usability testing of breadcrumb

[Michael S. Mikowski]

Hi Aaron:

We should all appreciate you are doing usability testing.  Here are some 
articles you may find either old news or inspiring or interesting:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041117091141/mpt.phrasewise.com/discuss/msgReader$173
http://web.archive.org/web/20041011173853/mpt.phrasewise.com/discuss/msgReader$182

The main point seems to be that coders start coding first whereas usability 
experts design first.  Much credit should go to you and others who are taking 
the latter approach -- and for those usability experts who are getting 
involved in KDE and other open source projects these days.

Your progress sounds encouraging.  I would be interested to see what 
uninitiated users between location bar, "crumby bar," and bread crumbs.

By "crumby bar" I'm referring to the SGI widget discussed earlier that looks 
something like this:

 /home/frank/document
||----|-----|-------|

I'm sorry I can't help code the "crumby bar" as I don't do C++/KDE/QT, at 
least not yet.  Unless someone more capable than I can step up and create it, 
I can't complain.

Again, thanks for testing, and here's to having usability win!

Cheers,

Mike

On Saturday 04 November 2006 09:55, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> hi all...
>
> just a status update on things: i've been testing the usability of the
> breadcrumb on random strangers as well as family and friends this past
> week. adjustments have been made in response to these findings and i have
> more testing to do due to these findings.
>
> the promising news is that people really find it easy to use .... once they
> discover it.
>
> the discovery of the bradcrumb is the hard part. it's not obvious enough to
> them, perhaps due to its size and positioning and relative lack of eye
> catching feedback, e.g. when a new dir is added having some brief and
> elegant animation for the entry of the button. i'll be working on the
> latter to see if it helps discoverability any.
>
> one person i tested happens to be a mac user and was so impressed by the
> experience (he also ended up looking through gwenview and a few other kde
> apps while performing tasks) that he said he might just have to check
> out "this open source stuff". he commented the mac hides too much from him,
> though not in as frustrating a way as windows was, and that he found using
> KDE a much nicer balance in that regard. this comment was made in direct
> reference to the breadcrumb and sidebars ...
>
> so we may be on to something here =)
>
> interestingly enough i've been doing these usability tests with the toolbar
> not showing and people manage just fine. i've had queries about where the
> toolbar is and that they would use it if it was there but then these same
> individuals end up navigating amazingly well and quickly without it. i just
> hid it to force them to use the breadcrumb and sidebar so i could see where
> they fell down; not needing the toolbar at all has been a bit of a
> surprise.
>
> the protocol combo is now nicer looking and less "in your face" and i'm
> also pretty close to having them only appear when -absolutely necessary-.
> they already don't show when a dolphin bookmark is being used, but kevin
> ottens and i are working on extending that and making the breadcrumb even
> more usable in when used with ioslaves that represent dynamic views that
> lead to specific data locations (e.g. media:/, remote:/, system:/) by using
> redirects ...

-- 
Michael S. Mikowski
Software Engineering Manager
ValueClick Search
ValueClick Inc.
818.575.4587