[ Date Index ][
Thread Index ]
[ <= Previous by date /
thread ]
[ Next by date /
thread => ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 08 January 2004 3:54 pm, Neil Williams wrote:
Usability testing: Testing that a piece of software is portable to other environments, stable on other systems and understandable in usage.
Nope usability testing is all about the ease of use, amount people need to learn etc. Key ideas like the 'principle of least surprise' apply. Portability is nothing to do with this, although portability is very good at wiping out bugs - if your C code goes through the VMS C compiler without errors first time I may well buy you a beer. My experience is that free software has better usuability because it is more stable, and development is more responsive to peoples needs. Where people go wrong is to associate consistent user interface with usability - - this is only part of it. Sure if you use KDE apps or GNOME apps you get a consistent user interface - and if these apps were all the Linux software, or the best, then that is all we would use and no one could accuse us of inconsistent interfaces. (Even (bits of) Microsoft recognises that usuability can be more important than user interface consistency, look what they did to media player in the name of usuability - although to be honest I think they messed up big time - fortunately you can switch it off.) But I prefer Mozilla with a slight loss of consistency (hardly noticable for 99.9% of what I do), because it is a better mailer. Similarly I can use GNOME apps in KDE and KDE apps in GNOME (plus X, command line and Java apps in both) - slight loss of functionality yes - but if I prefer that app why not. In most cases the apps will adapt so that common functionality behaves consistently anyway. What we see is similar to genetics - the free software apps that are persisting are those that work well in combination with a variety of other apps. It isn't enough to be a gene for a good attribute - you have to co-exist happily with the other genes - so a giraffe neck gene mustn't steal all the calcium from the giraffe leg build genes program. But I don't think that being rounded, and smooth, and co-existing nicely necessarily makes them more usuable. Contrast Outlook with Mozilla talking SMTP over SSL. First to make Outlook XP connect you need to install service pack 2 (which requires the Office CD you installed from and 60MB download). So proprietary development didn't do very good regression testing, does a painful CD check that means most people won't have recommended security updates (allegedly not for licence reasons - Microsoft's official explanation is they balls-up the configuration management - although that isn't the terminology they use - personally I believe them for once). Setting the settings is similar in both products. However if Outlook is in CW mode you can't easily configure it only to query one account per profile so it is started and stopped like a yo-yo. Outlook also caches network parameters and other weird bugs. Finally we connect to the mail server - but it doesn't have a certficate signed by one of the dubious bunch of companies that sell certificates, but is self certificated..... Outlook pops up "proceed" "cancel" Mozilla pops up "accept this session" "accept forever" "cancel" Seems that although the point of SSL with self signed is to check if the certificate changes Outlook doesn't offer an easy method to accept this certificate or tell if it changes. So Outlook offers less well thought out, and less secure, options. Although the interface is 100% Microsoft consistent, the product behaves in many unexpected ways - enabling CW mode alters unrelated behaviours in different places. The product breaks basic principals of network programming. To do basic reasonable mail filtering you need to use VB in Outlook and is well beyond the average user. So the power email user is going to be sadly disappointed. Mozilla just does it (on lots of platforms). Articles asking if free software will work published on webservers using free software -- hmm says it all. The GNOME and KDE projects both have usuability guides - and people will give feedback either as part of testing or more commonly as beta testers. Although I suggest if people want to understand usuability they read more general guidelines in user interface design - also Alan Cooper 'the inmates are runnig the Asylum' (ISBN on the www.dclug.org.uk website ;-). The real crux of course if a free application isn't easy to use, you'll throw it away and use another free application or buy one - if you already paid for the proprietary app people are much more reticent to throw it away - even when it sucks. This is of course irrational behaviour from an economic perspective. Of course often in the case of Outlook it is because they have bought Exchange, and now find themselves locked into one supplier because they are using systems with proprietary protocols everywhere and they have a migration headache that makes even the best IT department feel faint. Here endeth the rant. Simon -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Encryption...is a powerful defensive weapon for free people. iD8DBQE//bu4GFXfHI9FVgYRAls0AJ91zbIkwNhqo4TutNLnrncPtojsQwCggIur REpeMkSMzWLo8DTOf2FBWQw= =BQZr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.