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Gnome 2.6 Usability Review
TuringTest writes ""The user-centric UI webzine" UserInstinct has published a usability overview of the latest version of the GNOME desktop. While their conclusions and recommendations are not mind-blowing, it includes two interesting appendices with a survey of new users (and their reactions to the system) and a list of common tasks of modern computer users with a commentary on how Gnome performs in each one. Note that usually You Only Need to Test With 5 Users (this report tests 4), you need to test additional users when an interface has several highly distinct groups of users and thus the conclusions in this review should not be taken as definitive."
Wrong Nielsen. useit.com mentioned in the blurb is Jakob Nielsen.
Nope, it isn't. Gnome does not use "Cancel" or "OK". If you find a dialogue that uses those, please file a bug report.
What you have is: the safe choice to the left; the unsafe choice to the right; and other, less frequent choices in between.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Spatial browsing is one thing, but the rest of his ideas show an extreme lack of technical knowledge and rational thought.
Not to mention his posts on osnews as ogalaxyo gave me the impression that he was a 12 year old kid who simply hasn't figured out how things work yet.
Why, it's an extra sacred cow. No, really... in India, cows with extra legs are even more sacred than normal cows. I don't know if that's true for other deformities, and I did hear it from a friend who spent most of his trip to India high on hash, but that's what I've been told.
Just FYI, KDE has UI Guidelines too: k de/style/basics/
* User interface design guidelines: http://developer.kde.org/documentation/design/ui/
* KDE Style Basics: http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/
"Good news, everyone!"