolutions of monitors? This type of information can help focus design by indicating what types of interaction designs are feasible and not feasible given the hardware of current users. What we've seen so far is a far greater number of 1024x768 resolutions than anticipated. Breaking these numbers down to see where in the world these resolutions are being reported is one of the next steps we plan to do to better contextualize the data. See http://www.ingimp.org/stats/monitors.

We also have some emperical data to support the notion that the multiple windows design choice is not the best. Our data indicate that the percentage of the monitor covered by the document window is typically about 50% for most users (again, see http://www.ingimp.org/stats/monitors ). Most Photoshop users seem to maximize their document windows; with GIMP, this seems to happen much less frequently, probably because doing so obscures GIMP's other windows.

Michael Terry

Because involvement in human-subjects research is voluntary, there will always be a self-selection bias. However, we can still estimate the representativeness of the population by understanding the types of people likely to download and install ingimp, and those who are not. If you fall in the latter camp -- you'd never want to use ingimp -- we really want to talk to you. Send us an email at the email address given on the site: http://www.ingimp.org/contact.

In any case, having some data is better than having no data at all. Currently, there is a very active and vibrant group of individuals working on GIMP usability issues (see http://gui.gimp.org/ ). ingimp's data complements this other data to help quantify the ubiquity of behavior/activity/computer hardware setups in the wild.

Michael Terry

oops. They have a Win32 version thankfully. Hiding at the top of the downloads page.