Slashdot Mirror
Usability Testing Hardy Heron With a Girlfriend
toomin writes "Reviews of the latest Ubuntu version, 8.04 Hardy Heron, are everywhere, but most of them are undertaken by geeks familiar with Linux. This guy sits his girlfriend down at a brand-new Ubuntu installation and asks her to perform some basic tasks. Some of them are surprisingly easy, others frustrate and annoy. There are lots of little usability tweaks he stumbles upon just by seeing the desktop experience from the point of view of the mainstream user."
1) Use internet. Successful.
2) Watch youtube. Unsuccessful. No Flash.
3) Use torrent. Successful (but this is not a novice user task)
4) Draw pic. 1/2 Successful. Chose wrong tool.
5) Burn music. Unsuccessful
6) Mouse speed change. Successful.
7) Theme change. Successful.
8) Desktop background change. Successful.
9) Scree resolution change. Unsuccessful.
10) Advanced image manipulation. Successful
11) MSN. Unsuccessful
12) Install & Use skype. Successful.
Note, the problem with 5) burning music was not the actual burning, but finding the mp3s on a windows partition.
So, 8/12. (maybe 9.5/12)
To be honest, I've seen experience computer users have more trouble doing the above tasks when switching from windows to OS X.
Kudos to Ubuntu.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
His note that if you go too small of screen size you cant click on the buttons of the dialog. This happens a LOT in windows with dons of the dialogs and YES even the screen size dialog.
She would have failed that test under windows.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One of our sales guys was having problems with his XP pro install, IE bit the dust and wouldn't show images, even the images in the about box for the application. He asked me if there was any decent alternatives to any of this stuff and I mentioned Ubuntu, but with a level of hesitation (becoming his technical support person for the next 6 months didn't appeal to me) I stated that it had some parts which were a little on the technical side and that he couldn't expect everything to work out of the box. It was a 3 year old laptop. Overnight he found the ubuntu site, downloaded the 7.10 ISO and did a full install (after backing everything up). Came in the next day, put the thing on my desk and showed me it running, including using his accounting package under WINE, his printer and scanner installation. I was thoroughly impressed, with the only question he had was how to setup his PCMCIA NextG Telstra card, about 10 minutes installation time. He had even converted his mail from Outlook to Evolution. After this, I have much more confidence in recommending Ubuntu to people who are used to using something else on a regular daily basis. Before this I'd usually install this stuff for other people I knew, get it going and leave them to it, no more virus or spyware phone calls. Nice work Canonical.
Task Mangler
Actually usability testing has been going on with Linux for many years - since at least 2001 for GNOME when Sun started doing this ( http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/usertesting.html ). Here's a good article that talks about usability testing for Linux, also from 2001, and mentioning KDE user testing: http://lwn.net/2001/0614/desktop.php3
GNOME is the way it is today largely because of usability testing, I believe - while many power users and developers whinge about this, it is becoming much closer to Macs in overall usability.
So the issue is not "stupid developers", it's a matter of taking the time to do the testing - and it helps if you have some expertise at running the tests. Then it's the time to actually make the changes. Many developers aren't that interested in doing the testing, which is why there have been separate usability initiatives that can feed changes into projects.
Some of the issues logged here are not that easy to solve - e.g. making Firefox pop up an Ubuntu-specific Flash installation prompt, rather than executing the YouTube JavaScript logic that pushes people towards an Adobe plugin site that actually does have a Linux plugin for Flash, but one that's much harder to install than an Ubuntu-packaged Flash plugin.
Also, the one about finding MP3s on the Windows partition is not that easy - you could simply copy the files across with the Ubuntu migration assistant, but what if they're in a non-standard place? Indexing the Windows filesystem to quickly find these might help, but building the index could take some time. However, it would probably be enough if there was some feature in Ubuntu that scanned for existing partitions and said (based on partition type and a few key directories/files) that 'this looks like a Windows partition, it's available on the desktop through this icon', and ideally did a special symbolic link for the My Documents or similar (though that's tough as it's per-user under Windows - which user should this use).
Well here's some more anectodes:
My wife switched to Ubuntu after her XP-installation trashed the hard drive. When she first tried to recover the OS with the supplied restore-cd from LG neither the WiFi card or sound worked. Then she tried Ubuntu which worked without turning a dial.
Now she's been running Ubuntu for over six months and she's hooked. She even managed to install Hardy Heron while breastfeeding our 7 week old daughter. - If that isn't usability for the masses then what is?
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
I did implement this test. With gOS v1.
.DOC, since then her experience has been 100% positive. We're even trying to get her sister to use Linux because of the number of times she asks for techsupport after the kids mess up Windows.
I told my GF that I couldn't locate an XP Home OEM CD to use with the sticker on the side of her beige box.
She had used my openSUSE 10.3 laptop and seen that OpenOffice.org was very similar to MS Office.
She said that it was OK to put Linux on her computer that she uses for work as long as other people in her large government organisation would be able to read the documents she produced.
The upshot was, after a week someone couldn't read the OOo format and I showed her how to save as
One major convenience for my GF is that it took less than 10 minutes to set NX up on her machine, and now she can sit in the comfy chair downstairs with my laptop and do her work from there instead of spending untold hours in her study in front of a big ol' CRT that does nothing for her eyes over long periods.
The transition to Linux for her has been very easy. She doesn't have to use a command line, all her apps are in plain view (if you haven't used gOS v1, it is Gutsy with E17) and everything Just Works. She hasn't mentioned going back to Windows since that first document that someone couldn't read.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Obviously you didn't read the article. Here's the page Youtube sent her to. Note that there is no '.deb' choice.
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I agree that "girlfriend" shouldn't automatically imply computer illiterate. In fact I'm quite certain the word "girlfriend" was used in the title of the article specifically as an eye catching "hook". i.e. Ubuntu and Girlfriend in the same sentence!!?? WTF???
However, from TFA - "Erin's intelligent, quick to learn and is reasonably well-acquainted with modern technology." The author makes it clear that his girlfriend is somewhat skilled with computers, can perform a range of normal computer tasks and was methodical and persistent in solving the problems she encountered. Aside from the somewhat unfortunate title, TFA makes it clear that she is a "noob" only in so far as she has never used Ubuntu"
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Nipples aren't intuitive interfaces. Both moms and babies have to learn how to nurse, and it's an important part of prenatal classes.
If it's not done correctly, you end up with hungry babies and sore moms.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.