Novell's Releases Linux Usability Testing Videos

sp3298622 writes "Novell is releasing primary desktop research, including over 200 videos and analysis of usability tests, at betterdesktop.openSUSE.org. Vice president of collaboration and desktop engineering for Novell, Nat Friedman: As a programmer, it's sometimes difficult to know how ordinary people with no technical experience are reacting to your software. Linux people tend to know other Linux people. In these usability tests, we selected test subjects who were experienced with Windows, but who had never heard of Linux, and asked them to perform basic tasks using the Linux desktop."

Comments

Missing...

[TerminaMorte]

Missing Tests:

1) Ooops! Find your kernels source, kill X, and install the drivers for your video card. Oh, and updated XF86Config. Or Xorg.conf. Whichever one you happen to have.
2) Damnit, another kernel panic. Find what obscure change caused it to happen this time!
3) Ah, so now you have a wireless card? Try to get it working! You might need to use ndiswrapper. If you get another kernel panic, go back to #2.
4) Ah, can't get above 800x600 resolution, eh? Yeah... find your monitors horizontal and verticle refresh rates. Google it, and you might get lucky.
5) Figure out how to resolve RPM dependancies. Shit, that package needs Python 2.4.2, huh? Ah well, 2.3.9 is installed. Guess you're out of luck.

All joking aside, this was a pretty intresting study. ;)

Re:S'top the press'es!

[Zwack]

But it ALREADY is in a semblance of English... I mean it looks like English, I can understand every word...

I just can't parse it.

"Novell's Releases Linux Usability Testing Videos"

Let's take it a word at a time.

Novell's Ah, it's got an apostrophe s on the end, so it's either possesive or contractive. As Novell is an entity I'm assuming that we're talking possessive here. Something belonging to Novell. Good start...

Releases. Well, this can't be a verb as we're expecting the noun that is possessed by Novell, so while it might be nice to think that "Novell Releases" is the start of the sentence, instead we're looking at somethings (it's plural) that Novell owns. So Novell's Releases. Some items owned by Novell that have been released. Excellent, now what about these mythic Releases...

Linux... This isn't so good. Linux is a noun, and not a verb... Three nouns in a row? It's probably not unheard of, but in this case I'm expecting a verb. I want to know what Novell's Releases do... Well, let's soldier on and see if the verb appears later... Perhaps Yoda wrote this.

Usability... Nope...

Testing... Hmmm, perhaps test is being used as a verb and the entire portion in front is being used as a compound noun as favoured by Germans...

Videos. Yes, that's it....

The "Releases-Linux-Usability" (whatever that is) owned by Novell is testing Videos!!! Are they testing VCRs? Video Codecs? Movies? Perhaps if I read the article it would tell me.

Or perhaps they REALLY meant "Novell Releases Linux Usability Testing Videos" NAAAAH!

Z.

Re:So much for this

[frank_adrian314159]

However, RTFA and you'll see that only eleven people participated, most of them female.

Woot! And we got video of them, too!

Re:Batten down the hatches (Quake Install Troll)

[saintp]

I have never been required to re-compile all of my system binaries, patch the kernel and update all my dependancies in Windows in order to play a game, however, in Linux, this is standard practice.

What the hell kind of games do you play? "MTV's Add SATA Support to your Kernel XXXTREME"? "John Madden All-Pro Glibc Updater 2006"? I've never had to do anything close to the rigamarole you describe, and nothing even close for games.

-1, Troll.