Johannes Meixner <jsmeix@suse.de> writes:
Hello,
On Oct 17 09:55 Andreas Jaeger wrote (shortened):
Check the area you're most familiar in, e.g. printing, ... Try to evaluate the distribution from a desktop user perspective
Perhaps I misunderstand it but from my experience it may lead to totally wrong results if an expert (i.e. where one is most familiar in) pretends to act like an average desktop user (i.e. an unexperienced user).
It's called "thinking outside of the box". So, please try to do it ;-)
For example printing:
Peter Sikking (a usability expert) did some real research (i.e. with real average users). He wrote: --------------------------------------------------------------- I was curious to find out what users expectations are apart from get it on paper when they print. So Jan did some user testing.
And guess what: there is no such thing as printing.
It does not exist as a task, as a meaningful activity. One moment you decide to see it on paper, the next it rolls out of the printer. --------------------------------------------------------------- From his "there is no such thing as printing" finding he is currently developing a printing dialog which should really match average users expectations. For the full story, see http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/labels/openPrinting.html
In contrast if I pretended to act like an average desktop user, I would never have found out that in reality "there is no such thing as printing".
What I like to point out is that if an expert pretends to act like an average desktop user, the expert may act under totally wrong basic assumptions which must lead to totally wrong results.
That's why I asked to share the results and discuss them ;-). Yes, we can all learn from the usability experts - but we should not depend on them... Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform / openSUSE, aj@suse.de SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126