toomin writes "Reviews of the latest Ubuntu version, 8.04 Hardy Heron, are everywhere, but most of them are undertaken by geeks familiar with Linux. This guy sits his girlfriend down at a brand-new Ubuntu installation and asks her to perform some basic tasks. Some of them are surprisingly easy, others frustrate and annoy. There are lots of little usability tweaks he stumbles upon just by seeing the desktop experience from the point of view of the mainstream user."
Particularly suspicious is that the only picture shown in the article of the alleged "girlfriend" is an admitted photoshop (that she apparently did herself):).
That's how user testing should be done. It is really much too difficult for someone familiar with the program or OS to see what is not obvious or confusing to a novice user. The people that program the UI don't always think like a user - they usually think like a programmer, and that doesn't always work.
I agree. I expected this article to be a little silly, but it was well thought out.
The new user was given a bunch of common tasks (play some music, draw a picture, play a video on youtube, use an instant messenger on MSN network, install a commonly used application (skype), edit a photo) and asked to perform them on a default installation of Ubuntu.
Well done. The Ubuntu team (and other linux distributions) can learn a lot from this article alone. Hopefully it will give a target for other usability testing in the future.
(And, no, I have nothing to do with the article author or website.)
It is a good article. But we might be seeing early stages of a conflict between friendliness and elegance. For example, I was annoyed when I upgraded to Hairy Hardon that it had decided I needed folders called Documents, Music, Pictures etc. in my home directory. A couple of the things suggested had less to do with usability than they did to do with familiarity to someone brought up on Windows. I don't think Linux environments should be so keen to emulate the Windows environment. It's a short term benefit with long term consequences. And even the short term benefit is a small one - look at the later iterations of Office: built around the concept that you don't need to read instructions, that everything should immediately be self-explanatory. A noble goal, but not one possible to reconcile with utility. I think I would rather a short, well written Introduction to Ubuntu than try to make everything look like Windows.
No, it doesn't. I fact, it is a already a huge advantage that she did not have to install Ubuntu (Note: It's not that installing Windows is easier, but people do not install Windows, they buy computers with Windows on them. This is a real problem that no amount of whining about the unfairness of it all will make go away.) Now, imagine if she had the wrong wireless chipset; 0/12 points right there, instantly.
Not really. The goal isn't to make Ubuntu "as easy to use as Vista". The goal is to make Ubuntu "usable by everyone". Comparisons to Windows will only invite the subconscious tendancy to stop when Ubuntu reaches parity, no matter how counter-intuitive it may be.
Doing things the "Windows way" is frequently easier because people are familiar with it, in which case it makes sense. But there are plenty of things Windows gets way wrong that Linux can get right.
At this point, you need to win those people over by offering an easy experience. At first, people will treat it like Windows. After a while, people will eventually treat it like Ubuntu. Linux still has a hold over userbase from the DOS world where men were men and functionality was won through hard labor.
This probably occurs when people switch to mac as well.
But you are right- if Ubuntu ever matches Windows' functionality or market share, they will probably slow down in usability development. Like most open source (and closed source to a lesser extent) it grows through mimickery.
This coming from a person who still doesn't quite get the concept of "variable-width fonts" and "text-wrapping."
The only thing that is "intuitive" is a nipple.
Could we retire this tired old phrase, please? Not clever.
The notion of installing new Windows apps through the control panel would make perfect sense if the relevant control panel app did what it's name implies.
Yes, well, that was part of the point wasn't it? You can improve on the things Windows gets wrong (which is frankly a lot of things), you don't have to be a perfect clone of Windows. The point is that you should be *at least* as good as Windows, and right now software installation on Linux isn't.
This is one of those areas where Linux really excels but not insisting on being some sort of Windows clone.
A distinct product is going to have some meaningful differences, imagine that.
Yes. OS X and Windows have differences because they came from different multi-tasking philosophies... Macintosh apps were designed (back in the 80s) to take over the screen so that you were using one application at a time. Thus, current Mac applications share the same menu bar at the top of the screen, and its content changes as you change the current app. Windows was designed differently, so it works differently.
It's a meaningful difference. And yet both Windows and OS X are more usable than Linux.
What the Linux community needs to do is to take the best from Windows, the best from OS X, and then improve on that. It especially needs to stop constantly comparing itself to Windows, and judging itself on its own merits. As a Mac-user, it bugs me that both major Linux window environments are complete rips of Windows.
The same KDE that uses single-click everywhere by default, that has an optional Mac-style menu bar... The same that, on Ubuntu, has a clearly OS X inspired control panel... That KDE?
And you're confusing "usability" with "discoverability". Discoverability is important for the first hour or two of using an OS, maybe the first few days. Usability is important for the rest of your life. I'm glad Ubuntu focuses on the latter.
Who cares? The aim is to make the Linux desktop experience better, not to justify it's failings as somehow being ok because it's just as difficult to use as windows.
"Easier than a Mac!" That should be the mantra, not:
"Windows is just as crusty!"...
What is positively astonishing is how persistent this problem is. Look back at the thousands of linux threads over the last 10 years, and you will see the SAME complaint again and again, and again. And again. And AGAIN. It is farking ridiculous.
How hard is it to sit down and run a simple test like the (excellent) one this guy did with his girlfriend for every release?
To Ubtunu's credit, most of the fault lies with the applications and not with the OS itself. Well-designed apps like Skype make things simple and intuitive for new users. But Ubuntu itself could develop specs for developers that required basic intros, wizards, etc for introducing and explaining the simple but non-obvious stuff to new users. Conversion rates would then skyrocket.
Again, there is no logical reason why this hasn't been implemented before. The only explanation is therefore stupidity on the part of the developers - both on the OS and the app side. Cue the irony tag, given how clever most of these folks like to think they are. I guess what it shows is that being a math jock or code monkey with a stratospheric IQ doesn't make you a good UI designer any more than it makes you a suave and charming socialite.
GNOME is the way it is today largely because of usability testing, I believe - while many power users and developers whinge about this, it is becoming much closer to Macs in overall usability.
So the issue is not "stupid developers", it's a matter of taking the time to do the testing - and it helps if you have some expertise at running the tests. Then it's the time to actually make the changes. Many developers aren't that interested in doing the testing, which is why there have been separate usability initiatives that can feed changes into projects.
Some of the issues logged here are not that easy to solve - e.g. making Firefox pop up an Ubuntu-specific Flash installation prompt, rather than executing the YouTube JavaScript logic that pushes people towards an Adobe plugin site that actually does have a Linux plugin for Flash, but one that's much harder to install than an Ubuntu-packaged Flash plugin.
Also, the one about finding MP3s on the Windows partition is not that easy - you could simply copy the files across with the Ubuntu migration assistant, but what if they're in a non-standard place? Indexing the Windows filesystem to quickly find these might help, but building the index could take some time. However, it would probably be enough if there was some feature in Ubuntu that scanned for existing partitions and said (based on partition type and a few key directories/files) that 'this looks like a Windows partition, it's available on the desktop through this icon', and ideally did a special symbolic link for the My Documents or similar (though that's tough as it's per-user under Windows - which user should this use).
2) Watch youtube. Unsuccessful. No Flash. 11) MSN. Unsuccessful
Yeah well, I have a girlfriend too, and all she ever does on a computer is watch music videos on YouTube, write e-mails and chat on MSN. Maybe you'd like to weight your rating based on how important something is to the person tested (by asking them). Downloading a torrent and changing your mouse speed will probably rate to 0 while MSN will probably rate to "Why the hell would I need a computer if not for MSN?".
Yeah, have had that problem with YouTube on ubuntu as well, and it only happens if YouTube is the first site you go to, they fubar their refer to adobe.
If she had of gone to, say, ANYWHERE else first it would have been fine and just popped up with a bar saying "i can haz plugin?", say yes and bam, its all good.
Long and short, it should have flash already on it.
Oh and she was lucky it was the 32bit version, installing and using skype is pretty hard when there ain't a 64bit binary available for the platform (last time I looked anyway).
Yeah well, I have a girlfriend too, and all she ever does on a computer is watch music videos on YouTube, write e-mails and chat on MSN
And how well do you think your girlfriend would go on a vanilla windows install with no flash installed, MSN account not setup, etc?
If the article's author had setup flash / pidgin / explained the difference between GIMP & Open Office draw, his girlfriend would have had few problems.
I'd suggest to you (honestly) - that if all your gf really does is youtube, mail & chat, then she'd be much better off on Ubuntu than windows.
I'd suggest to you (honestly) - that if all your gf really does is youtube, mail & chat, then she'd be much better off on Ubuntu than windows.
Maybe. Those who use a computer for those tasks often also use it to play music (MP3 Support) and play movies (DVD support) where Microsoft has paid for the privilage to supply the codecs and the Ubuntu distro is lacking.
MP3 support isn't bad, but DVD support comes with dire warnings of DMCA violations and it may be illegal where you live.
Once installed, I like the Ubuntu machine over anything else for playing movies. You put in the DVD and the movie starts.. No previews, no unskippable FBI warning etc. Nice. If I want to watch all the extras, I can watch them later. It's the way a DVD player should work.
If I travel without a laptop, I carry a copy of Geex box. It's a bootable Linux Media player. Nice.
By the time you are telling them "GIMP... which stants for GNU Image Manipulation Program.. GNU is for GNU is not Unix" they lost all interest and just tell you to please resintall Windows.
Who the hell would do that? If you're talking to a novice you're not going to go into tons of detail about acronyms and such, you're going to say "GIMP does stuff that photoshop does"
Ahaha, good one. I thought the very point of this exercise was that users do not behave like developers expect or would like them to. Reading release notes is certainly among the things they rarely ever do, and so this hints at Ubuntu doing something wrong more than anything else.
I laughed heartily at the fact that a common user scenario includes how to torrent a Spice Girls album. Not that I think that's not the case; it was just pretty refreshing to see how blatant this guy is about it.
They chose Spice Girls because not even the RIAA, with their inflated ideas of what each infraction costs, could possibly demand more than about 20 US cents with a striaght face.
Where do I get this "with a girlfriend" release?.. of course with my luck, the "girlfriend" will be the openbsd version, and ship with all ports closed by default.
His note that if you go too small of screen size you cant click on the buttons of the dialog. This happens a LOT in windows with dons of the dialogs and YES even the screen size dialog.
At least in Linux you could boot up into command line mode and edit your xorg.conf file to change the resolution. Say what you want about the command line and editing the config file, and how users shouldn't have to do it, but at least the option is available. Any idea if the same can be done under windows? It's the same reason why so many forums are filled with directions on how to accomplish stuff over the command line. Sure it's a little more difficult than clicking around in a GUI. But it's much more likely to work across different distros and different versions of the same distro.
That's pretty interesting. On a tangentially related note, a guy I work with just install Ubuntu as his first linux. A friend and I were talking about 8.04 and he overheard us, so he walked up and started asking questions about it which we answered. The next day he shows up to work and says that he installed it and is really liking it. What is this world coming to when a normal guy one day hears about linux and the next successfully installs it without asking the local nerds for help? It was really interesting, he said the hardest thing was burning the ISO, other than that he said it was easier to use and set up than windows. Trust me when I say that this guy is very very average when it comes to computer smarts, this was a huge leap for him and it was no trouble at all. That's how I know linux is heading mainstream.
I can confirm that this is a rather strange world we're living in. My wife wants to switch to Ubuntu (and thus wiping Windows XP from her computer) because of some reasons I had not expected (from my point of view as a hardcore developer):
Frozen Bubble is available on Linux, as well as a lot of good games
Less viruses than XP, and so no need for an anti-virus
Firefox and "MSN" chat are available on Linux
Free IT support when I'm available at home
I know that it may seem redundant but computer noobs switch for very strange reasons and we must listen to their needs if we want Linux to "succeed on the desktop."
The article several times suggests that the solution to some of these problems is, essentially, user education: having balloons that signal "new item installed" or wizards open the first time you launch a program, telling you how the program works.
The problem is that this approach often doesn't work. For one thing, it annoys the piss out of experience users. For another thing, new users tend to ignore most of that information... mainly because they are being overwhelmed by new information and can't possibly assimilate it all.
Take, for instance, the problem that was encountered when changing screen resolution. The tester changed the resolution easily, but then she clicked the "Keep settings" immediately, which locked her into graphic settings that were hard to change back. Part of the problem, I suppose is that the system allowed the user to make a ridiculous change. But part of the problem is also, perhaps, that the user is very used to clicking "OK" on any dialog that gets in the way: there are too many new things to read and learn, and the easiest way to get things done (in the mind of a new user) is to dismiss those annoying boxes as quickly as possible. Would a second popup, that described in detail why this low resolution was a bad idea (and how to undo it when desired), have changed anything? Doubtful. Most users would just click "OK" without reading it.
All this to say that I'm by no means convinced that adding more balloons, wizards, and dialog boxes will magically make it easier for users to figure out what's going on. I don't know what the solution is: usability is a tough problem. There is a place for helpful information (balloons, tool-tips, etc.), reminders, and wizards. But too much of this becomes decidedly counter-productive.
Yeah, and it's a huge part. It's the 800 pound gorilla part.
Testing for useability needs to come in much, much earlier in development, and it needs to involve a much wider cross-section of human beings. And as it's being done, development of adequate documentation and help needs to go hand and hand with it.
It's so easy to disparage girlfriends, the middle-aged, and the elderly--in short, anyone whose job or study is not technical--that I think it's becoming ingrained in the cultures responsible for developing the various operating-system distributions and open-source software packages. This is going to cause them to suffer over the long haul. It's what makes them such a tough sell to people in business.
There's an immense population of middle-aged people, for example, still in the work force. And interestingly enough, they've actually now all got 20 or 25 years' experience as end-users of computer systems. They're not stupid. They all have jobs that they need to get done. They're not interested in being part of user communities and forums. They're not interested in the ideals of free and open-source software. They're not interested in sticking it to Microsoft. They're not interested in that warm feeling of accomplishment that until recently accompanied getting your printers hooked up to OpenOffice--after wasting hours of productive time doing it. They're interested in using their computers as tools to accomplish their current day's work.
Issues of usability and documentation aren't much fun. They're probably the least glamorous and most boring functions of developing the software. That's why they get such short shrift in open-source development. Nobody really wants to take them on, so we're treated to excrescenses like having people guess how to get out to a command line to install their audio player or their scanner or their printer.
Large-scale developers of proprietary software know precisely where their bread is buttered, and they attend to all this as a matter of course.
"Girlfriend" articles seem to appear quite regularly every few months, so at least somebody is thinking about this even at a ridiculous level. A lot more people need to be thinking about it at a much more serious level.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of things like this - his girlfriend HAS to be some untutored user who has no clue about computers, tee-hee. As a female computer programmer, should people assume my husband is computer illiterate? No? Then why assume his girlfriend is?
Isn't it enough to say that the installation was tested with a novice user instead of putting stupid assumptions and implications right in the freaking headline?
And of course, what kind of replies do I expect to my post around here? People marveling that a woman is posting on slashdot that will be modded up as funny. Given the nature of my post, I also expect some responses telling me to calm down or calling me a feminazi. There, I've taken care of those responses, you can stick to ones that actually address what I've said.
I call Shenanigans!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I call Shenanigans!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I call Shenanigans!! (Score:5, Funny)
This is one of the problems with GIMP.. Who wants to show someone a picture that they edited and say "I GIMPed her in this picture"?
Aikon-
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Re:I call Shenanigans!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I call Shenanigans!! (Score:5, Funny)
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He does what with his girlfriend ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He does what with his girlfriend ? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:He does what with his girlfriend ? (Score:5, Funny)
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Usability Testing Hardon With a Girlfriend ? (Score:4, Funny)
We don't have girlfriends to test the usability of our hardon's with.
Oh... Hardy Herron, who's that ?
Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Interesting)
The new user was given a bunch of common tasks (play some music, draw a picture, play a video on youtube, use an instant messenger on MSN network, install a commonly used application (skype), edit a photo) and asked to perform them on a default installation of Ubuntu.
Well done. The Ubuntu team (and other linux distributions) can learn a lot from this article alone. Hopefully it will give a target for other usability testing in the future.
(And, no, I have nothing to do with the article author or website.)
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a good article. But we might be seeing early stages of a conflict between friendliness and elegance. For example, I was annoyed when I upgraded to Hairy Hardon that it had decided I needed folders called Documents, Music, Pictures etc. in my home directory. A couple of the things suggested had less to do with usability than they did to do with familiarity to someone brought up on Windows. I don't think Linux environments should be so keen to emulate the Windows environment. It's a short term benefit with long term consequences. And even the short term benefit is a small one - look at the later iterations of Office: built around the concept that you don't need to read instructions, that everything should immediately be self-explanatory. A noble goal, but not one possible to reconcile with utility. I think I would rather a short, well written Introduction to Ubuntu than try to make everything look like Windows.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Doing things the "Windows way" is frequently easier because people are familiar with it, in which case it makes sense. But there are plenty of things Windows gets way wrong that Linux can get right.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, you need to win those people over by offering an easy experience. At first, people will treat it like Windows. After a while, people will eventually treat it like Ubuntu. Linux still has a hold over userbase from the DOS world where men were men and functionality was won through hard labor.
This probably occurs when people switch to mac as well.
But you are right- if Ubuntu ever matches Windows' functionality or market share, they will probably slow down in usability development. Like most open source (and closed source to a lesser extent) it grows through mimickery.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing that is "intuitive" is a nipple.
Could we retire this tired old phrase, please? Not clever.
The notion of installing new Windows apps through the
control panel would make perfect sense if the relevant
control panel app did what it's name implies.
Yes, well, that was part of the point wasn't it? You can improve on the things Windows gets wrong (which is frankly a lot of things), you don't have to be a perfect clone of Windows. The point is that you should be *at least* as good as Windows, and right now software installation on Linux isn't.
This is one of those areas where Linux really excels
but not insisting on being some sort of Windows clone.
A distinct product is going to have some meaningful
differences, imagine that.
Yes. OS X and Windows have differences because they came from different multi-tasking philosophies... Macintosh apps were designed (back in the 80s) to take over the screen so that you were using one application at a time. Thus, current Mac applications share the same menu bar at the top of the screen, and its content changes as you change the current app. Windows was designed differently, so it works differently.
It's a meaningful difference. And yet both Windows and OS X are more usable than Linux.
What the Linux community needs to do is to take the best from Windows, the best from OS X, and then improve on that. It especially needs to stop constantly comparing itself to Windows, and judging itself on its own merits. As a Mac-user, it bugs me that both major Linux window environments are complete rips of Windows.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
The same KDE that uses single-click everywhere by default, that has an optional Mac-style menu bar... The same that, on Ubuntu, has a clearly OS X inspired control panel... That KDE?
And you're confusing "usability" with "discoverability". Discoverability is important for the first hour or two of using an OS, maybe the first few days. Usability is important for the rest of your life. I'm glad Ubuntu focuses on the latter.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Informative)
If it's not done correctly, you end up with hungry babies and sore moms.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
The aim is to make the Linux desktop experience better, not to justify it's failings as somehow being ok because it's just as difficult to use as windows.
"Easier than a Mac!" That should be the mantra, not:
"Windows is just as crusty!"...
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
How hard is it to sit down and run a simple test like the (excellent) one this guy did with his girlfriend for every release?
To Ubtunu's credit, most of the fault lies with the applications and not with the OS itself. Well-designed apps like Skype make things simple and intuitive for new users. But Ubuntu itself could develop specs for developers that required basic intros, wizards, etc for introducing and explaining the simple but non-obvious stuff to new users. Conversion rates would then skyrocket.
Again, there is no logical reason why this hasn't been implemented before. The only explanation is therefore stupidity on the part of the developers - both on the OS and the app side. Cue the irony tag, given how clever most of these folks like to think they are. I guess what it shows is that being a math jock or code monkey with a stratospheric IQ doesn't make you a good UI designer any more than it makes you a suave and charming socialite.
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Funny)
The word "girlfriend" should be a clue...
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Re:Smart move (Score:5, Informative)
GNOME is the way it is today largely because of usability testing, I believe - while many power users and developers whinge about this, it is becoming much closer to Macs in overall usability.
So the issue is not "stupid developers", it's a matter of taking the time to do the testing - and it helps if you have some expertise at running the tests. Then it's the time to actually make the changes. Many developers aren't that interested in doing the testing, which is why there have been separate usability initiatives that can feed changes into projects.
Some of the issues logged here are not that easy to solve - e.g. making Firefox pop up an Ubuntu-specific Flash installation prompt, rather than executing the YouTube JavaScript logic that pushes people towards an Adobe plugin site that actually does have a Linux plugin for Flash, but one that's much harder to install than an Ubuntu-packaged Flash plugin.
Also, the one about finding MP3s on the Windows partition is not that easy - you could simply copy the files across with the Ubuntu migration assistant, but what if they're in a non-standard place? Indexing the Windows filesystem to quickly find these might help, but building the index could take some time. However, it would probably be enough if there was some feature in Ubuntu that scanned for existing partitions and said (based on partition type and a few key directories/files) that 'this looks like a Windows partition, it's available on the desktop through this icon', and ideally did a special symbolic link for the My Documents or similar (though that's tough as it's per-user under Windows - which user should this use).
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Yeah, right. (Score:5, Funny)
Exceptionally good. (Score:5, Informative)
2) Watch youtube. Unsuccessful. No Flash.
3) Use torrent. Successful (but this is not a novice user task)
4) Draw pic. 1/2 Successful. Chose wrong tool.
5) Burn music. Unsuccessful
6) Mouse speed change. Successful.
7) Theme change. Successful.
8) Desktop background change. Successful.
9) Scree resolution change. Unsuccessful.
10) Advanced image manipulation. Successful
11) MSN. Unsuccessful
12) Install & Use skype. Successful.
Note, the problem with 5) burning music was not the actual burning, but finding the mp3s on a windows partition.
So, 8/12. (maybe 9.5/12)
To be honest, I've seen experience computer users have more trouble doing the above tasks when switching from windows to OS X.
Kudos to Ubuntu.
Re:Exceptionally good. (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Watch youtube. Unsuccessful. No Flash.
11) MSN. Unsuccessful
Yeah well, I have a girlfriend too, and all she ever does on a computer is watch music videos on YouTube, write e-mails and chat on MSN. Maybe you'd like to weight your rating based on how important something is to the person tested (by asking them). Downloading a torrent and changing your mouse speed will probably rate to 0 while MSN will probably rate to "Why the hell would I need a computer if not for MSN?".
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Re:Exceptionally good. (Score:4, Insightful)
If she had of gone to, say, ANYWHERE else first it would have been fine and just popped up with a bar saying "i can haz plugin?", say yes and bam, its all good.
Long and short, it should have flash already on it.
Oh and she was lucky it was the 32bit version, installing and using skype is pretty hard when there ain't a 64bit binary available for the platform (last time I looked anyway).
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Re:Exceptionally good. (Score:5, Interesting)
And how well do you think your girlfriend would go on a vanilla windows install with no flash installed, MSN account not setup, etc?
If the article's author had setup flash / pidgin / explained the difference between GIMP & Open Office draw, his girlfriend would have had few problems.
I'd suggest to you (honestly) - that if all your gf really does is youtube, mail & chat, then she'd be much better off on Ubuntu than windows.
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Re:Exceptionally good. (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe. Those who use a computer for those tasks often also use it to play music (MP3 Support) and play movies (DVD support) where Microsoft has paid for the privilage to supply the codecs and the Ubuntu distro is lacking.
MP3 support isn't bad, but DVD support comes with dire warnings of DMCA violations and it may be illegal where you live.
Once installed, I like the Ubuntu machine over anything else for playing movies. You put in the DVD and the movie starts.. No previews, no unskippable FBI warning etc. Nice. If I want to watch all the extras, I can watch them later. It's the way a DVD player should work.
If I travel without a laptop, I carry a copy of Geex box. It's a bootable Linux Media player. Nice.
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Re:Exceptionally good. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're talking to a novice you're not going to go into tons of detail about acronyms and such, you're going to say "GIMP does stuff that photoshop does"
I think your argument is silly.
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Re:Exceptionally good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahaha, good one. I thought the very point of this exercise was that users do not behave like developers expect or would like them to. Reading release notes is certainly among the things they rarely ever do, and so this hints at Ubuntu doing something wrong more than anything else.
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Girlfriend? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Girlfriend? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Girlfriend? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Girlfriend? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Girlfriend? (Score:5, Funny)
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Arr matey. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Arr matey. (Score:5, Funny)
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ports... (Score:5, Funny)
Window Size complaint. (Score:4, Informative)
She would have failed that test under windows.
Re:Window Size complaint. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Window Size complaint. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
- Frozen Bubble is available on Linux, as well as a lot of good games
- Less viruses than XP, and so no need for an anti-virus
- Firefox and "MSN" chat are available on Linux
- Free IT support when I'm available at home
I know that it may seem redundant but computer noobs switch for very strange reasons and we must listen to their needs if we want Linux to "succeed on the desktop."Parent
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
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Test using Kubuntu? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a fine line... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that this approach often doesn't work. For one thing, it annoys the piss out of experience users. For another thing, new users tend to ignore most of that information... mainly because they are being overwhelmed by new information and can't possibly assimilate it all.
Take, for instance, the problem that was encountered when changing screen resolution. The tester changed the resolution easily, but then she clicked the "Keep settings" immediately, which locked her into graphic settings that were hard to change back. Part of the problem, I suppose is that the system allowed the user to make a ridiculous change. But part of the problem is also, perhaps, that the user is very used to clicking "OK" on any dialog that gets in the way: there are too many new things to read and learn, and the easiest way to get things done (in the mind of a new user) is to dismiss those annoying boxes as quickly as possible. Would a second popup, that described in detail why this low resolution was a bad idea (and how to undo it when desired), have changed anything? Doubtful. Most users would just click "OK" without reading it.
All this to say that I'm by no means convinced that adding more balloons, wizards, and dialog boxes will magically make it easier for users to figure out what's going on. I don't know what the solution is: usability is a tough problem. There is a place for helpful information (balloons, tool-tips, etc.), reminders, and wizards. But too much of this becomes decidedly counter-productive.
That this story even exists is part of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Testing for useability needs to come in much, much earlier in development, and it needs to involve a much wider cross-section of human beings. And as it's being done, development of adequate documentation and help needs to go hand and hand with it.
It's so easy to disparage girlfriends, the middle-aged, and the elderly--in short, anyone whose job or study is not technical--that I think it's becoming ingrained in the cultures responsible for developing the various operating-system distributions and open-source software packages. This is going to cause them to suffer over the long haul. It's what makes them such a tough sell to people in business.
There's an immense population of middle-aged people, for example, still in the work force. And interestingly enough, they've actually now all got 20 or 25 years' experience as end-users of computer systems. They're not stupid. They all have jobs that they need to get done. They're not interested in being part of user communities and forums. They're not interested in the ideals of free and open-source software. They're not interested in sticking it to Microsoft. They're not interested in that warm feeling of accomplishment that until recently accompanied getting your printers hooked up to OpenOffice--after wasting hours of productive time doing it. They're interested in using their computers as tools to accomplish their current day's work.
Issues of usability and documentation aren't much fun. They're probably the least glamorous and most boring functions of developing the software. That's why they get such short shrift in open-source development. Nobody really wants to take them on, so we're treated to excrescenses like having people guess how to get out to a command line to install their audio player or their scanner or their printer.
Large-scale developers of proprietary software know precisely where their bread is buttered, and they attend to all this as a matter of course.
"Girlfriend" articles seem to appear quite regularly every few months, so at least somebody is thinking about this even at a ridiculous level. A lot more people need to be thinking about it at a much more serious level.
Wonderful emphasis (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it enough to say that the installation was tested with a novice user instead of putting stupid assumptions and implications right in the freaking headline?
And of course, what kind of replies do I expect to my post around here? People marveling that a woman is posting on slashdot that will be modded up as funny. Given the nature of my post, I also expect some responses telling me to calm down or calling me a feminazi. There, I've taken care of those responses, you can stick to ones that actually address what I've said.
Re:No Windows Clone (Score:5, Insightful)
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