Software Usability As A Technical Problem

An anonymous reader writes "Let's face it. Poor user interface design is a big problem in software today, particularly in the Open Source world. A recent article on NewsForge addresses this problem from the perspective that software usability is a technical issue that Open Source developers can and should face and conquer, just as we have conquered other technical problems that have stood in our way." (Slashdot and NewsForge are both part of OSDN.)

Comments

A good book

[Chairboy]

A great book on the subject of the importance of software usability is Set Phasers on Stun: And Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error . The title sounds funny until you read that it comes from a story about the infamous Therac-25 where a victim (who was killed by the device) was quoted as saying 'Captain Kirk forgot to set his phaser to stun'.

It's a collection of 20 or so stories about where human factors problems caused injuries and, in many cases, death. Poor documentation, unclear designs, and poor handling of expected user situations (for instance, the reactor technician being pinned to the ceiling by a control rod because there wasn't a safety stop to prevent supercriticallity) is serious business.

There's more to usabillity and human factors then just 'that guy is too stupid to use linux', it can literally be the difference between life and death.

Re:Yes a technical problem, but of different natur

[Cerebus]

Apple's Human Interface Guidelines is a good place to start, and is online for free.

It represents many years' worth of HID research. It's not the end-all, be all of HID, but it's one helluvalot better than nothing.

Re:not really

[moexu]

I have to use XP at work, and what I found made it much more usable is TweakUI from the Windows XP Power Toys. It exposes a lot of interface options that are hard to adjust otherwise.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/power toys/xppowertoys.mspx/

[OT:] I also really, really like the desktop manager. Virtual desktops are one of my favorite features of Linux and it's really nice to have at work.

Re:not really

[Thing 1]

Speaking of which, does anyone know how to tell XP to stop rearranging menus and/or hiding half of the options? That's such a PITA -- who the hell thought of such a moronic thing?

Most likely a flawed "usability study" which said people want less complexity. But taking something complex and leaving it complex while hiding the options to be "discovered" at some random future time is not really reducing the complexity: it's increasing it.

To speak practically, here's what I do every time I install XP (I'll be thorough since I've already done it, so I'll just list the options the way I like them which shows the most information):

Right-click on taskbar, Properties.

Taskbar tab: uncheck "Auto-hide the taskbar" and "Hide inactive icons"; everything else checked. Start Menu tab: radio button "Classic Start menu", then click "Customize...", and check "Display Administrative Tools", "Display Log Off", "Display Run", "Enable dragging and dropping"; everything else unchecked (including the one you wanted to get rid of, "Use Personalized Menus").

Right-click on background, Properties.

Desktop tab: background select "(None)" (for RDPing in over a modem). Screen Saver tab: Blank, wait 2 minutes, check "On resume, password protect", and for Power have it turn the monitor off after 3 minutes (and never turn off the hard drives). This is so if I forget to lock it when I leave my workstation, there'll be a very small window where I can be "rooted" by my coworkers (it happens, best protect yourself from it). Appearance tab: click "Effects..." and then uncheck "Use the following transition effect for menus and tooltips:" (again for RDP sessions), "Use large icons", and "Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key" (God damn who thought of that one?); everything else checked (and use ClearType).

Hit WindowsKey+E (to start Windows Explorer).

Select menu item View, Status Bar. Then select menu item View, Details. Then select menu item View, Arrange Icons by, Name. Then select menu item View, Arrange Icons by, and uncheck Show in Groups. Then select menu item Tools, Folder Options.

General tab: "Use Windows classic folders", "Open each folder in the same window", and "Double-click to open an item (single-click to select)". View tab: uncheck "Display simple folder view in Explorer's Folders list" (this is the one that expands a folder when you click on the folder in the left pane; I only want it to expand when I click the plus, and of course I don't want it to un-epand the other folders I had expanded), "Do not cache thumbnails", "Hide extensions for known file types" (this opened the door email attachment viruses), "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" (I know what I'm doing); all others checked. Also, select the radio button "Show hidden files and folders". Then click "Apply", then click "Apply to All Folders". This will not only apply the settings you made in here, but also the View settings in the previous few bullets.

That's all I can remember, but then there are also settings within applications that you'll want to remove, such as in Outlook XP, select menu item Tools, Customize, Options tab: check "Always show full menus". Other applications will have similar settings.

I hope this helps. I would bet that these are all Registry entries somewhere; perhaps if I have some downtime (ha!) I'll make a .REG file out of these so the next time I set up a machine or VM I can just double-click the .REG file and be done with it. Enjoy!

Usability resources

[darkpurpleblob]

From the article:

But If I want to learn how to write phrases understandable by users or what colors to use that still allow color-blind people to use my software or how to best name categories for efficient navigation, I can do nothing but listen to people's opinions in the matter. Where is the open source community's pool of facts and knowledge covering usability issues?

Bulls***.

There are numerous books and resources on usability. For example:

• About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• User Interface Design for Programmers
• Boxes and Arrows
• useit.com