[rkward-devel] Usability: Reading CSV

Wed Sep 30 12:13:02 UTC 2015

> 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. 

I suggested this too and I think Thomas was positive about this:
June 3rd, 2015, Thomas/Jan. (The "Dialog" is the "Import Data"-Function)
>>> JAN
>>> - Data Import. Suggestion: "Import Data" is error prone, submenu seems
>>> to provide same functions. Suggestion: Let’s get rid of "Import Data"
>>
>> THOMAS
>>ok, getting rid of this is easy, of course, and you finally got
>>me convinced that it's better than the current state. But for
>>clarification: In an ideal world, would the dialog still go away, or
>>would it be improved to make format selection more obvious (or more
>>automatic)?
>> JAN 
>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) 
>
>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.
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. 

Jan

     Aaron Batty <abatty at sfc.keio.ac.jp> schrieb am 11:33 Mittwoch, 30.September 2015:

 Jan:

It was last November, when we were still on SourceForge. Here are the ones that remain:

1) Installation issues.

[snip]

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.

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. 

2) Data import

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 / CSV 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." 

Once they navigate to "Import text / CSV data," however, the problems continue, because despite the fact that we've already ostensibly told the software that we're working with .csv 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.

Every time I try to use a CSV 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.

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 CSV data or whatever.

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.

3) Distributions dialogs

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.

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.

"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. 

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.

[snip!]

5) Plotting issues of various kinds

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. 

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. 

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.

—There was one more point, but it was addressed already.

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.  

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 3:12 PM, Jan Wort <d_jan at ymail.com> wrote:

Hi Aaron,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?

 Users (like students) rarely fail to point out issues one oversees as a designer or developer!
Kind Regards Jan 

     Aaron Batty <abatty at sfc.keio.ac.jp> schrieb am 23:50 Dienstag, 29.September 2015:

 Jan:

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.

Aaron

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 1:33 AM, jan <d_jan at ymail.com> wrote:

Dear RKWard Devs,

Since I was recently working again more with RKWard (analysing usability
data…), here are some usability problems I found. I tired to estimate
how hard they are to fix, so one could focus on the most effective fixes.

I split them in different mails, so that the issues stay separated.

1) Reading CSV Data
===========

First row as col names (easy/medium difficulty fix)
--------------------------------------------------------------

It took me a long time until I found how to get the first row as column
name. Assumed reason: The checkbox for the option (nicely put on the
first tab!) is somewhat squeezed between other elements. On Linux it
looks like it is part of "quick options", on Mac this impression is even
more extreme, since it resides in some darker-colored box.

Violated Heuristics: Usability, Standards (all other options have some
sort of headline)

Proposed Fix: Give it a space on its own (an own line) and/or a headline

Aside there are several smaller issues I found.

Wordings (Easy fix)
--------------------------

a) In "Column names in first row" (1st tab) it is unclear if the first
row is the CSV’s or the resulting data.frame. (Suggestion: "Use first
line as column names" (?))
b) "Default": On the second tab there are many "Defaults", but it is
unclear what this default is.
c) "Edit Object" (1st tab, save to options): This seems to open the
object after import in the table view, but it suggests it somehow
directly changes some object (like a mixin or an overwrite...)
(Suggestion: "Open after Import" or "View after import")

Active/Inactive Fields (Medium)
-----------------------------------------

Depended on other fields, some radiobutton options are active or
inactive. Sometimes it is hard to follow why, and the many inactive
options irritate
Possible fix: Using Dropdowns (?) like in RStudio’s import

Preview (Difficult)
-----------------------
This is probably hard to implement but a preview of the first 5 or so
imported lines would be great (also RStudio inspired)

Flow: Call the file selector (easy to medium)
----------------------------------------------------------
Before any option makes any sense, I file needs to be loaded. So
flow-wise it would make sense to open the file picker right away. It
also would match user expectations, since it is standard in many other
applications.

Kind Regards,
 Jan
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