KDE 3.3 UI, Evaluated By 7 Real Users

sgtrock writes "UserInstinct has an article that documents the reactions to KDE 3.3 by 7 users with limited or no Linux background. By and large, they found KDE intrguing, but far too busy. They all complained about some pretty basic UI issues; no stars echoed while the password was typed, anti-aliased fonts off by default, far too many options shown by default, etc. Most had minor UI issues as well; some of which were KDE specific, others that weren't. All in all, I would have to regard this test KDE 3.3's UI as somewhat disappointing. Especially since KDE strives so hard to provide a consistent and easy to use UI. IMO the single biggest issue is probably the overwhelming number of options that are exposed to a first-time user. Personally, I'm a guy who likes to tweak almost everything on a UI, so I love the way that KDE works. However, I have seen myself just how quickly beginners get turned off by the very busy option screens. There must be a better way of showing a sane number of options while still allowing power users to access the more esoteric ones. Anyone have any thoughts?"

Comments

Don't know where

[Apreche]

I don't know why people view KDE as the easy to use linux desktop environment. Xfce has taken that spot on my list since I discovered Xfce4 over a year ago. I've always viewed KDE as the complete and fully featured desktop environment that has a fancy working gui for absolutely everything and a matching integrated(looking) application for all the major tasks.

This would have been much more interesting if they had tested the users on 4 or 5 different linux desktops. Maybe Gnome, KDE, Xfce4, then throw in ion or ratpoison for fun.

I'm still waiting for some sort of objective comparison of major X11 environments against OSX and Windows XP. But I don't think that sort of thing is possible in this day and age.

Personally, while I like and have found good things in just about every desktop ( and I've used them all ) I've pretty much fallen for fvwm2. Fvwm2 allows me to customize everything by forcing me to customize everything. Hell, I had to configure the focus policies by hand. Of course, now that I've done it and made several backups of the configuration so I never have to do it again, I have created what is the closest I have ever gotten to my ideal graphical environment. It also looks really cool too.

Re:Don't know where

[moreati]

Correct, with sponsers such as HP, Sun & Red Hat, Gnome is aimed squarely at the corporate desktop where consistency and manageability are watch words. It seems also, that Gnome appeals to those who prefer simplicity (or usability, if you prefer) to versatility.

KDE is more volunteer driven, hence it aims to appeal to fellow developers and home power users, for whom configurability and features are wanted.

As a biased KDE user, I think it has the potential to be better than Gnome on the corporate desktop. However this study is right, there are too many 'in your face' options. I agree that KDE needs to cut back on the number of buttons, menu entrys, context menu entries and configuration options shown at the top level. Examples:

• The default konqueror toolbar has cut, copy and paste buttons - these are unnecessary and clutter the interface.
  
• The settings menu on most KDE menu is a mess, 4 different 'Configure &ltx&gt' entries in the case of konqueror, and what is 'Full Screen Mode' oding there? There may be a case for scrapping the menu entirely and placing the items in other menus.
  
• File context menu in konqueror is too overloaded, there are so many that it slows down 'quick access' to the commonly wanted functions. For instance there are entries for both 'Move to Recycle Bin' and 'Delete'. Only the first should be displayed by default, the latter perhaps appearing on 'Shift+Right Click', ala MS Windows.
  
• The number of KDE Control Panel panels needs rationalising, particularly sprawled, is the Look'n'Feel branch.

There are items in the study I think are dumb, KMail is a fine name for the KDE email client, much better than Kamel (or whatever the suggestion was).

The KDE project is making movements in the right direction, there is a nascent KDE-Usability project. Gnome has gone too far in usability through streamlining, KDE hasn't gone far enough, yet.

Of course all that's opinion, but I say it anyway.

Alex

Too many options

[xutopia]

"far too many options shown by default".

I don't want to make 101 decisions when I work on my computer. I want sensible defaults and not have to care about plethoras of unneeded options.

Simplistic 80/20 advice...

[eyeball]

Take the most common 20% of the options, the ones most likely to be used by the 80% of the users, and present those. At the bottom, have an "advanced" button that reveals the other 80% of the configuration options.

HID 101

[bay43270]

The term is Progressive Disclosure. It's basic human interface design. This is why open source projects don't pass these studies with flying colors - rather than ask UI experts to solve UI issues, we ask slashdot. Then we all hash it around until one underrated post manages to reinvent the wheel.

Here's a better question.. how dow we sell open source to HID people?

Are "Advanced Options" really advanced?

[digitect]

Many times, options are offered as a lazy hack instead of making a UI really usable. If 9 out of 10 users need some advanced option checked, why isn't it on by default? Why is the alternate behavior even needed?

I also think that checkboxes are sometimes offered by the programmer who can't decide how he wants his app to behave. By offering multiple behaviors, he escapes having to commit to one or the other under the guise of offering the user more. But unless you have nothing better to do than to twiddle checkboxes on and off all day, most users won't touch the defaults, meaning that all those options the programmer thought he was offering are in fact unused.

The better way to UI design is to decide what the task is and then to offer a default behavior that best offers it. If there is indeed an alternate that could be prefered by some, perhaps multiple options can be ganged together and toggled with one switch. I do this in my text editor configuration: The option to type with the words wrapped at the window margin is coupled with not setting an auto-textwidth (auto-truncation of lines at a given length) and with using tabs as true tab characters. The opposite is to auto-truncate at a set width, ignore the window margin, and use spaces instead of tabs since the two most basic behaviors are to enter text to preserve line formatting and to ignore it.

Most options aren't really options. And you have to realize that those offered have the potential to confuse more than to help. Once you develop a highly conservative perspective about offering options, you begin to value each one offered more. Besides, if the so-called power users really are, let them fiddle with configuration files, registries and source code like they claim to understand. Just don't bog down the average user!

My take on a few things...

[7-Vodka]

1. no stars echoed while the password was typed:
   This is the desired behaviour from a security point of view. It's something that people can get used to fast too, it only confuses on the first try. And it's only the default, you can change it if you think security is stupid, it may even be slack-kde specific default but I wouldn't recommend changing it.
2. anti-aliased fonts off by default:
   Yes they should be on by default
3. far too many options shown by default:
   This is where it gets interesting. Do you want to please people who will only ever use kde once, or do you want to please people who will use kde all the time?
   Yes, kde has enough options to be confusing on *the first time you use it*. This is the only sample group they tested. Why don't they have these same people use kde everyday and come back and say if they still want all the options hidden.
   This is where the gnome ui designers went wrong. They took away all the options and messed up their desktop trying to be the best DE for first day users. Then the users use it for a few weeks and are no longer first time users and switch to something more meaty. This is a complicated thing to think about and I don't think it's worth it to change the interfaces based on sloppy investigations. You have to look at much larger groups of users and see how you can please them all. I'm thinking it's impossible to please everyone, but it's possible to please 90% of new users and 90% of experienced users as well.

Besides all of this, isn't there something called kde-kiosk that lets you turn off all the options? isn't this something done at a distribution level rather than kde-project level?
I say let the kde group fix upstream fixes and let the distributions fix their own bugs. IE if you're a distro targetting users who've never used kde, you fix the ui the way you need it, while if you target advanced users, you fix the ui the way you need it. Let the kde project make kde more maleable and let the distros do the final moulding of the user experience.

Bad study

[Brandybuck]

I have to say this yet again, because I think it's terribly important for people to understand: studies like this are merely trivial.

While it is a worthwhile goal to create a desktop that creates an initial good impression on a newbie, it should not be the primary goal, or even a major goal. That is because the newbie will NEVER be the primary user! As heretical as it sounds, no one ever stays a newbie forever.

Usability studies need to be directed towards intermediate users. Those who have been exposed to the system for more than thirty minutes. I don't give a stack of meadow muffins how easy a system is for a newbie if it turns out to be difficult for me. I don't want to make a choice between the newbie and the expert, but if a choice had to be made, I would rather reward my long time loyal customer than someone just sniffing around for a good deal.

So here's how to do the next study. Don't base it on the anecdotal statements of a few people. Give the test subjects the destkop a week to get acclimated with the destkop. Don't ask them their feelings but observe their actual behavior (use a video camera if you have to). Try to get a control group or control desktop in place. And don't confuse the user with a usability expert