<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3086" dir="ltr">> The quickest/easiest fix right
away for this would be to just kill the "Import Data" entry, <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3215" dir="ltr">> rename
"Import > format" to "Import data format" and move it above the line in
the menu, <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3217" dir="ltr">> separating it from the script options. <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3218" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3295" dir="ltr">I suggested this too and I think Thomas was positive about this:</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3298" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3324" dir="ltr">June 3rd, 2015, Thomas/Jan. (The "Dialog" is the "Import Data"-Function)<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3328" dir="ltr">>>> JAN<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3500" dir="ltr">>>> - Data Import. Suggestion: "Import Data" is error prone, submenu seems<br class="">>>> to provide same functions. Suggestion: Let’s get rid of "Import Data"<br class=""></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3497" dir="ltr">>><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3499" dir="ltr">>> THOMAS<br class="">>>ok, getting rid of this is easy, of course, and you finally got<br class="">>>me convinced that it's better than the current state. But for<br class="">>>clarification: In an ideal world, would the dialog still go away, or<br class="">>>would it be improved to make format selection more obvious (or more<br class="">>>automatic)?<br class="">></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3461" dir="ltr">> JAN <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3530" dir="ltr">>I
think an improvement of the dialog is hard to make (It should be kept
standard-ish; the only thing I can >think of is hiding all files that are
not of the selected format). What would help, as you say is some sort
of >automatic recognition: If you click an .sav it uses the SPSS importer
etc. - so it "just does the right thing" (in >the ideal world) <br class="">><br class="">>So
I'd suggest: Get rid of the dialog for now, and possibly file a
bug/feature for an automatic recognition of >the imported file format.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3679" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3708" dir="ltr">Your other suggestions sound meaningful and sound too, though I can't provide any furtherinput for now. There are many dialogs that would benefit from some minor rewordings and a bit of restructuring. This should not be too much hassle to do - I wonder what would be the best way to report/suggest these in order to make it easy to apply if the developers agree. <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3024" class="qtdSeparateBR"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3931"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3933">Jan<br></div><br></div><div style="display: block;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3021" class="yahoo_quoted"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3020" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3019" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3023" dir="ltr"> <font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3022" face="Arial" size="2"> Aaron Batty <abatty@sfc.keio.ac.jp> schrieb am 11:33 Mittwoch, 30.September 2015:<br> </font> </div> <br><br> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3018" class="y_msg_container"><div id="yiv5675068742"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3017"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3016" dir="ltr"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3015">Jan:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div>It was last November, when we were still on SourceForge. Here are the ones that remain:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3036" class="yiv5675068742gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3084">1) Installation issues.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div>[snip]<br clear="none"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3035"><br clear="none">The
struggle I've run into with many Mac users, though, is just that they
have to install R and then RKWard. This is very unintuitive for people
who aren't used to installing anything more involved than the Facebook
app on their cellphones. I.e., "digital native" undergrads. It would be
great if those could be bundled together again.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">With the
Windows package, the issue is that it's just a .zip and you can run it
from anywhere. People really aren't used to that, and they don't know
how to add a shortcut to the Start menu/giant-useless-screen-with-live-advertisements.
Also, many people are confused/freaked-out when a scary-looking black
terminal window comes up upon starting it. The Windows package also
seems pretty fragile. Most of the Windows students have tossed it and
reinstalled it at least once. It's intermittent, and I haven't been able
to reproduce it, but it just stops working at some point. The terminal
window comes up, and that's all. I'd give you guys more information if I
had it. Just generally speaking, the Windows version is not as reliable
as the Mac, I'm finding. <br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">2) Data import<br clear="none"><br clear="none">This
is just rather confusing. You go to File or the Open... menu in the
toolbar, and go to Import, and then there are a bunch of options. You
have "Import Data," then a line, then "Import format," which is a
submenu about importing data. If you use the first one, it just opens up
the SPSS data importer, and there's no way to tell it otherwise. I have
started providing my classes with .sav files for everything to just
spare myself the headache of pointing out again and again, that they
actually need to go to "Import → Import format → Import text / <span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3042">CSV</span>
data." It doesn't make sense because the way that menu is organized, it
looks like that is some sort of separate function from importing data,
because it's under the line separating it from "Import Data." <br clear="none"><br clear="none">Once they navigate to "Import text / <span>CSV</span>
data," however, the problems continue, because despite the fact that
we've already ostensibly told the software that we're working with .<span>csv</span>
or whatever, there are a bunch of options where we have to tell it
again. The default format is "None," and the options for the quick
formats (which are likely all anyone will need in most cases, especially
in a class where a teacher is providing the data set) are on the bottom
left, looking not-very-important. This could maybe be fixed just by
moving elements around, like putting the format selection settings in a
dropdown menu at the top, labeled with "Please select the format of your
data" or something. Then rename "None" to "Custom" and put it at the
bottom of the list.<br clear="none"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3083"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3081">Every time I try to use a <span>CSV</span>
in class, I import it in front of god and everyone on the projector,
then demonstrate running the analysis, and say, "Okay, is everyone with
me?" and half of the students' hands shoot up and I go look at their
screens and they have the entire table in one column and the analysis
won't run, of course.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3034">The quickest/easiest fix right
away for this would be to just kill the "Import Data" entry, rename
"Import format" to "Import data format" and move it above the line in
the menu, separating it from the script options. Just doing that would
at least avoid the problem of people finding themselves stuck in the
SPSS format importer, trying to feed it <span>CSV</span> data or whatever.<br clear="none"></div></div></blockquote><div><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3037">It is worth noting that either Thomas or Meik pointed out that the format could be changed when doing "Import Data," but I hadn't noticed after several years of using the software, so... Kinda hard to see, maybe.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3038"> </div><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3041" class="yiv5675068742gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3040"><div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3039">3) Distributions dialogs<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3563">I
only started using these this semester, so I hadn't noticed, but these
are unintuitive enough that I decided to just get the students to do
them in the R Console.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3562">In the "r" dialogs (i.e., the
ones that call rbinom and rgeom, etc.), the values that will be fed into
R are filled in by default. Why? That seems to communicate, for
example, that the "normal" thing to do when looking at a binomial
probability is to set the number of "successes" to 0.95, and only 1
trial, and with a 50% probability, when actually, these are likely to
all be different. I think these should just be blank.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3561">"Vector
of quantiles" really ought to be renamed "Number of successes." I'll be
honest here: I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do here, so
the only way I figured out how to use these dialogs was by clicking the
"Code" button to see what commands it would be calling, and then reading
the CRAN documentation on those functions. The CRAN documentation was
much clearer. <br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3594">It would be nice if there was another
calculator that called the "d" functions as well... Not that I've really
ever used either of these, but they are pretty important for teaching
undergraduate stats.<br clear="none"></div></div></blockquote><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3709"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3678">[snip!]<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3629" class="yiv5675068742gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3628"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3710">5) Plotting issues of various kinds<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3627">I
can't seem to figure out how to make a grouped barplot out of the Plots
→ Barplot dialog. I've been telling my students to do it via the "N to 1
Crosstabulation" dialog, where it works fine. <br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3630">A
Q-Q/Normality plot in the Scatterplot dialog would be awesome. The only
place I can find that in RKWard seems to be one of the options in the
Scatterplot Matrix dialog. <br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3634">It would be very helpful
if the Scatterplot pulled axis labels from the Label header, or, if
empty, the variable name itself, for the variable by default. Right now
you have to enter labels manually. This results in me getting a lot of
test answers labeled "Xrange" and "Yrange," which I still give full
marks for if they are obviously the right variables.</div></div></blockquote><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3636"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3676">—There was one more point, but it was addressed already.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3677">I realize it's a big list. This is my 3rd time teaching this class with RKWard, and despite the bumps, it's still my favorite. <br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1443612314187_3711" class="yiv5675068742gmail_extra"><br clear="none"><div class="yiv5675068742gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 3:12 PM, Jan Wort <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:d_jan@ymail.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:d_jan@ymail.com">d_jan@ymail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br clear="none"><blockquote class="yiv5675068742gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="yiv5675068742yqt4459519635" id="yiv5675068742yqt50944"><div><div style="color:#000;background-color:#fff;font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div><span>Hi Aaron,</span></div><div dir="ltr"><span>I can imagine that is causes trouble in class. I wonder - can you tell us what the problems were (what they tried and what they expected) or direct me to the previous discussion of the topic?</span><span><br clear="none"></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span><br clear="none"></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span> Users (like students) rarely fail to point out issues one oversees as a designer or developer!</span></div><div dir="ltr"><br clear="none"><span></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span>Kind Regards</span></div><span><font color="#888888"></font></span><div dir="ltr"><span> Jan</span></div><div><div> <br clear="none"><div><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div style="display:block;"> <div style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"> <div style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> Aaron Batty <<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:abatty@sfc.keio.ac.jp" target="_blank" href="mailto:abatty@sfc.keio.ac.jp">abatty@sfc.keio.ac.jp</a>> schrieb am 23:50 Dienstag, 29.September 2015:<br clear="none"> </font> </div> <br clear="none"><br clear="none"> <div><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Jan:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div>Thanks for bringing these things up; we were discussing them last fall, because they cause my students no end of consternation. They have a terrible time importing datasets.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Aaron<br clear="none"></div></div><div><div><br clear="none"><div>On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 1:33 AM, jan <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:d_jan@ymail.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:d_jan@ymail.com">d_jan@ymail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br clear="none"><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Dear RKWard Devs,<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Since I was recently working again more with RKWard (analysing usability<br clear="none">
data…), here are some usability problems I found. I tired to estimate<br clear="none">
how hard they are to fix, so one could focus on the most effective fixes.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
I split them in different mails, so that the issues stay separated.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
1) Reading CSV Data<br clear="none">
===========<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
First row as col names (easy/medium difficulty fix)<br clear="none">
--------------------------------------------------------------<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
It took me a long time until I found how to get the first row as column<br clear="none">
name. Assumed reason: The checkbox for the option (nicely put on the<br clear="none">
first tab!) is somewhat squeezed between other elements. On Linux it<br clear="none">
looks like it is part of "quick options", on Mac this impression is even<br clear="none">
more extreme, since it resides in some darker-colored box.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Violated Heuristics: Usability, Standards (all other options have some<br clear="none">
sort of headline)<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Proposed Fix: Give it a space on its own (an own line) and/or a headline<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Aside there are several smaller issues I found.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Wordings (Easy fix)<br clear="none">
--------------------------<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
a) In "Column names in first row" (1st tab) it is unclear if the first<br clear="none">
row is the CSV’s or the resulting data.frame. (Suggestion: "Use first<br clear="none">
line as column names" (?))<br clear="none">
b) "Default": On the second tab there are many "Defaults", but it is<br clear="none">
unclear what this default is.<br clear="none">
c) "Edit Object" (1st tab, save to options): This seems to open the<br clear="none">
object after import in the table view, but it suggests it somehow<br clear="none">
directly changes some object (like a mixin or an overwrite...)<br clear="none">
(Suggestion: "Open after Import" or "View after import")<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Active/Inactive Fields (Medium)<br clear="none">
-----------------------------------------<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Depended on other fields, some radiobutton options are active or<br clear="none">
inactive. Sometimes it is hard to follow why, and the many inactive<br clear="none">
options irritate<br clear="none">
Possible fix: Using Dropdowns (?) like in RStudio’s import<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Preview (Difficult)<br clear="none">
-----------------------<br clear="none">
This is probably hard to implement but a preview of the first 5 or so<br clear="none">
imported lines would be great (also RStudio inspired)<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Flow: Call the file selector (easy to medium)<br clear="none">
----------------------------------------------------------<br clear="none">
Before any option makes any sense, I file needs to be loaded. So<br clear="none">
flow-wise it would make sense to open the file picker right away. It<br clear="none">
also would match user expectations, since it is standard in many other<br clear="none">
applications.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Kind Regards,<br clear="none">
Jan<br clear="none">
_______________________________________________<br clear="none">
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