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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."
Might this only result in the Linux desktop becoming more like Windows?
It might, if the Linux desktop hadn't already been imitating Windows for the past ten years.
The number of steps involved in a driver or application installation process doesn't necessarily matter if those steps make more sense to a wider audience. Let's see, which is easier to understand to a complete newbie?
... Google the application name (assuming that you don't know the URL), download the application, then double-click to follow the simple installation process.
... Type some cryptic combination of letters and symbols that represent things that most consumer-level computer users couldn't possibly understand.
And, you know, the least I can say for Windows is that it works quite well, and - other than the operating system itself - you don't necessarily need any commercial software to make it fully usable. I could really care less that most Linux distros are "complete" immediately upon installing them. You know, maybe I don't like Konquerer or Mozilla. For every complaint that IE isn't a complete Web browser, you'll likely get several complaints that Konqueror is excessively bloated.
In fact, KDE itself is so bloated that it comes off as clunky to most inexperienced Linux users who would rather not have to tweak their operating system just to get it running smoothly. Although Windows isn't "complete" immediately after installing it, I can at least take comfort in the fact that the user interface itself works quite well.