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  KDE 3.3 Usability Study and Review
User Posted by Jonathan Turner on Monday 20/Sep/2004, @17:32
from the usability-lab dept.
Celebrating one month of KDE 3.3 out in the wild, userinstinct put together a usability review with user testing. "Based on feedback from our test group, the default settings for a number of KDE parameters differ from what is usually expected and desired by users. Providing better defaults would reduce the time users spend looking for configuration settings and would provide a better "out-of-the-box" experience."


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How True
by MandrakeUser on Monday 20/Sep/2004, @20:40
Really nice read. KDE is *this close* to be just absolutely amazing. All it needs is to hide advanced options and reorganize options in menues and toolbars with one idea in mind: NOT overwhelm the user. The Konqueror Settings Dialog is a good example. It is just way too cluttered.

I love the way they handle these issues on Mac OS (for what I peeped other people using it). I also like the simplicity of XFCE-4. It replaced GNOME as a secondary desktop on my machines. It really is a pleasure to use (although it lacks most of the KDE features, but it's worth a look).

All in all, KDE is an outstanding DE. But if I were to vote for one direction of improvement, it would be usability, in the sense discussed in the article. Simplicity in the design, and sensible default values.

A little time ago I read here in the dot that a few professional usability experts joined the project ? This will be terrific. Are hey working for Novell ?
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Kmix and Knob
by a.c. on Monday 20/Sep/2004, @20:58
I currently use Knob and would have to say that it is the cat's meow. It would be useful to have it bring up kmix on right click. Also, it should be on default installed and used in starters config.
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Cheers to k3b
by am on Monday 20/Sep/2004, @23:18
Great work Sebast and others! K3B is getting the props it deserves! Keep up the good work!
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Valuable information
by LMCBoy on Monday 20/Sep/2004, @23:40
Overall, there's some really useful tidbits in this report. And this part was pretty funny:

+ Explored KWrite
+ "So this is a text editor on steroids?"

Yikes, good thing he didn't open Kate! (or emacs ;)
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Very similar experiences
by mooobo on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @00:57
More or less all users (in this article) report the same difficulties in using konqueror and kmail. Users have been asking for more usability for quite some time now. But there has been only diffident changes in recent releases albeit major improvements would be achievable very easily. Why?
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What do we want?
by peroxid on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @02:23
We want the formula for converting plumber into gold. There is no way for the new user to know the system in 1 minute. That's simply imposible. KDE has many details that can be better in "usability", but many of the points I see in the linked article hit the same wall. Beyond a line "usability" changes to "bad engineering", and that's something almost all FS/distro developers never are going to do. Let's se some stupids and good points:

*"It doesn't show me that I'm typing in my password?"
-> Showing the pasword length is considered a security fault in many books, for example Tanenbaun's "Modern Operating Systems"

*Thought web browser icon was not intuitive
-> What browser icon is intuitive? the solution is simple. Put a konqueror icon on the desktop with label "Browse the Web"

*"Why do I want to know about this KDE wallet system? I just want to login."
-> What the hell is security? I click in all .exe I receive, and I have a post it on mi credit card with the PIN.

*Did not understand downloading status/progress of downloading files
-> 50% is to difficult for me, should be "half the way to 0wnz the filez"

*Download manager did not give status of download
-> kget? really not?

*KDE has too much setup and installed by default. I'd rather be able to easily install what I want without having everything in the way. But the tea maker can stay.
-> That's it! then people will say kde comes with no apps. What the ...! he thinks tea maker is the best app!

There are some points he says great comments, but another...
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So, what we can gather from this:
by Janne on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @03:51
1) Show asterisk when typing the password

2) Antialias by default. And that means getting rid of Helvetica (Good riddance!)

3) Tone down Kwallet

4) Reduce the number of configuration-options (note: this does NOT mean reduction in configurability!)

Those four seemed to be repeated over and over again.
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Usability
by Gerd on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @04:59
1. Usability is there
- perhaps a user behavour "talkback version" of KDE is needed

2. Interface consistency is there
- when you look at windows apps you find much more inconsistency

What I think it over mayor importance
- first impression
- lower learning curve
- easy connectivity to other devices such as digital camera, USB stick
- easier upgrades
- better documentation (not more text, less tautology:

Example 1:
"KBabel is a suite of of an advanced and easy to use PO file editor comprising KBabel, a multi functional Catalog Manager and a dictionary for translators KBabelDict. It supports many advanced features and it lets you customize many options."
--> what is a PO file, do we have to know that?
--> What is this tool really for?
--> What is a catalogue manager?
--> Rekursion in definition: Kbabel is a suite ... comprising Kbabel
--> "many advanced features and it lets you customize many options" Are you a business consultant? No, you want to assist users, don't tell them something that has no relevance for them.

Why not just telling that the tool is for the translation of KDE applications and other apps that use the Po-Fileformat standard.

Example2:
Khangman, unlike Kbabel you find the definition in section
"intro"

"KHangMan is a game based on the well-known hangman game."
---< a game based on ... game


Inconsistency in naming:

KPoker
but
klines
klickety

Naming:
kmail: difficult to pronounce, why not "Kamel"?
KBabel: difficult to pronounce, why not "Kababel"?

Kmail - intro:

"The KMail Team welcomes you to KMail, a user-friendly email client for the K Desktop Environment. Our goal is to make KMail a program that is beautiful and intuitive without sacrificing power.

If you have never set up an email client on a UNIX® system before, we suggest that you read through the Getting Started section first so that your setup goes smoothly..."

here: other text style, more personal.
- What is a "client"?
- Our goal is to make ... that is beautiful ---> so it isn't?


"Since most people do not read documentation anyway, here is a collection of the most helpful tips:"

---> Perhaps because most of the documentations are not written in a user-friendly way.

Although KMail can be considered reliable you should keep backups of your messages, i.e. just copy the files and folders in ~/Mail (including the hidden ones that start with a dot) to a safe place.

---> "safe place??"

KMail's homepage can be found at http://kmail.kde.org. There you will find useful links, e.g. to the user and developer mailing lists. Please report bugs in KMail using Help->Report Bug...."

---> sounds as if Kmail was very buggy and users shall ask questions at the developer's list.
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Kamel?
by Martin on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @09:02
I'm sorry, but renaming KMail to "Kamel" must be THE worst suggestion in this entire discussion!
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KOffice, KDE Control Center
by Anonymous on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @11:42
"New document wizards in office applications should select new 'blank document' by default"

I think that is true. I never understood why KOffice always opens this initial dialog when starting a KOffice application. This dialog doesn't make things noticeable easier or faster for the user, but it makes things different from all the other office suites, be it OpenOffice or MS Office.

"The KDE Control Center (or 'KDE Control Cente' as the title says) is packed with numerous settings."

Wouldn't it make sense to offer the options "Simple", "Normal", "Expert" in the toolbar of the control center? This way the dialogs within the center can be designed for respective type of user.

Anyways, thanks for the great piece of software that KDE is.
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Similar experiences
by Robert Knight on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @14:48
I have only just started using Linux recently, and I agree with the conclusion of the review.

I know its dull from a development perspective, but KDE needs to concentrate less on the features and more on the fine tuning.

Often the issues are things which would be so easy to correct too. For example, it really is confusing have 3 "Configure" items in the menu, when I will virtually only ever use one.

The default KDE font has a slighly comic "kids" look. I realise that the MS fonts cannot be used for legal reasons, but there must be very similar OSS fonts, especially for Tahoma.
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"Couldn't find graphical FTP client"
by Roger Larsson on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @16:52
Should we have konqueror in more default flavors?
As we today we have the "Personal Files" and "Web Browser"
What value have the tags anyway?
Try to enter the following in the Location:
"ftp.sunet.se" and you get "ftp://ftp.sunet.se/"
So why cant I enter
"//host/"
And get either
"fish://host/", "smb:\\host\", "nfs://host:/", "lan://host/", or
"rlan://host/"

Ohh... Entering
"//ftp.sunet.se/" results in
"The file or folder file://ftp.sunet.se/ does not exist."
So no slashes gives ftp: and no slashes gives file: ...

Would that help? Or is a start up movie needed inplace of ktip?
(Written using dcop?)

/RogerL
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OT: Ximian... gone.
by ac on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @18:21
This is offtopic but go to www.ximian.com. It's no more, they've been assimilated. The page sends you to http://www.novell.com/linux/ximian.html . I never heard of this till now.

Also read the latest on Evolution 2.0. Seems a disaster:
http://www.gnomedesktop.com/article.php?thold=-1&mode=nested&order=0&sid=1963
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Please don't dumb down KDE.
by Christopher Sawtell on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @20:35
I have been using KDE since it was in beta. I like it as it is. Please do NOT dumb it down so far that any witless fool can fool around with it and stuff it up completely. That would be totally counter-productive to advance KDE. I like and want the power-user features. I like the click features as they are.

There are two features I'd rather like:-
1) Being able to print out a file from the right-click menu. OS/2 was able to do this.
2) The ability for the user to select different sets of icons on each desktop. ie. a web desktop, a programming one, an document preparation one, and sound & graphics one.

I really do not want the KDE development team to feel that they have to ape the Microsoft product line in the way that GNOME people seem to have done.

I'd love to see a similar report about an untainted KDE and unix user's reaction to using Windows or O/S X. :-)
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A different approach
by wygiwyg on Tuesday 21/Sep/2004, @21:47
Just an idea.

After reading articles and comments on osnews and dot.kde.org maybe we should do something totally new and radically different then any other desktop environment.

No defaults at all ! Nothing. No menus, no toolbars, nothing. I am talking about a fresh install.

Just one option: Settings. A new user is forced to add features by himself. At desktop level you want Kicker, ok. choose it (checkboxes) before kde even loads up for the first time. At application level you want a print icon on Konqueror's toolbar, ok. no problem, choose it among all the other options before the Konqueror appear for the first time.

And you can later always add and remove features.

In this way we could

1.give the new users possibility to choose as many features as he/she feels suits his/hers level of experience,

2. give the new users possibility to learn much more about the desktop and applications structures.

3. satisfy all old KDE users because they already have their defaults saved (or backuped) in their .kde directories.

4. avoid all future flame wars about default settings, about too much or too less, about who is going to decide what is a default setting.

Cheers,

wygiwyg
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Reduce configuration options per view!
by MZM on Wednesday 22/Sep/2004, @00:42
On my home PC I use KDE with resolution of 800x600. Some apps and configuration dialogs are fine, but some - a pain in da *. IE. panel configuration dialog doesn't fit on 800x600 screen - I cannot see "OK" button. I always need to configure panel using ControlCenter. And so on.
Such problems in configuration dialogs can be reduced if amount of configuration options per view (tab) is reduced. If I open configuration tab with lots of options, Im too lazy to check all of them - so I probably will miss some good configuration feature.

My 2 cents.
PS. Sorre for my ENG.
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The Konqueror claims in the report are true
by tj on Wednesday 22/Sep/2004, @02:56
One thing should be clear, I hope: something needs to be done to Konqueror. There are _so_ many things that seem odd to both beginners and experienced users. I didn't even use Konqueror until a few months ago, as it did and still does look a like a developer's version which has no usability thinking applied.

Let's start with the menus: Location, Edit, View, Go, Bookmarks, Tools, Settings, Window, Help. It's an awful lot of menus that can be confused one with another. Why couldn't we just combine some of those? Like...

- Location and Go? Aren't those about the same thing, the location we are currently or are changing to?
- View and Window? And shouldn't options for tabs be in the same menu as options for (new) windows?
- Location, Go, and Bookmarks? Perhaps Go and Bookmarks together, Location having the Tabs options from Window menu?
- Edit and Tools? Could these be combined? And "copy files.." and "move files.." moved to the tools submenu from the currently too long edit menu.
- Settings... the most hated one. Shouldn't Show Menubar be in view -menu? I can manage with the multiple Configure... entries, though I do think that they should be reduced overall. But the whole Configure Konqueror dialog is too cluttered, too. The categories are not in any sensible order, and there are too many places that can be confused. Look at e.g. Firefox a little bit...

Of course, at the same time, each menu's entries should be reconsidered/ordered. And there are too many icons like has been pointed out.

Maybe there are just too many flaws in Konqueror right now, that people are scared to think how the UI should be redone? People are scared to remove all those icons which just clutter the UI, because they think that the few people who have learned them (though they could be similarly or better productive by other shortcut methods) would yell if they were removed?
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Learn from OS X's Eyecandy
by Vlad on Thursday 30/Sep/2004, @16:50
I think OS X has a lot of nice eyecandy features that would be good to implement into KDE:
1) Put shadows under every object (window, mouse pointer, etc)
2) Put a blue 'halo' around field boxes when they are active (eg. when the cursor is on them) to make it easy for the viewer to know where they're typing
3) Make the cursor blink more slowly and be more evident... Make sure the cursor doesn't temporarily vanish as people are typing passwords, usernames, etc. That's _very_ annoying.
4) Make icons of higher resolution
5) Make icons "light up" when mouse is over them (RedHat does that, somewhat).
6) Make icons bigger/higher resolution in the menu that appears when "Alt-Tab" is pressed.
7) Employ window transparency (which is now possible with the latest version of X.org) when showing the "Alt-Tab" menu.
8) When prompting for usernames and passwords, make the "OK" button shine blue when the user is eligible to press it (eg. when the user has typep something in both the username and password fields).
9) In the KDE "Start" Menu, label programs with their straighforward English descriptions, and only afterwards put the KDE application name (eg. Konqueror)

More meaty changes:
9) Make LAN accessible by default through konqueror. I've used several boxes with KDE, but could never browse the LAN.
10) Don't use things like smbfs:// or file:/ when browsing in Konqueror. Most users don't care if the other computer they connect to is Samba, AppleTalk, Novell, etc. All they want to be bothered with is a plaintext computer name, their username on that computer, and their password.
11) Include a GUI for resizing partitions, especially NTFS. This should be pretty simple, now that YaST has been GPL'ed.
12) Make fonts better by default. I've used KDE on Gentoo and Debian, and for some reason the fonts on the window titles seem very rudimentary, ragged. Fonts also look that way on the KDE splash screen (as in "Initializing peripherals") and in the help dialogs. Strangely enough, the fonts on the KDE 3.3 screenshots from the KDE homepage look great... Maybe I just don't know how to setup fonts properly, but if I can't do that, many other users can't either.
13) Make the 4-desktop preview at the bottom alot bigger by default, and allow apps. to put their icon in the miniature window. Gnome on Redhat 9 does that very well - for example, galeon shows their foot logo in the miniature window when it is open in a desktop.

The guys working on KDE do a incredible job, and it is fantastic that they've achieved so much. Now all that needs to be done is these and perhaps other minor tweaks before KDE becomes the best darn desktop (free or proprietary) out there!
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