Subject for usability testing

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

On 23 January 2011 21:52, Thomas Pfeiffer <colomar at autistici.org> wrote:
>> On 22 January 2011 16:48, todd rme <toddrme2178 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Thomas Pfeiffer <colomar at autistici.org>
> wrote:
>> >> Hi all,
>> >> as those of you who have been on #calligra today probably already know,
>> >> a group of students offered to do a usability test as a university
>> >> project for us.
>> >>
>> >> The usbility tests would be conducted in March and the students promised
>> >> to have some results ready for our developer sprint in April.
>> >>
>> >> They have asked us to provide a subject for them to test. They would
>> >> like to know the subject by Wednesday so they can start planning.
>> >>
>> >> My suggestion would be to choose the startup screen as a subject. We all
>> >> agree that it desperately needs improvement and JStaniek already
>> >> offered some very interesting ideas on that.
>> >> I think it would be very helpful to test those ideas before fully
>> >> implementing them to see if they work with users and possibly improve
>> >> them even further.
>> >>
>> >> Of course other suggestions are welcome as well.
>> >> So what do you think?
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >> Thomas
>> >
>> > I think there is another, possibly even more important question.
>> > There was discussion recently about modifications to how the dock
>> > panels work, and which of the methods available will be the default.
>> > Since this is a pretty central concept, effecting pretty much every
>> > aspect of the project, I think this is the key thing to work out.
>>
>> That's good news, Thomas; +1 from me.
>>
>> Both startup/file menu and dockers are related to the main window and
>> central workflow concepts so I
>> agree all that, at somewhat higher level, could be ideally discussed
>> as one item.
>
> Well, this might be discussed as one item, but I'm not sure if it all fits
> into one usability test szenario.

Yes, I only mean that solutions/rules (e.g. simplicity-by-default), if
anything like that appear, could be common to both areas.

> What we might do is suggest to do the whole
> thing but prioritize the two elements so the students know which one to do if
> they can't do both.
> So which element (startup or dockers) should receive higher priority?

I think dockers are more intensively discussed these weeks, with some
code appearing here ant there. So the answer IMHO would be: dockers.
Regarding startup, asking them about the current startup dialog would
result in notes we already more or less have (and probably some new).
So after we collect all the expected observations regarding the
startup, e.g. on the wiki pages like [1], the students' usability test
will be more than useful to validate correctness of the observations.

However, if possible, I would encourage to review and add notes on [1].

The notes collected there are not just my own but are collected from
any discussions I remember or was able to google.

[1] http://community.kde.org/Calligra/Usability_and_UX/Common/Startup/Startup_view_integrated_with_the_File_menu

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek
 Kexi & Calligra (kexi-project.org, identi.ca/kexi, calligra-suite.org)
 KDE Software Development Platform on MS Windows (windows.kde.org)