[rkward-devel] Usability: Informal/Heuristics based remarks

[Jan Wort]

Hello RKWard Developers,

I’m new to the list and RKWard development. I wrote with Thomas before, whom I asked if RKWard would be interested in Usability-related input (and possibly some JavaScript for Plugins) I’m a user researcher and do mainly qualitative (interview-based) research, though I use R since some years and recently started using RKWard. 


So far about me or how I got here.

My first input is not very formalized and based on my experiences using RKWard. However, the issues I’ll address are checked against the common 10-Point Nielsen-Heuristc for UI Design. 


Issues: 


==1. (deleting) Data==TLDR; being able to delete data in the dataframe view causes trouble.


Scenario: I imported my data (from a cvs or the like) and have a look at it via RKWards Data Frame Viewer. I interact with the data in some form, like marking a part to copy it in the clipboard. For whatever reason I touch the "del" or the "Backspace" key.

The Data is gone, I need to reimport.

    Solutions

Best would be undo. But this is often hard to implement.

Second best: A warning and/or a "locking" of the data, which allows to select data and copy it, but not to manipulate the data itself manually (In my experience, the manual changing of data points does rarely makes sense anyway, but that is just an educated guess)


== 2. Workspace and Data ==
TLDR; "Workspace" content display controls are difficult to get



The "Workspace" on the left was a bit puzzling to me and will probably be even more so for people who come from commercial applications like SPSS (I use RStudio). 


"Show hidden objects" and "Functions" is sort of understandable, though this *may* be already jargon the user is not familiar with. "Non Functions" assumes some kind of boolean logic in the UI (people tend to be bad at this) and "show all environments" is difficult to grasp (I know "global scope" in programming, but are there several "global" scopes in R?) [2]
I assume there are good reasons for the current design, but it is hard to comprehend even with some R/programming knowledge.

  Solution

Since I don’t know what the exact goals of the dialogue are I will not/can’t suggest an other design. If you or someone else could explain me the intentions of the dialogue and of its current options, I gladly try to set up a design which keeps the power of the current one while not confusing people who don’t have deep knowledge of R(KWards) inner workings.



Because Usability people tend only to complain here some uplifting remarks :)
==3. Praise==
* The general Structure is, like the description of the application says, accessible for people who are used to commercial programs.

* In contrast to changing *data* (see issue above), being able to change the datatype and name of columns in data frames directly is just great. It is a pain and error prone to do this in code imho (Everyday R users will disagree though I assume)

Kind Regards,
 Jan