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OSS Usability Group Forming 82

Posted by timothy from the simplicity-is-complex dept.
cpfeifer writes "Tristan Louis has started a new group focusing on Usability in OSS products. Among the goals are: examining the state of he usability union in existing products, forming a set of standards and practices and PR for products that make usability strides. Also, check out the discussion on Metafilter."
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OSS Usability Group Forming More

OSS Usability Group Forming

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  • Thank you! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xutopia ( 469129 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @02:01PM (#6235839) Homepage
    Just what OSS needs for general acceptance.
    • About bleepin' frickin' fsckin' time!!!

      Almost all OSS needs to be bitch slapped with a pretty/usability stick...

      • Re:Thank you! (Score:2, Informative)

        by TNLNYC ( 147656 )
        That's what I thought too (I'm the one starting this) and was surprised that no one else had taken the job. Now to answer some questions.

        Some people have asked why not use Apple's or *gasp* Microsoft's. Well, we can use some of their stuff but ultimately, I suspect that we can come up with something even better. There are a few things that people have complained about in terms of MS or Apple's stuff. However, I'm sure there are some common elements that could be reused.

        My view is that there's a lot of inn

  • Basic Guidelines (Score:3, Funny)

    by RealityMogul ( 663835 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @02:13PM (#6235947)

    1.) Don't use Blender as a model.
    2.) Putting vowels in command names can be helpful.
    3.) If you're a Perl programmer - don't try to cram the whole UI into 2 lines of code just because you can.

    • Re:Basic Guidelines (Score:2, Insightful)

      by PD ( 9577 ) *
      If you can configure something, don't do it in an environment variable. If you must, make sure that the program doesn't mysteriously break when someone tries to run it from a different account. Print out a message or something.

      Put those configurations into a configuration file. And if that config file doesn't exist, have the program automatically write or suggest a configuration that should work out of the box.

      example: A long time ago, Java wouldn't work unless you had a CLASSPATH set. You needed to set i
      • To be serious, error handling is where most programs really fall short. I don't mind an error occurring because software has certain requirements. What I hate is getting something like "Access Denied" or "Path not found" and then no indication of what specifically was trying to be accessed, makes the error completely worthless. Without proper error handling you might as well make every error say "Whoops, something bad happened, too bad for you".
        • You can always use the 'strace' program to try to figure things out. Try a 'strace ls' command to see what system calls are made. But you're right, it's a hard way to get information that is so simple for the programmer to print out.
    • 1.) Don't use Blender as a model.

      IMO they made the Blender interface difficult to figure out on purpose, so that they would sell more Blender manuals.

      You could download Blender for free, but had to pay for the documentation :(
  • Hopefully, the usability study doesn't compromise usability for experienced users like a certain major (unnamed to avoid sounding like a troll) OSS project did. It went from exactly what I wanted to something newbies may or may not like but I definitely can't use, simply because they took a one size fits all approach. Simplicity doesn't necessarily mean it's better.

    I'm entirely for making things more usable for the purpose of expanding OSS' user base, but we can't forsake the power users to do it, otherwis

    • Re:usability vs usefulness (Score:4, Insightful)

      by xutopia ( 469129 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @02:35PM (#6236171) Homepage
      Usability doesn't mean common denominator like Windows XP does. It means building applications for the end user.

      Programs like X-CD-ROAST are nearly unusable without documentation on the side. The *acceptance* of GIMP and blender only has to do with the fact that they are the only free programs that do what it sets out to do.

      Programs that copy or build upon existing usable programs tend to do really well at being accepted really fast in the OSS community. Check out XMMS, Evolution or Firebird. Are their interfaces usable? Are their power immediatly recognized by the end user? Yes.

      • to be specific, I was referring to GNOME. Version 1.4 had pretty much everything I wanted. With version 2, they added some cool stuff I'd like to play with (GTK 2, antialiased fonts, etc) but they stripped out all of the things that I depend upon in my desktop environment. I'd have been happy if there were hidden gconf configs that I had to manually type in to activate, but they stripped out entire pre-existing functionality because "it's too complicated for new users" and told the rest of us, when we spoke
        • I'm a little sceptical. Could you elaborate on what functionality was removed from gnome that isn't available through gconf?

          • The biggest things all boil down to desktop management. I rely VERY heavily on the functionality of viewports (not workspaces as one developer demands we all use, but viewports). Namely, the abilities to straddle a window across multiple viewports (has been stated several times that this absolutely will not and can not be added into the GNOME 2 window library) and proper 2D navigation around my viewports (both through edge flipping AND keyboard shortcuts. Neither sawfish nor metacity support both in sensibl
      • I like Gimp's UI. What I hate is the programs that think I want everything in the same window, even when it's obvious I really want several windows. I got news for the designers: I have a window manager, and it's set up the way I want it, don't try a window manager too.

        - dave f.

        • Gimp's interface is fine if you use it in its own virtual desktop. If it isn't, I find the myriad of unconnected windows soon get annoying - why not add a "keep all windows at the same level in the window stack" option?
    • This is an absolutely important usability aspect that I often see ignored. Systems ought to have an "expert" mode that you can grow into, and recognise that advanced users have different needs.

      Nautilus used to try to do this, as did gdm's configurator, although I don't think either's "advanced" mode was very well thought through.

      I agree: simplicity should be about concealing complexity from people who don't care about it, not removing complexity altogether.
  • that this usability group for open source software is a great idea. I wish there was something similar for free software, which I am sort of into. Great news, though, I am sure everyone will agree with me.

    • Re:I think (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aridhol ( 112307 )
      Why does "free" software need a different set of UI guidelines from "open-source" software? Technically, the two are exactly the same. It is only philisophically (and sometimes legally) that they differ.
      • Please don't mind if I take offense. Philisophy is one of the most important matters for me. I hope I am not alone.
        • They may differ philosophically, but there is no reason that they cannot use the same UI guidelines.
        • Philisophy is one of the most important matters for me.

          By all means. For example Blackbox as a Free Software window manager should have different usability goals then Blackbox as an Open Source window manager. When you think to yourself "I want a window manager that gives me free speech, fresher breath, and an insufferable smugness" then you're in Free Software mode and the window manager should behave one way. But when you think to yourself "I want a window manager that is pragmatic, well groomed, and qu
      • Why does "free" software need a different set of UI guidelines from "open-source" software? Technically, the two are exactly the same. It is only philisophically (and sometimes legally) that they differ.

        And in the fact that getting the "free" software people to spend their time writing code instead of talking about what to call the project is impossible. You want to actually get something done, leave the ideologues out of it.

  • Follow the links to his papers on usability and you end up at his site [tnl.net].

    On that site, he sets his links as bold, with no decoration, and the same color as the rest of the body text. Though, some subheaders are also bold (but not links). Therefore, you can't always tell that links are links, and some things that aren't you think might be.

    This isn't exactly the type of thing you like to see inside of a paper explaining how to make usability better by keeping things familiar for the user.

  • The problem I see is that you get self-proclaimed usability experts such as Eugenia at OSNews who think that their complaints are in the interest of usability when they are in fact just being anal, or coders who think they're doing usability a service by doing all sorts of crazy things (cf Havoc Pennington, who is a fantastic programmer, and his campaign as a self-proclaimed usability expert to see how few options he can get gnome programs to present to the user). These people don't have any idea what usabi

  • a few simple suggestions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dh003i ( 203189 ) <dh003i@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @03:16PM (#6236557) Homepage Journal
    (1) Always use the 4 corners of the screen, as well as the screen sides. Don't ever place anything that's interactive just a pixel shy of the screen-edge.

    (2) Form follows function, not vica-versa. Don't focus on making an "appealing" UI. Focus on making one that works very well for the tasks at hand.

    (3) Passive memory, not active. People have a huge capacity for passive memory, and can remember things passively very quickly (that is, they recognize it upon seeing it). Users already have enough stuff to memorize, so don't make them memorize bizarre key-combinations.

    (4) For a guide to a desktop, see here [rr.com] (explanation here [rr.com]), and here [rr.com] (explanation here [rr.com]).

    (5) Remember to have strong software-support. The reason I like Gentoo so much is because of the helpful and friendly message boards, as well as the excellent documentation.

    (6) User testing, user testing, user testing. Grab someone and ask them if your program is easy to use. Sit them down in front of it -- without a manual -- and ask them to do something that the program was designed to do. If they can do it, then the program has good design. If not, bad design. If they can't do it, or if it took them a long time, ask them what they would expect, or where your program was confusing.

    (7) Have context menu's for everything in your program with "send feedback on this". E.g., if someone right clicks on the menu-bar or a specific sub-menu, they send feedback on that. You thus instantly know what their feedback is about, and it makes it easy for them to send feedback.

    (8) Actively seek out the opinions of those who download your program and use it. You can do this by creating a message board, newsgroup, etc, and specifically asking what they think about x, y, and z.

    • PS (Score:2)

      by dh003i ( 203189 )
      #9: Make users feel like you pay attention to their suggestions and act on it. No-one's going to bother submitting feedback if the developer doesn't use it.

    • Good User Interface (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ratboy666 ( 104074 )
      You said:

      (6) User testing, user testing, user testing. Grab someone and ask them if your program is easy to use. Sit them down in front of it -- without a manual -- and ask them to do something that the program was designed to do. If they can do it, then the program has good design. If not, bad design. If they can't do it, or if it took them a long time, ask them what they would expect, or where your program was confusing.

      That's just wrong. Really. Calculus is a great tool -- but its too complicated for a

      • Re:Good User Interface (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dh003i ( 203189 )
        The point is about respecting the user. The user is not there to serve the program; the program is there to serve the user. Users have better things to do than memorize your obscure set of commands. They want to remember things important for their particular job, not waste time memorizing C-c C-c or whatever it may be.

        For power-users with particularly high needs, tools like Vi are useful -- great, in fact; likewise with Sed and Awk, and other very powerful text-editing or text-manipulation programs.

        Howeve
    • When asking for comments on your program, ask the most obnoxious, rude, blunt, asshole you can find, preferrably one who hates you. They will more than likely be very blunt and brutal about anything they think is wrong with your program.

      Do not ask friends, family, or anyone who is very polite and shy for constructive criticism. They are likely to go easy on you.

    • Passive memory, not active. People have a huge capacity for passive memory, and can remember things passively very quickly (that is, they recognize it upon seeing it). Users already have enough stuff to memorize, so don't make them memorize bizarre key-combinations.

      Arg. Not again. Many "usability" people take this to mean that vim has a horrible interface. Of course, it is a terribly economic interface, even though I had to automate many "bizarre" keys. In fact, it is the most usable editor I have us

      • Vim is good for power-users. It is, not, however, for the vast majority of users.

        At the very least, there should be a menu that should be accessible by Alt-F, etc. People have better things to memorize than bizarre key-combinations. Vim and Emacs are particular culprits since they ignore pretty wide-spread standards now (like CTRL+V for paste, CTRL+C for copy, and SHIFT+ARROW for select)...if you're going to do your own little key-combo thing, at least provide users with the option to do things the normal
    • Grab someone and ask them if your program is easy to use. Sit them down in front of it -- without a manual -- and ask them to do something that the program was designed to do.

      I agree with everything else except this. Let me rephrase the beginning of your statement slightly to make it work:

      "Grab someone knowledgable in the domain...

      After all, if someone through me in front of a circuit simulator, I would be lost no matter how elegant and correct the interface, simply because I know nothing about circuits
      • Depends on what you mean...

        If you mean "knowledgeable with those type of programs", then no.

        If you mean "knowledgeable in doing that type of task (e.g., picture-editing is part of his profession), then yes. People who are knowledgeable of the subject of your program should be able to intuitively figure out the main uses.
        • Both.

          Take a trivial example, word processing. Throw an illiterate person in front of the UI. Absolutely pointless. That's why you need testers knowledgable in the task.

          So now throw a professional fiction author in front of the UI. Better right? But what if the only word processor they've ever used was MSWord? The parts of the UI where they stumble and falter will be marked down by your metrics as bad, when its merely a result of unfamiliarity. Or to take an extreme case, take a subject who has never befor

          • patently disagree (Score:2, Interesting)

            by dh003i ( 203189 )
            90% of all desktop users are using MS. If they attempt to migrate to GNU/Linux and no key-combinations work as expected, they will not think the software is good.

            It doesn't matter whether it's hard for them to use because of lack familiarity or just absolutely poor design. The point of your software is that users should be able to get used to it quickly.

            It's called the user model. The user model is always right, period. If you are going to switch from the user model to something else, your something else

            • Re:patently disagree (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Arandir ( 19206 )
              90% of all desktop users are using MS. If they attempt to migrate to GNU/Linux and no key-combinations work as expected, they will not think the software is good.

              90% of all consumers in the US eat greasy hamburgers and fries. But I don't see fine restaurants scrambling all over themselves in an attempt to reproduce that particular bland flavor of fries left too long under the heat lamp.

              The point of your software is that users should be able to get used to it quickly.

              Absolutely not! The point of my sof

              • Re:patently disagree (Score:3, Insightful)

                by dh003i ( 203189 )
                Maybe for specialty software you have a point. But your entire case is just a situation of the user model.

                By changing your program to a different UI, and eliminating useful key-combinations, you ignored your target audience's user-model, and this pissed them off. Naturally.

                There is no reason why the vast majority of programs cannot be both easy to learn immediately, and very easy and fast to use for more advanced users.

                The user interface was deliberately designed to resemble the Windows desktop, because

                • Re:patently disagree (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by Arandir ( 19206 )
                  By changing your program to a different UI, and eliminating useful key-combinations, you ignored your target audience's user-model, and this pissed them off. Naturally.

                  Not at all. The reason the customers did not like the "new" interface was not because they were used to the "classic". They disliked it because it was an inefficient interface. The interface interrupted their workflow. It was easier to learn but harder to use. And usability is about "use".

                  Another analogy is WordPerfect versus MSWord. Back
    • Users already have enough stuff to memorize, so don't make them memorize bizarre key-combinations.

      However, don't leave the "bizarre" key-combinations out for those who are willing and able to memorize them.
      Personally, I hate to use the mouse and I'll use the keyboard in anyway I can.
      • Agreed, key-combinations are a good thing. If someone uses a program enough -- has to go to Edit > Paste enough -- eventually they'll want to know a shortcut.

        What I mean by "bizarre key combinations" are ones that are not standard. By standard, I basically mean what MS uses, which -- let's face it -- have become a standard. There are no real standards within *nix for key-combos, and Apple's standards (though just as good as MS') aren't as widely known, and they don't have nearly as many key-combos.

        SO,
    • A few questions about the links in point (4). The explanations are all gibberish. The first screen does not devote enough to pr0n.....

      seriously, if you could elaborate on what was mentioned in those links that would be swell.

    • (1) Always use the 4 corners of the screen, as well as the screen sides. Don't ever place anything that's interactive just a pixel shy of the screen-edge.

      This is my single biggest annoyance in software. It's so obvious, so easy to implement and adds so much to usability. Yet I'm sitting here using KDE 3.1.2, probably the most polished UNIX desktop, and in order to minimize/close a window or scroll a window I have to move the mouse to (screen_edge - window_border), not screen_edge. Why is this?

  • Something X needs.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zcat_NZ ( 267672 ) <zcat@wired.net.nz> on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @03:24PM (#6236610) Homepage
    Possibly the biggest thing that would improve usability, in my experience; When a user double-clicks an icon, make it DO SOMETHING immediately. Switch to an hourglass pointer or whatever, and keep it until the window actually opens. This is probably the only major issue my wife and kids have with Linux. They can't tell if the double-click did anything, so they doubleclick again until the windows(s) start opening.
    • I don't think that's X's problem. I think that would be the concern of whatever put that icon on the screen (WM? DE?)

      - dave f.

    • Simply tell them to look at the HD blinkenlichts. If it blinks, it's doing something.

      That's also a reason I have a load meter on the taskbar...
    • What do you use in X? Both KDE (since 2.2), and GNOME (since 2.2) have a type of notification feedback sceme.

      Perhaps we need a system like OSX where the system determines if a busy cursor should be displayed-- not the app.
      • I can't speak for the Gnome version, but the KDE launch feedback cursor is horrible. A little flashing icon that sits miles away from the cursor and lags behind the cursor when you move it, so it's not instantly clear even what it is.

        I think that animated mouse cursors were added in XFree4.2 or 3, so things will get better.
        • The gnome startup notification is better. It's more reliable, as the system doesn't try to second guess the app. The notification itself takes the form of a busy cursor and an entry in the window list saying "Starting Whatever....."
  • Is another usability group, so they can compete.
    • I'm not sure if you are funny, insightful, or both in a tragic way... a lot of times OSS people make competing products in stead of helping each other to achieve a more complete product. This is both good and bad. We all know that competition is good, also in the OSS market, but coorporation would do a lot of good in making more complete products in stead of just many products. This goes for usability groups as well...

  • Readability (Score:2, Funny)

    by dave_f1m ( 602921 )
    > examining the state of he usability union in existing products, forming a set of standards and practices and PR for products that make usability strides

    I'm glad readability isn't an issue.

    - dave f.

  • copy, cut, paste, and undo will finally be the same on everything.

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