Nabble - Gnome - Usability

Re: Status bar hbox spacing values

2009-11-24T08:01:05Z

Javier Jardón wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Could some HIG expert take a look to gtk+ bug #594535? Specially the
> comment 18 [1]:
> A new HBOX was added to the status bar, and 4 has been chosen for the
> hbox's spacing.
> We'd like to know if 6 or 12 or 18 were better values.
> [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594535#c18

As somebody said in the bug report, it would be easier to give an
opinion if we could see some screenshots...

Without having seen any examples, I'd probably have tried 3 or 6 first
myself, simply because most HIG spacings tend to be based on multiples
of 3. But we really need to see the options in action to give a
reasonable opinion.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@... GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems
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Status bar hbox spacing values

2009-11-22T22:26:58Z

Hello,

Could some HIG expert take a look to gtk+ bug #594535? Specially the
comment 18 [1]:
A new HBOX was added to the status bar, and 4 has been chosen for the
hbox's spacing.
We'd like to know if 6 or 12 or 18 were better values.

Thank you.

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594535#c18

--
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Status bar hbox spacing values

2009-11-22T22:24:09Z

Direct selection of windows with key combos, and quick mapping+remapping of those combos.

2009-11-21T10:12:46Z

Hi,

I believe most people can remember the last 4-7 windows they were
using[1], and they may want quick "random access" amongst those
windows. Alt-Tab only allows a _quick_ switch amongst two which is
insufficient in many cases (alt-tab is not good for rapid selection
amongst more than three windows) .

Hence I propose that the GUI provide a method or two for users to
_very_quickly_ assign/map windows to key combos.

Then a trained/experienced user can more easily work on one task that
requires a bunch of windows e.g. debugging code. Windows open =
editor window #1, editor window #2, logs, library doc, standards
doc). Then very quickly and fluidly set up stuff for another task
e.g. creating software installation documentation . Windows open =
word processor, virtual machine #1, virtual machine #2, image editor
to crop screen captures. Followed by say 3 ssh sessions and work with
them (yes one can use screen for that, but why can't the GUI be
better than screen for task switching?).

So here are my suggestions on ways to speed stuff up.

A special key or key combo is reserved. This could be the "win key",
or that "menu/application" key[2] that I have never seen anyone using ;).

Let's assume it's winkey for now.

** The first method of assigning windows

Then when winkey+0 is pressed[0] (both windows key and "0" pressed),
the GUI will look at the "alt tab" list of windows that has windows
sorted in order of most recently used to least recently used (this
list of windows is what the alt-tab feature tabs through).

The GUI will then map the most recently used window to winkey+1, the
2nd most recently used to winkey+2, and so on till the 9th most
recently used (winkey+9).

This mapping will then stay fixed till winkey+0 is pressed again (or
the mappings are changed via another method) to reassign stuff.

So when the user presses winkey+1 the relevant mapped window will be
raised. winkey+<n> will raise window #n.

** Method 2a

When winkey+shift+1 is pressed, the current raised window will be
assigned to winkey+1.
When winkey+shift+2 the current raised window will be assigned to
winkey+2. Similarly for winkey+shift+<#n>.

Instead of the winkey-shift some other combination might be chosen.

** Method 2b
When winkey+<number> is pressed then within 20 seconds (configurable)
winkey+= ("windows key" and "equals key") is pressed, the previous
active window is assigned to winkey+<that number>.

This method allows the user to view a window mapping and decide
whether to overwrite it. If the user decides on overwriting some
other mapping instead, the user can press "alt-tab" (to go to the
previous window) and then press winkey+<a different number> to view
another window.

Releasing the winkey should not be not necessary, one should be able
to hold down winkey, press the number, then press "=" and it should still work.

** Why not use virtual desktops instead?

While virtual desktops may be helpful, not everyone works on the same
few known tasks all day (and if they do, those lucky people might
have fewer than 9 windows open and those same few windows open the
whole day anyway ;) ).

Instead of spending time organizing windows to the "correct" desktops
and so on, and then spending time to switch to desktops and then
switch to the correct window, you can just launch/raise the relevant
windows and immediately assign them. Then when done, you can reassign
the now unused mappings leaving the "favorite" mappings untouched.

** Is this like Windows 7

No. I first suggested something like this for GUIs in 2006, and I
think it's still a superior idea to what Windows 7 does.

I've tried Windows 7 - and what winkey+<n> does in Windows 7 is it
raises a window of the "n"th application on your task bar. Holding
winkey down and repeatedly pressing <number> will cycle through that
application's windows. That's not really helpful or fast in my
opinion, especially for experienced users who might have more than
one email open, more than one document open for each application.

** Conclusion

While helping new users is a commendable goal, I think GNOME can also
help the users who can have more than 3 windows open at the same time
without becoming a nervous wreck... I think it's possible to do help both.

With some tweaking (able to press a key combo to have the computer
read aloud the title bar of a raised window) this might even be
useful for the blind. Whereas "thumbnailed" or 3D displays of windows
does little for them.

Regards,
Link.

[0] By pressed I mean pressed. A release is not necessary.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menu_key

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Re: Applications open windows on current desktop, not that on which they were launched

2009-11-18T03:51:39Z

I agree that this is an issue that needs resolving. I've had a quick
look at the bug trackers for OpenOffice and Firefox. Couldn't find
anything on OpenOffice but there are a couple of bugs for Firefox:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=431675
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=425879

It would be great if someone could try and get these sorted upstream.

A.
--
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aday on irc.gnome.org

On Tue, 2009-11-17 at 12:09 +0100, Paul Bolle wrote:

> On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 20:55 +0000, Scott Anderson wrote:
> > Applications open their windows on current desktop, and not that on
> > which they were launched. It seems more intuitive to me that they open
> > their window on the desktop where they were launched.
>
> Looks like bugs 160687
> (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160687 ) and 396417
> (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=396417 ).
>
> Both RESOLVED / NOTGNOME.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Paul Bolle
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Usability@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

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Re: Applications open windows on current desktop, not that on which they were launched

2009-11-17T11:07:55Z

I also filed https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594325 for gnome-shell.
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Re: Applications open windows on current desktop, not that on which they were launched

2009-11-17T03:09:16Z

On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 20:55 +0000, Scott Anderson wrote:
> Applications open their windows on current desktop, and not that on
> which they were launched. It seems more intuitive to me that they open
> their window on the desktop where they were launched.

Looks like bugs 160687
(https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160687 ) and 396417
(https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=396417 ).

Both RESOLVED / NOTGNOME.

Regards,

Paul Bolle

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Applications open windows on current desktop, not that on which they were launched

2009-11-16T12:55:46Z

Applications open their windows on current desktop, and not that on
which they were launched. It seems more intuitive to me that they open
their window on the desktop where they were launched.

This situation applies with larger apps (e.g. OpenOffice) which take a
few moments to launch, especially on less powerful hardware. While
waiting for such apps to launch, it is customary for me to spend the
time switching to another desktop to follow irc or catch up on emails or
whatnot. Eventually the launched application opens its window on top of
whatever I've been doing while waiting for it to start, resulting in my
having to use the "move to desktop" option to put it where I wanted. It
would seem more intuitive to me that it opens its window(s) on the
desktop on which it was called, and not the desktop which the user
happens to be viewing at that time.

I think this applies to both metacity and compiz, and certainly the latter.
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Re: Open Source UX Tools

2009-11-15T23:37:08Z

Kirk Bridger wrote:

> There was a recent discussion on how to create an Open Source
> Usability Lab - makes for interesting reading. Here's part 2
> <http://mairin.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/open-source-portable-usability-testing-lab-part-2-the-parts/>
> (part 1 is linked inside it).
>
> I've also been watching Pongo <http://live.gnome.org/Pongo> as an
> interesting means of capturing users during usability testing. Here's
> a brief tutorial <http://live.gnome.org/Pongo/Tutorial>. It uses
> istanbul instead of recordmydesktop.
>
> I just recently discovered Xnee
> <http://www.sandklef.com/hesa/index.php/2009/05/06/gnu-xnee-303-released/>,
> and wonder if it could be leveraged to work with Pongo to capture and
> record user actions.
>
> Here's a discussion about how to create a usability lab using Mandriva
> <http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Usability_Labs_Setup>.
>
> I'm hoping to put together some basic usability sessions for
> Gnome-Shell, so if anyone has any other tools or ideas I'd love to
> hear them.
>
> Kirk
>
>
>
>
> Allan Caeg wrote:
>> Hi Usability Listers,
>>
>> This could be offtopic, but I think, UXers here would love to discuss
>> this.
>>
>> I'm looking for Open Source UX tools. As for Mockups, Balsamiq is kind
>> enough to give me a license as an open source enthusiast. I know that
>> this has been discussed here before, but any new input is more than
>> welcome.
>>
>> For usability testing, gtk-recordmydesktop seems to be a useful tool. I
>> had a chance to see how a recorded session on Morae
>> ( http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp ) looks like, but it's not
>> extensive enough for me to know all its features. In the recorded
>> session, I noticed that the mouse pointer is given focus by graying out
>> a bit the rest of the screen, video of the user is recorded, and
>> everything is consolidated in one file. I think, it's pretty easy to
>> improvise ways to record those through some hacks, but having a more
>> decent solution will give you and me, the UXers, better user
>> experiences.
>>
>> What other open source UX tools can you recommend to help develop GNOME
>> and other projects? :)
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Usability mailing list
>> Usability@...
>> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

Hello,

just to remain on the practical side, do these tools (Pongo, Xnee) have
speech recognition capabilities? I think it's essential that the words
f@#k, $hit, d@mn and m0thef@#&er uttered are taken into account as an
emotional feedback from the user. :-)

Best regards
Gergely
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Re: Open Source UX Tools

2009-11-15T19:43:49Z

There was a recent discussion on how to create an Open Source Usability Lab - makes for interesting reading. Here's part 2 (part 1 is linked inside it).

I've also been watching Pongo as an interesting means of capturing users during usability testing. Here's a brief tutorial. It uses istanbul instead of recordmydesktop.

I just recently discovered Xnee, and wonder if it could be leveraged to work with Pongo to capture and record user actions.

Here's a discussion about how to create a usability lab using Mandriva.

I'm hoping to put together some basic usability sessions for Gnome-Shell, so if anyone has any other tools or ideas I'd love to hear them.

Kirk

Allan Caeg wrote:

Hi Usability Listers,

This could be offtopic, but I think, UXers here would love to discuss
this. 

I'm looking for Open Source UX tools. As for Mockups, Balsamiq is kind
enough to give me a license as an open source enthusiast. I know that
this has been discussed here before, but any new input is more than
welcome.

For usability testing, gtk-recordmydesktop seems to be a useful tool. I
had a chance to see how a recorded session on Morae
( http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp ) looks like, but it's not
extensive enough for me to know all its features. In the recorded
session, I noticed that the mouse pointer is given focus by graying out
a bit the rest of the screen, video of the user is recorded, and
everything is consolidated in one file. I think, it's pretty easy to
improvise ways to record those through some hacks, but having a more
decent solution will give you and me, the UXers, better user
experiences. 

What other open source UX tools can you recommend to help develop GNOME
and other projects? :)

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Re: Open Source UX Tools

2009-11-15T06:08:09Z

Glade 3?
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Open Source UX Tools

2009-11-15T03:27:34Z

Hi Usability Listers,

This could be offtopic, but I think, UXers here would love to discuss
this.

I'm looking for Open Source UX tools. As for Mockups, Balsamiq is kind
enough to give me a license as an open source enthusiast. I know that
this has been discussed here before, but any new input is more than
welcome.

For usability testing, gtk-recordmydesktop seems to be a useful tool. I
had a chance to see how a recorded session on Morae
( http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp ) looks like, but it's not
extensive enough for me to know all its features. In the recorded
session, I noticed that the mouse pointer is given focus by graying out
a bit the rest of the screen, video of the user is recorded, and
everything is consolidated in one file. I think, it's pretty easy to
improvise ways to record those through some hacks, but having a more
decent solution will give you and me, the UXers, better user
experiences.

What other open source UX tools can you recommend to help develop GNOME
and other projects? :)

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Fwd: FLOSS and usability workshop at CHI 2010

2009-11-06T13:00:28Z

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paula Bach <pbach@...>
Date: Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Subject: FLOSS and usability workshop at CHI 2010
To: stormy@...

Hi Stormy,

I thought you'd like to know about this workshop I am organizing with a colleague who also does research with open source and usability. Please forward the call to people in the GNOME community who might be interested.

Thanks,

Paula

========================================================================
                       ACM CHI 2010 Workshop on
                Free/Libre/Open Source Software and HCI

                     April 11, 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA

                   Submission deadline: December 14, 2009
                         http://flosshci.org
========================================================================

In the past 10 years, Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) has become a ubiquitous and vital force in business, education, government, and research. This vibrant new community of software developers creates new opportunities and challenges for HCI that are only beginning to be explored and understood.

This workshop will:
* identify key differences between FLOSS environments and closed source software production with respect to culture, practices, and motivations for HCI,
* examine how these differences can (or should) impact the design of tools and practices for usability/UX in FLOSS development, and
* explore the development of new theoretical approaches, tools, and practices for HCI in the FLOSS community.

An important, overarching goal of the workshop is to bring the two communities together to explore collaboration opportunities. As such, the workshop invites practitioners and researchers in both the CHI and FLOSS communities.

Interested individuals should submit one of the following in a two-page conference publication format:

* A case study describing experiences in introducing and/or practicing usability/UX in a FLOSS development context
* A summary of research conducted in the FLOSS community related to the workshop’s theme (for example, understanding motivations of designers in FLOSS, mapping design conversations, design tools and methods used in FLOSS, etc.)

Submissions should use the HCI Archive Format template found here: http://www.chi2010.org/authors/format.html#archiveformat

Deadline for submissions is December 14, 2009. Submissions should be emailed to flosshci@....

More information about the workshop can be found at the workshop website: http://flosshci.org. Questions about the workshop can be directed to flosshci@....

Workshop organizers:
Paula Bach (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
Michael Terry (University of Waterloo, Canada)

Paula Bach

Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

http://cscl.ist.psu.edu/public/users/pbach/index.html

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Logs, Users and Groups

2009-11-02T05:18:13Z

I wanted to point out how nondescript the names of logs and groups are.
A new user can't really benefit from groups in an intuitive manner, and
one of the biggest barriers to intuitive group use is that a lot of
people don't know what root, daemon, bin, sys, adm, tty, disk, lp, mail,
news, etc. are.

Also, I noticed the other day that my entire recent documents list in
gedit were files I had open. Not useful :(. It's getting a bit itchy.

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Re: getting involved

2009-11-01T11:53:19Z

Hi Geraint,
Sorry about the delayed reply.

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Geraint Jones <zcjtb58@...> wrote:

Natan Yellin wrote:

Hello Natan,

> Hello Geraint,
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Geraint Jones <zcjtb58@...

> <mailto:zcjtb58@...>> wrote:
>
> Hi all!
>
> I recently finished a usability related postgrad (Human Computer
> Interaction with Ergonomics at UCLIC), and I'm interested in getting
> involved with open source usability projects. If anyone has any advice
> with regards to this, I'd be much obliged.
>
> We're currently trying improve usability in the GNOME Zeigeist
> project. If you're interested, we'd love to hear from you on our
> mailing list zeitgeist@...

> <mailto:zeitgeist@...> or in the #zeitgeist channel on
> freenode.irc.net <http://freenode.irc.net>.
I'd be really interested in helping with Zeigeist. - I've taken a quick
look round the launchpad site, and it looks really interesting. Would
you be able to point me to who's heading up the usability side of
things, and what kind of stuff needs doing?

Whats the etiquette with regards to announcing myself at the zeitgeist
mailing list? Is this post enough, or should I start a new thread
specifically there?

I'd stop by the IRC channel to introduce yourself and ask what needs doing. You may want to look over Zeitgeist's APIs to get a feel for what it's capable of and then just sit down and make a mockup for how Zeitgeist can be used. If you're computer graphic skills are weak then you can always just draw something on paper and scan it into the computer.

>
>
> My first degree was psychology, so I'm pretty good at user testing and
> research, and I'm an incurable hacker so I'm equally happy with
> prototyping and implementation. I'm weaker on graphic design, but I
> would nevertheless be interested to learn. If anybody knows of a
> project
> where I could apply my skills, give me a shout!
>
> Cool. I hope that you can help us come up with a better/new UI for
> GNOME 3.0. :)

I hope so too!
>

Natan

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Alt-Key should invoke Menu Bar

2009-10-31T05:27:17Z

In MS Windows the Alt-key, when pressed alone, doubles the function of
F10, it invokes the menu bar. I wish Gnome would adopt this.
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Re: getting involved

2009-10-28T05:17:48Z

Natan Yellin wrote:

Hello Natan,

> Hello Geraint,
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Geraint Jones <zcjtb58@...
> <mailto:zcjtb58@...>> wrote:
>
> Hi all!
>
> I recently finished a usability related postgrad (Human Computer
> Interaction with Ergonomics at UCLIC), and I'm interested in getting
> involved with open source usability projects. If anyone has any advice
> with regards to this, I'd be much obliged.
>
> We're currently trying improve usability in the GNOME Zeigeist
> project. If you're interested, we'd love to hear from you on our
> mailing list zeitgeist@...
> <mailto:zeitgeist@...> or in the #zeitgeist channel on
> freenode.irc.net <http://freenode.irc.net>.

I'd be really interested in helping with Zeigeist. - I've taken a quick
look round the launchpad site, and it looks really interesting. Would
you be able to point me to who's heading up the usability side of
things, and what kind of stuff needs doing?

Whats the etiquette with regards to announcing myself at the zeitgeist
mailing list? Is this post enough, or should I start a new thread
specifically there?

>
>
> My first degree was psychology, so I'm pretty good at user testing and
> research, and I'm an incurable hacker so I'm equally happy with
> prototyping and implementation. I'm weaker on graphic design, but I
> would nevertheless be interested to learn. If anybody knows of a
> project
> where I could apply my skills, give me a shout!
>
> Cool. I hope that you can help us come up with a better/new UI for
> GNOME 3.0. :)

I hope so too!
>
> Natan

Thanks,
Geraint

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Re: getting involved

2009-10-27T11:20:19Z

Hello Geraint,

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Geraint Jones <zcjtb58@...> wrote:

Hi all!

I recently finished a usability related postgrad (Human Computer
Interaction with Ergonomics at UCLIC), and I'm interested in getting
involved with open source usability projects. If anyone has any advice
with regards to this, I'd be much obliged.

We're currently trying improve usability in the GNOME Zeigeist project. If you're interested, we'd love to hear from you on our mailing list zeitgeist@... or in the #zeitgeist channel on freenode.irc.net.

My first degree was psychology, so I'm pretty good at user testing and
research, and I'm an incurable hacker so I'm equally happy with
prototyping and implementation. I'm weaker on graphic design, but I
would nevertheless be interested to learn. If anybody knows of a project
where I could apply my skills, give me a shout!

Cool. I hope that you can help us come up with a better/new UI for GNOME 3.0. :)

Natan

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getting involved

2009-10-27T10:36:28Z

Hi all!

I recently finished a usability related postgrad (Human Computer
Interaction with Ergonomics at UCLIC), and I'm interested in getting
involved with open source usability projects. If anyone has any advice
with regards to this, I'd be much obliged.

My first degree was psychology, so I'm pretty good at user testing and
research, and I'm an incurable hacker so I'm equally happy with
prototyping and implementation. I'm weaker on graphic design, but I
would nevertheless be interested to learn. If anybody knows of a project
where I could apply my skills, give me a shout!

Thanks,
Geraint
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Re: Strange title bar in GNOME 2.28

2009-10-23T09:36:09Z

On 23 Oct 2009, at 15:08, Steve Fosdick wrote:

> I attach a couple of partial screen shots which show some strange
> window
> title bar behaviour observed on Debian testing which is currently
> mostly
> GNOME 2.28, with a few bits that are still 2.26.

I don't know why you're seeing what you're seeing, but I'm pretty sure
none of it is intentional. (Which window manager is running:
metacity, clutter or mutter? What themes are you using?)

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
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mailto:calum.benson@... OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

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Strange title bar in GNOME 2.28

2009-10-23T07:08:39Z

I attach a couple of partial screen shots which show some strange window
title bar behaviour observed on Debian testing which is currently mostly
GNOME 2.28, with a few bits that are still 2.26.

The first screen shot, iceweasel.png show what I saw immediately upon
this upgrade. A couple of things are immediately obvious:

1. The button order is now completely different than previously with the
minimise button having moved to top left and the menu button to a
position part way in from the left hand side. The close and maximise
buttons have disappeared.

2. There are two new grey areas that don't seem to do anything useful in
so far as no information is displayed in either of these areas and
clicking the mouse in them does not seem to do anything.

The second screen shot, preferences.png, show that with a different
choice of theme the distraction of the grey colour of the new blank
spaces can be avoided but it also shows the title bar of the GNOME
"customise theme" window being truncated by these two new blank areas.

Has anyone here had any input to the design of this? If so what is
intended to go in these new blank spaces? Is this working as intended?

Regards,
Steve.

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iceweasel.png (10K) Download Attachment
preferences.png (11K) Download Attachment

Crazy window management concept.

2009-10-22T23:04:59Z

I had crazy idea of window manager user interaction. Actually, WMs isn't
very important/weighty to user. Graphical environments tries to complete
communication/navigation matters.

I think, that WMs should take first role with user interaction, not
last. For example default behaviour for single click action on
background window/desktop should be displaying foreground popup-menu
with options, such as:
- Move to front
- Click
- Move to front and click
- Other windows... (all windows - such like task bar)
- Move there an active window(top/left edge)
- Move there an active window(select edge/cut point)
- Move to background(above desktop, but below other window)
- Move to front for 5 seconds and brink back
- Minimise active window
- Close active window(optionally - all application should have this
option in menu)
- Close this window(optionally - all application should have this option
in menu)
- Show task bar

Interaction with top-level window would looks like now. By clicking
desktop, user can select "Move to front". This option in this case would
behaves like "show desktop".

Additionally, we should add extents of this menu for corners/edges of
screen, such like:
- Maximise active window
- Cascade all windows
- Fill left side of screen by window
etc...

On desktop:
- Minimise active window
- Show in... (cascade, etc.)
- All windows
- Randomise window stack (very funny option)
- Show less used windows (inverse of show most used windows)
- Show most used windows (both options have connection only to current
session)

In my opinion, it would been more intuitive/attractive. Many users get
confused, when they have too more windows on the desktop. Virtual
desktop are great, but users, who previous uses only MS Windows systems
don't understood this. Task bar are not great. All Desktop Environment
elements(without desktop) are space gainfully.

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Activity-based computing in GNOME

2009-10-22T10:13:09Z

Hi, folks,

this is an interesting passage regarding activity-based computing from
the book "The invisible computer", by Donald A. Norman:

> "Make it possible to have all the material needed for an
> activity ready at hand, available with little or no mental
> overhead. Tools, documents, and information are gathered
> together into packages maximally designed for the particular
> activities in which they participate, without interfering with
> other activities. Of course, it must be possible to make
> changes in the choices and to switch rapidly and easily among
> the activities. Finally, items not needed for the current
> activity are hidden so they do not distract and do not take up
> valuable work space.
>
> An activity is a goal-directed set of tasks. [...]
>
> Work within any single activity can take a long time. It may
> involve numerous people. As a result, it is necessary to allow
> different people to share the activity spaces, and to figure
> out how to coordinate the work so that one person's actions
> do not interfere with another's.
>
> Because activities take place over extended periods, it is
> necessary to make it possible to make it possible to return
> to the tasks without disruption."

As you can see, the main idea of activity-based computing is to focus on
users' activities instead of on files and applications, providing
functionality for storing and restoring an activity's context. Or, as
the people in www.activitybasedcomputing.com put it:

> "In activity-based computing, the basic computational unit
> is no longer the file or the application but the activity of
> a user. The end-user is directly supported by computational
> activities which can be initiated, suspended, stored, resumed,
> and shared on any computing device in the infrastructure at
> any point in time, handed over to other persons, or shared
> among several persons. Furthermore, the execution of
> activities is adapted to the usage context of the users,
> i.e. making activities context-aware."
(they use the example of a hospital)

I am talking about this here because I have read in many places (i.e.
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Features ) that Gnome and Gnome Shell
will be focused in activities, but it seems that its goal is not as
ambitious as the concept of activity-based computing that I am talking
about. I wonder if anyone has interest in discussing a bit these
concepts, as I think that it could be interesting to rethink the basic
ideas about how users are using our systems.

Regards,

Felipe

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Re: [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]

2009-10-20T14:45:32Z

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Guy Lunardi <GLunardi@...> wrote:
> Bonjour,
>
> What do you think of this idea? I really like their software and I
> think that even if only a few projects take advantage of making mockups
> with it, it's a great story for them to enable the GNOME project.

We've been using it extensively in Canonical, mainly for the web-based
projects we have, but some desktop as well.
I can't speak for my other team members, but it's been a fantastic
tool for me, a huge time saver and the software limits you to
wireframes so designers can still have enough freedom to do their
worst.

It's not open source, it's not free (they do give away free licenses
to open source folks), but it's a fantastic tool.

--
Martin
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Re: Usability Digest, Vol 66, Issue 13

2009-10-16T15:57:02Z

I just got a free license as a do-gooder! :)

On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Allan Caeg <allancaeg@...> wrote:

Sounds interesting. Personally, I need such an app. Calum, thanks for the links! :)

Regards,
Allan
https://launchpad.net/~wersdaluv

http://twitter.com/AllanCaeg

On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 8:00 PM, <usability-request@...> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]
(Guy Lunardi)
2. Re: [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]
(Calum Benson)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:10:33 -0600
From: "Guy Lunardi" <GLunardi@...>
To: <usability@...>,"Guy Lunardi" <GLunardi@...>
Subject: [Usability] [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License
Recipients...]
Message-ID: <4AD6F519020000C70007461E@...>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Bonjour,

What do you think of this idea? I really like their software and I
think that even if only a few projects take advantage of making mockups
with it, it's a great story for them to enable the GNOME project.

Please let Stormy or I know what you think :-).

Also, I understand of course that YOU do not need such a tool. Inkscape and the likes can do the same. The idea is for everyone else (people like myself) to generate mockups to share their ideas.

Best,
-Guy

-----Embedded Message-----
From: "Guy Lunardi" <glunardi@...> <GLunardi@...>
To: <marketing-list@...>
Sent: Sun Oct 11 08:23:37 2009
Subject: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...
All,

While I realize that their software doesn't use any GNOME technologies,
it is still a very useful tool that I personally use often for projects.

I was wondering if anyone thought that contacting Balsamiq and asking
them to consider donating licenses to GNOME Foundation members would be
useful?
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

Having used their software for quite some time, I know that the projects
we used it for had a much great user experience focus during the early
development cycles because of it.

It might be a great opportunity for GNOME to increase its emphasis on
user experience. We could for example use this software as part of some
of our outreach programs (collect feedback earlier on designs).

Please let me know what you think.

Best regards,
-Guy

--
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-----End of Embedded Message-----

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:04:36 +0100
From: Calum Benson <Calum.Benson@...>
To: Guy Lunardi <glunardi@...>
Cc: usability@...
Subject: Re: [Usability] [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License
Recipients...]
Message-ID: <9762C6A5-11E6-4009-B17B-9ACF6574E6C7@...>
Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

On 15 Oct 2009, at 17:10, Guy Lunardi wrote:

> Also, I understand of course that YOU do not need such a tool.
> Inkscape and the likes can do the same. The idea is for everyone
> else (people like myself) to generate mockups to share their ideas.

There's actually a whole bunch of tools out there for doing this sort
of thing now... ForeUI (Java) and FlairBuilder (AIR) are another
couple of good cross-platform ones:

<http://www.foreui.com/>
<http://www.flairbuilder.com/>

CogTool from Carnegie Mellon is a particularly interesting one -- it's
free and open source, and it automatically evaluates your prototypes
using a predictive human performance model. But that, as you might
expect, does make it a bit harder to learn and use:

<http://cogtool.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/>

(Despite apparently just being a Java + clisp app, they say it doesn't
run on Linux and there are no plans to make it do so -- maybe that
would be an interesting project for somebody here?)

Cheeri,
Calum.

>
> -----Embedded Message-----
> From: "Guy Lunardi" <glunardi@...> <GLunardi@...>
> To: <marketing-list@...>
> Sent: Sun Oct 11 08:23:37 2009
> Subject: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...
> All,
>
> While I realize that their software doesn't use any GNOME
> technologies,
> it is still a very useful tool that I personally use often for
> projects.
>
> I was wondering if anyone thought that contacting Balsamiq and asking
> them to consider donating licenses to GNOME Foundation members would
> be
> useful?
> http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups
>
> Having used their software for quite some time, I know that the
> projects
> we used it for had a much great user experience focus during the early
> development cycles because of it.
>
> It might be a great opportunity for GNOME to increase its emphasis on
> user experience. We could for example use this software as part of
> some
> of our outreach programs (collect feedback earlier on designs).
>
> Please let me know what you think.
>
> Best regards,
> -Guy
>
>
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
> marketing-list@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>
>
> -----End of Embedded Message-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Usability mailing list
> Usability@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

--
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@... OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

------------------------------

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End of Usability Digest, Vol 66, Issue 13
*****************************************

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Re: Usability Digest, Vol 66, Issue 13

2009-10-16T07:55:50Z

Sounds interesting. Personally, I need such an app. Calum, thanks for the links! :)

Regards,

Allan

https://launchpad.net/~wersdaluv

http://twitter.com/AllanCaeg

On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 8:00 PM, <usability-request@...> wrote:

Send Usability mailing list submissions to
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To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
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You can reach the person managing the list at
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Usability digest..."

Today's Topics:

1. [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]
(Guy Lunardi)
2. Re: [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]
(Calum Benson)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:10:33 -0600
From: "Guy Lunardi" <GLunardi@...>
To: <usability@...>,"Guy Lunardi" <GLunardi@...>
Subject: [Usability] [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License
Recipients...]
Message-ID: <4AD6F519020000C70007461E@...>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Bonjour,

What do you think of this idea? I really like their software and I
think that even if only a few projects take advantage of making mockups
with it, it's a great story for them to enable the GNOME project.

Please let Stormy or I know what you think :-).

Also, I understand of course that YOU do not need such a tool. Inkscape and the likes can do the same. The idea is for everyone else (people like myself) to generate mockups to share their ideas.

Best,
-Guy

-----Embedded Message-----
From: "Guy Lunardi" <glunardi@...> <GLunardi@...>
To: <marketing-list@...>
Sent: Sun Oct 11 08:23:37 2009
Subject: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...
All,

While I realize that their software doesn't use any GNOME technologies,
it is still a very useful tool that I personally use often for projects.

I was wondering if anyone thought that contacting Balsamiq and asking
them to consider donating licenses to GNOME Foundation members would be
useful?
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

Having used their software for quite some time, I know that the projects
we used it for had a much great user experience focus during the early
development cycles because of it.

It might be a great opportunity for GNOME to increase its emphasis on
user experience. We could for example use this software as part of some
of our outreach programs (collect feedback earlier on designs).

Please let me know what you think.

Best regards,
-Guy

--
marketing-list mailing list
marketing-list@...
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list

-----End of Embedded Message-----

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:04:36 +0100
From: Calum Benson <Calum.Benson@...>
To: Guy Lunardi <glunardi@...>
Cc: usability@...
Subject: Re: [Usability] [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License
Recipients...]
Message-ID: <9762C6A5-11E6-4009-B17B-9ACF6574E6C7@...>
Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

On 15 Oct 2009, at 17:10, Guy Lunardi wrote:

> Also, I understand of course that YOU do not need such a tool.
> Inkscape and the likes can do the same. The idea is for everyone
> else (people like myself) to generate mockups to share their ideas.

There's actually a whole bunch of tools out there for doing this sort
of thing now... ForeUI (Java) and FlairBuilder (AIR) are another
couple of good cross-platform ones:

<http://www.foreui.com/>
<http://www.flairbuilder.com/>

CogTool from Carnegie Mellon is a particularly interesting one -- it's
free and open source, and it automatically evaluates your prototypes
using a predictive human performance model. But that, as you might
expect, does make it a bit harder to learn and use:

<http://cogtool.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/>

(Despite apparently just being a Java + clisp app, they say it doesn't
run on Linux and there are no plans to make it do so -- maybe that
would be an interesting project for somebody here?)

Cheeri,
Calum.

>
> -----Embedded Message-----
> From: "Guy Lunardi" <glunardi@...> <GLunardi@...>
> To: <marketing-list@...>
> Sent: Sun Oct 11 08:23:37 2009
> Subject: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...
> All,
>
> While I realize that their software doesn't use any GNOME
> technologies,
> it is still a very useful tool that I personally use often for
> projects.
>
> I was wondering if anyone thought that contacting Balsamiq and asking
> them to consider donating licenses to GNOME Foundation members would
> be
> useful?
> http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups
>
> Having used their software for quite some time, I know that the
> projects
> we used it for had a much great user experience focus during the early
> development cycles because of it.
>
> It might be a great opportunity for GNOME to increase its emphasis on
> user experience. We could for example use this software as part of
> some
> of our outreach programs (collect feedback earlier on designs).
>
> Please let me know what you think.
>
> Best regards,
> -Guy
>
>
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
> marketing-list@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>
>
> -----End of Embedded Message-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Usability mailing list
> Usability@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

--
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@... OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

------------------------------

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*****************************************

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Re: [Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]

2009-10-16T03:04:36Z

On 15 Oct 2009, at 17:10, Guy Lunardi wrote:

> Also, I understand of course that YOU do not need such a tool.
> Inkscape and the likes can do the same. The idea is for everyone
> else (people like myself) to generate mockups to share their ideas.

There's actually a whole bunch of tools out there for doing this sort
of thing now... ForeUI (Java) and FlairBuilder (AIR) are another
couple of good cross-platform ones:

<http://www.foreui.com/>
<http://www.flairbuilder.com/>

CogTool from Carnegie Mellon is a particularly interesting one -- it's
free and open source, and it automatically evaluates your prototypes
using a predictive human performance model. But that, as you might
expect, does make it a bit harder to learn and use:

<http://cogtool.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/>

(Despite apparently just being a Java + clisp app, they say it doesn't
run on Linux and there are no plans to make it do so -- maybe that
would be an interesting project for somebody here?)

Cheeri,
Calum.

>
> -----Embedded Message-----
> From: "Guy Lunardi" <glunardi@...> <GLunardi@...>
> To: <marketing-list@...>
> Sent: Sun Oct 11 08:23:37 2009
> Subject: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...
> All,
>
> While I realize that their software doesn't use any GNOME
> technologies,
> it is still a very useful tool that I personally use often for
> projects.
>
> I was wondering if anyone thought that contacting Balsamiq and asking
> them to consider donating licenses to GNOME Foundation members would
> be
> useful?
> http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups
>
> Having used their software for quite some time, I know that the
> projects
> we used it for had a much great user experience focus during the early
> development cycles because of it.
>
> It might be a great opportunity for GNOME to increase its emphasis on
> user experience. We could for example use this software as part of
> some
> of our outreach programs (collect feedback earlier on designs).
>
> Please let me know what you think.
>
> Best regards,
> -Guy
>
>
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
> marketing-list@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>
>
> -----End of Embedded Message-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Usability mailing list
> Usability@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

--
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@... OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

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[Fwd: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...]

2009-10-15T09:10:33Z

Bonjour,

What do you think of this idea? I really like their software and I
think that even if only a few projects take advantage of making mockups
with it, it's a great story for them to enable the GNOME project.

Please let Stormy or I know what you think :-).

Also, I understand of course that YOU do not need such a tool. Inkscape and the likes can do the same. The idea is for everyone else (people like myself) to generate mockups to share their ideas.

Best,
-Guy

-----Embedded Message-----
From: "Guy Lunardi" <glunardi@...> <GLunardi@...>
To: <marketing-list@...>
Sent: Sun Oct 11 08:23:37 2009
Subject: Do-Gooders and Other Free License Recipients...
All,

While I realize that their software doesn't use any GNOME technologies,
it is still a very useful tool that I personally use often for projects.

I was wondering if anyone thought that contacting Balsamiq and asking
them to consider donating licenses to GNOME Foundation members would be
useful?
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

Having used their software for quite some time, I know that the projects
we used it for had a much great user experience focus during the early
development cycles because of it.

It might be a great opportunity for GNOME to increase its emphasis on
user experience. We could for example use this software as part of some
of our outreach programs (collect feedback earlier on designs).

Please let me know what you think.

Best regards,
-Guy

--
marketing-list mailing list
marketing-list@...
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list

-----End of Embedded Message-----

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Re: group management (on a massive scale)

2009-10-15T04:42:45Z

On 14 Oct 2009, at 18:08, Anthony Ettinger wrote:

> Could someone point me to any examples of such an interface, or
> offer any ideas?

Not a specific example, but you might (or might not) find some
inspiration in Sun's web app guidelines:
<http://developers.sun.com/docs/web-app-guidelines/uispec4_0/>

The 'tree scalability' topic might be one that's of some interest:
<http://developers.sun.com/docs/web-app-guidelines/uispec4_0/05-navigation.html#5.4.3
>

Those guidelines (and the accompanying toolkit) were written primarily
for sysadmin-type applications, which often have to deal with the sort
of tasks and scalability you're talking about.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@... OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

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Re: group management (on a massive scale)

2009-10-14T10:13:10Z

On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 10:08 -0700, Anthony Ettinger wrote:

> I have a requirement to create a user interface for managing large
> numbers of members and groups.
> I've seen a few examples on this list, but most of them break down
> when there is more than a handful of members to work with.
>
> The basic idea is that a user will be able to create a group (50
> groups on the high end), and assign members to one or more groups
> (needs to support 500 members on the high end).
>
> The other rub is that I want to be able to see all the groups that a
> member is associated with in the same interface used to manage the
> groups that a member belongs to.
>
> Could someone point me to any examples of such an interface, or offer any ideas?
>

Is this a matter of a tree where both members and groups need to be
visible, or where one or the other is visible?

The best example I can think of for this kind of UI is a double list
sidebar rather than a tree, something like this
http://nettuts.s3.amazonaws.com/103_NTPlus_AddressBook/res/inspiration.png

from apples address book.

BR,
K

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group management (on a massive scale)

2009-10-14T10:08:55Z

I have a requirement to create a user interface for managing large
numbers of members and groups.
I've seen a few examples on this list, but most of them break down
when there is more than a handful of members to work with.

The basic idea is that a user will be able to create a group (50
groups on the high end), and assign members to one or more groups
(needs to support 500 members on the high end).

The other rub is that I want to be able to see all the groups that a
member is associated with in the same interface used to manage the
groups that a member belongs to.

Could someone point me to any examples of such an interface, or offer any ideas?

--
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408-656-2473
http://anthony.ettinger.name
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Re: Nautilus List View as Default

2009-10-13T08:16:16Z

On Tue, 2009-10-13 at 10:32 -0430, Dokuro wrote:
> for the way it behaves with the mouse in the selecction of multiple
> files, i will go with the icon or compact view over the list since the
> information that it shoes is looked over by most people, and it does
> not leave any open space to click and drag a selection square making
> you rely on the shift and control keys.

True, that's one long-standing bug that would certainly count against it
becoming the default, I think.

This is another instance where it would be nice to be able to distribute
an instrumented version of nautilus to users during development cycles,
which could report back (with their permission, of course) which view
they were using most of the time, amongst other things.

(Although in reality, people probably use different views for different
types of folder, so in this case the raw data might not be all that
useful on its own.)

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@... OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

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Re: Nautilus List View as Default

2009-10-13T08:10:07Z

Please read notes at end of email;

On Tue, 2009-10-13 at 10:32 -0430, Dokuro wrote:

> for the way it behaves with the mouse in the selecction of multiple
> files, i will go with the icon or compact view over the list since the
> information that it shoes is looked over by most people, and it does
> not leave any open space to click and drag a selection square making
> you rely on the shift and control keys.
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Allan Caeg <allancaeg@...> wrote:
> > Nautilus has three views: Icon View, List View, and Compact View. GNOME's
> > default (correct me if I'm wrong) and other distros is the Icon View.
> > Historically, this has been the most conventional view as it is the default
> > for Finder and older versions of Windows Explorer. However, Windows 7 (I
> > just don't know about Vista) has a new default Windows Explorer view. They
> > are using something similar to the List View. I find it more convenient to
> > use that because it shows a lot of information and it makes it easy to sort
> > files and folders because there are columns.
> > What do you think about this? Don't you think that the List view is more
> > usable and deserves to be the default option?

Compact is my preference, however I'd also like to add;

GNOME does not, (at least as far as I'm aware), change defaults in order
to follow microsoft or apple. Changes should be made when there is a
solid reasoning behind them.

Giving you more detail is the antithesis of a reason for making a change
to something on the grounds of usability. Usability is about making
things easier to use - easier to understand and interact with. The icon
view and the compact view both show enough information regarding files
for them to be used as a default, advantage of the larger icon footprint
being one major reason for retaining either of these as the default.

If you would like to change your default view this can be done in
preferences however forcing this change on the wider GNOME user base may
cause an unwanted backlash.

BR,
K

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Re: Nautilus List View as Default

2009-10-13T08:02:48Z

for the way it behaves with the mouse in the selecction of multiple
files, i will go with the icon or compact view over the list since the
information that it shoes is looked over by most people, and it does
not leave any open space to click and drag a selection square making
you rely on the shift and control keys.

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Allan Caeg <allancaeg@...> wrote:

> Nautilus has three views: Icon View, List View, and Compact View. GNOME's
> default (correct me if I'm wrong) and other distros is the Icon View.
> Historically, this has been the most conventional view as it is the default
> for Finder and older versions of Windows Explorer. However, Windows 7 (I
> just don't know about Vista) has a new default Windows Explorer view. They
> are using something similar to the List View. I find it more convenient to
> use that because it shows a lot of information and it makes it easy to sort
> files and folders because there are columns.
> What do you think about this? Don't you think that the List view is more
> usable and deserves to be the default option?
> Best Regards,
> Allan Caeg
> https://launchpad.net/~wersdaluv
> http://twitter.com/AllanCaeg
> _______________________________________________
> Usability mailing list
> Usability@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
>
>

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Nautilus List View as Default

2009-10-13T06:20:24Z

Nautilus has three views: Icon View, List View, and Compact View. GNOME's default (correct me if I'm wrong) and other distros is the Icon View. Historically, this has been the most conventional view as it is the default for Finder and older versions of Windows Explorer. However, Windows 7 (I just don't know about Vista) has a new default Windows Explorer view. They are using something similar to the List View. I find it more convenient to use that because it shows a lot of information and it makes it easy to sort files and folders because there are columns.

What do you think about this? Don't you think that the List view is more usable and deserves to be the default option?

Best Regards,

Allan Caeg

https://launchpad.net/~wersdaluv

http://twitter.com/AllanCaeg

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