“First, usability is often thought of as how easily a process can be completed on the first try. A process does not have to be 100% brain free in order for it to be highly usable. The best interface is also efficient. A GUI should be accessible both with the keyboard and with the mouse.” Read Matt Grab’s article on usability, found on his home page.
Usability and Efficiency
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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and that is way GNOME will alway RULE
this is the way degenerate zealots like you will always remain
Gnome doesn’t rule. First comes the shell, then KDE, then Gnome. That is because, in Unix, the shell is most efficient, but has less usability. Then KDE, which seems to be more efficient that Gnome in many respects. Can I back this up? No, just personal experience. Can I back up the fact that more people use KDE than Gnome? Yes.
Do I hold it against Rehdat for being pro-Gnome? Not really. I would prefer they go with KDE, but it is easy enough to change themes, or even upgrade KDE itself.
I’m feeling like going with Gentoo though; I hope it is usable enough for me.
I like the idea of having a mouse button bring up apps in the way he described.
I do disagree with him about having icons on the desktop. I mean, I know it can get out of hand – I’ve seen people whose whole screens are filled with icons. However, when using Windows, Mac OS 9 and BeOS, having a few icons on the desktop of apps you use all the time – I do not see that as being disorganized or having to manage them all the time. The reason they’re there is to save time and, once they’re there, there is disorganization or managibility problem, far from it. That, to me, just seems like a personal gripe he has in that particular area.
Thw way the minimized programs look in it. If I open Mozilla it dispalys as much of the title as it can fit on the taskbar. IMO this si flawed adn tehy shoudl do it like MS does, and have each minimized widnows take up equal space until they reacha limit and tehy all become smaller to make room for new minimized windows. Microsoft has thousands of UI desigenrs adn studies, it is BETTER that way.
Ive been thinking about this and integrating PIM functionality into the system. Tog mentioned a “person” object type in one of his articles. That helps with address book fucntionality. then for Calender/Todo (like Palm’s integration of the two) would be put on the desktop with maybe a backgroudn behind it. Put a small month calender in the top left and then on the right half is a full day calender.
I think groups would help with the window management. That and its keyboard functionality are the reasons PWM is my favorite Window Manager. I think its what Ion is based on but Ion sounds totally different and I am interested in trying it to see how well its window management works.
Anyone got any ideas for a good keyboard system for apps? The windows style with tabbing and so forth just seems tacked on but at least its there. Ive been wondering if a command line, VI-style commands, or a mix would be teh best approach. Any ideas?
I meant to say,”once they are there, there is *no* disorganization or managibility problem”. Also, I left out icons on the Linux desktop indvertently.
with most of what he says about icons, and such. The one thing that baffeled me is his taskbar. Does anyone run their taskbar in windows as he showed in the two screen shots? I didn’t even know you could do the half width thing. The way he has them are very poor design. Maybe he was trying to show the bad ways of having them, but he was hard to follow what he was talking about. If he doesn’t run them that way thats good, i don’t think many do. If he does it think thats his problem. He should just go back to the default taskbar. The only changes i ever see people do is double height taskbars and sometimes hiding task bars, but that ones rare cause it drives people nuts. also double high is pretty much un-needed in XP since it nicely groups apps.
Now I did run the taskbar up in the corner in beos as it came by default, i know many ran it like it was windows at the bottom. For some reason it being up in the top corner worked very well, but then again it didn’t minimize apps into it ether. Also it made it look differant than windows. If not for that my friends would get on it and not realize they were not in windows except for the differant names of apps. Which was nice from usability standpoint, they never asked questions other than why beos, and where did you get that screensaver.
i think his idea of a mouse with the start button is a great idea. I lack extra buttons so not very implementable. also desktops should have no icons. If i’m not running an app i don’t want to see anything about it. the super small deskbar icons are ok. Also i agree hands shouldn’t have to go from mouse to keyboard. I never let go of the mouse unless i’m typeing like i am to type this. When GUI’s require some keystroke thats very anoying.
he didn’t mention anything about macs though. I thought that was surprising. I’m always curious to hear about people throwing their mice to the top of the screen. I have yet to see a human throw a mouse around expecting it to go somewheres.
What is with the manufactured taskbar “problem”? The only reason there is an unused portion of the background showing, is because the author has faked a screenshot with the taskbar all lumped in the corner. The obvious solution is “don’t do that”. Leave it stretched out along the bottom.
I don’t get it. Then again the article was damn near incoherent.
i agree with what he says about the keyboard thing. it should be standardised all throughout the window manager. it something fundamental. countless hours and $$ of research on usability has told us that. why is it so hard to learn from published research papers and from other peoples mistakes?
from what i have seen with kde, they will keep putting in heaps new features, but things as fundamentally flawed as the alt-space/n to minimise the window wont be added in.
I just let my taskbar go under the windows, and leave the windows maximized.
If I need different window, I alt-tab. If I need the menu, I ctrl-esc.
The only time they’re not maximized is when i need to see two at once.
Works in windows and linux.
I also think GUI keystrokes should be one handed. Minimizes on the mouse to keyboard movement.
Nice rant though.
Don’t most traditional WMs have a right or middle click customizable app menu already? It seems the only extra feature he is looking for is the ability to click anywhere including in an app window. That could be a problem. Most programs already have a function for the left and right buttons. Most *nix users will expect the middle button to paste. No buttons left.
Also, if you have a taskbar like the one he dummied up, you can click in that “wasted” area to get your WM app menu
It does seem like a stupid place to put stuff, seeing as how if you actually _use_ your computer (instead of staring at the “pretty pictures” on your desktop) all those icons should be covered up by your open windows.
I’ve noticed that NextStep (and early betas of MacOS X) didn’t do desktop icons. WindowsXP is shipping with minimal icons. All of these desktop makers decided that putting these items in screen edge accessible widgets was the way to go.
That said, I have all kinds of stuff on my desktop
One reason is that it is a great place to store things I’ll want to use/be reminded of next time I fire up my computer.
Another is that I don’t run much of anything full screen. At 1280×1024 at 21″, my browser windows are the shape and size of an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper. I can usually access the items and some free space around the edges of my screen.
The last reason is that as of Windows 98, MS added a “show desktop” button next to the start button. I use this all the time (the best feature in Win98 IMHO). I’ve noticed XP doesn’t have it by default. Part of their de-emphasis of the desktop icons no doubt.
I don’t see the need to have ALL windows always maximized…
if he want to have a menu of his apps popup on the desktop then having all his windows maximized is sort of counter productive because then you have to minimize all your open applications so you can launch a new one…why not just click on the damn start/K/G menu?
and by the way, KDE will allow you to launch your “k” menu from the desktop…and kicker(the panel) and taskbar in kde are almost infinitly configureable…more so than windows anyway.
keyboard shortcuts should become more standardized between applications i agree, but i think this is something that is getting better.
First of all, I always put icons on my desktop. In fact, my desktop looks like a big icon explosion
Though I admit that it might be a bad thing, where else are you going to put them for easy access? I mean, you’re working on a file and you want to save it and go back to it later, but you don’t want to dig through folders looking for it .. the desktop just seems like the best place to put it. If I click one button on my task bar, the desktop is instantly available to me. I’ve gotten so accustomed to this way of working, I couldn’t imagine using a window manager on *nix that doesn’t support icons on the desktop.
As for the mouse, I’ve got an MS Intellimouse optical which has 5 buttons:
* Left and right buttons do their normal thing
* Middle (wheel) button maximizes windows
* Left thumb button closes windows (EXTREMELY handy and now a pain in the ass to be without)
* Right thumb button is the back button the browser.
I’ve noticed that in Linux, all of the 5 buttons now work, though I don’t know if it’s possible to remap them like I do in Windows (using the Intellipoint software).
This guy has his own way of doing things. It would not suit everybody. I like icons. I dislike mice with more than one button. This is why there is a market for N button third-party mice and why there are system hacks that let people muck with their taskbars/docks/shelves. I HATE maximized applications that take up the whole screen.
I would agree with most everybody that the flow of the article is not quite up to snuff with what my english teacher’s taught me. Here are a few clarifications to help understanding. First, the first screenshot is my desktop. You’ll see a menu in the middle of the screen. I use that menu to lauch all my most common applications. It pops up at anytime over top of any application because it is hard coded to a 4th mouse key. I never have to scroll the mouse all the way to the edge or corner of the screen to launch apps. The second screenshot is only shown to illustrate how some windowmanagers/environments do it. (It is misleading. I do not do it this way, and in fact I don’t think you can do it this way with Windows). You can have a taskbar like this in KDE, Gnome, NextStep, and Mac. I was just trying to visually illustrate it with the tools I had at hand while writing the article. Obviously, not everyone has the same ideas. But from what I’ve experienced, I’m not unique in not liking scrolling the mouse all over the screen when I have a task to complete. I work fast on the computer, and I need the environment to keep up. This stuff only applies when in a GUI. I wrote the article off the top of my head, so sorry if it’s incoherent. I was hoping that it would make more sense on the first draft.
Thanks,
Matt
I hope I didn’t just make the waters more muddy
Funny how much I have changed my computer habits over the past 9 years. I remember using 3.1 and saying ‘this is cool’ No more DOS. I can point click drap copy all using my mouse. No more typing in stupid commands. Of course I was still clueless and I showed it by immediately screwing up the system so badly that I had to bring a friend to repair the damage. DO NOT drag and drop willy-nilly folders in file manager. My friend laughed for days about that one. Skip forward a few years and I am running a lab and I find that I’m getting a little carpal so I try to do everything from the keyboard. And after a while I could. It was great. I never realized how much a using a mouse made my eyes tired.
Now I spend all my time on my openbsd system using fvwm2. Primitive looking but it gets the job done. I love having 9 desktops that I can switch to.
As for usability, I really feel that its whatever you get used to. I have only used a Mac a few times and it didn’t seem that much easier to use. I am sure it is for some but once again its what they are used to.
Really I don’t like fancy GUI stuff anymore because I seem to be at the whim of the OS designer and when the next version comes out I will have to relearn stuff. Maybe I am getting old but I have better things to do.
-of course I don’t do anything with cad so the mouse is not vital for my computing needs.
For me Simple is Best. Even if I have to learn several commands I feel the lack of a GUI in the long run makes a computer more usable. At the least I find that the fewer layers of complexity, say with Wizards, and Paper Clip guys, the better I am able to use a computer. I no longer feel that I am at the whims of the designers of the GUI if I have learned the commands that get the machine to do what I want.
sounds like this guy’s describing BeOS,I can access the entire OS by right clicking the mouse anywhere on the desktop,as well as by the more traditional means of the deskbar and by clicking the home and boot(BeOS) icons on my desktop,funny the rest of the world has been so slow to pick up on this.sometimes i think half of the slowness in other OS’s lies in the slow way you move around in them.
BeOS may be dead but it has yet to stink as bad as all the rest!!!
hehe
The perfect interface has a middle-finger mouse button that allows me to say “fuck you” to anything that I click on.
This powerful system verb, “fuck you” then does the right thing to the clicked-upon item. If it is a person, it bombards them with the latest unblockable spam. If it is a file, it obliterates the file, erasing it to DoD standards. If it is a picture of your love interest, it brings up your email program with a random kinky love poem already written. If it is your pal Lennie, it opens up your IM app and sends him some raunchy porn from Best of Stileproject and asks him in a robotic voice, “you still alive, Len-neee?”
Damn, doesn’t anyone have any imagination anymore? Or do all geeks live in Flatland and think /. is the zenith of their existence?
#p
If your getting carpal you should avoid using the keyboard so much. Thats what causes it. Not the mouse.
Mouse is actully good for you wrist compaired to the keyboard. It’s ergonomic (sp?) and you move in around alowing your wrists to move. though if you have say a thick mouse pad this could be a problem cause you would be putting your wrist in the same bad way. The there is the fix of not using a mouse pad. I could never get into them. I think i have owned one in my life and i through it out.
I agree, though i don’t like app icons i do use the desktop as a temporary spot for things. It is easy to use for that since in windows putting something on the desktop is fast do to think like save to desktop being built in. Once i’m done i shove them someplace for good. also i have shortcuts to all my partions on the desktop. Guess I never left that part of Beos.
I guess there is the Temp folder, but that never seamed convient so i have never used it. Never have used the mydocuments or my anything folders, or the clipboard. All seamed like pointless things. The desktop seams like a better temporary place than the temp folder. If i’m going to go through the trouble of putting stuff there i might as well as file it someplace. Is it that hard to come up with a orginized filing system. I see so many people that just have the mydocuments folder and thats it. 50bizzilion files in one folder. takes them years to find anything.
<blockquote>For me Simple is Best. Even if I have to learn several commands I feel the lack of a GUI in the long run makes a computer more usable. At the least I find that the fewer layers of complexity, say with Wizards, and Paper Clip guys, the better I am able to use a computer. I no longer feel that I am at the whims of the designers of the GUI if I have learned the commands that get the machine to do what I want.
</blockquote>
I agree that what you are used to is what seems most usable. When it comes to user interfaces I certainly think that less is more. i just love using XFCE, combined with ROX-Filer its dynamite.
Note: it does not take 100,000,000 lines of spaghetti code to make an elegant computing environment. Now I can’t stand KDE/GNOME/M$ desktops by comparison.
This guy doesn’t seem to have it all figured out, and is complaining about things that are already present.
He states that he wants a system that is completely navigatable via the keyboard. He says that learn alt+space (the window menu shortcut) has allowed him to do this. This is a feature that’s been in Windows since 3.1. Alt+space brings up the parent window, and alt+hyphen brings up the child window menu (back from the MDI days). Also, pressing alt (or F10) activates the menu, and you can use the arrow keys to navigate the menu. If you cycled through the menus, after Help (or before File) it would activate the parent window menu, and then the child window menu (vice versa for starting from File).
As far as showing the desktop (not in the article, but in another comment) win+m (that’s the Windows key and M) hides everything and shows the desktop (and toggles all previously open windows back up if you haven’t changed anything). Also, if you need to access the Start menu, pressing the Windows key on your keyboard will activate that. (SpicyKeys for BeOS defined this shortcut for the Be menu as well.)
As far as full screen apps: This is actually personal prefernce, but Tog recommends that if you’re only doing one task at a time, full screen is the way to go. (And window management with the mouse varies drastically from WM to WM, allowing you to do most anything with the window you want with the mouse, depending on the button and modifers used.)
I think he just needs to play around a little bit more. In Windows, I use the mouse as little as possible, as I’m more comfortable on the keyboard (and know the shortcuts for everything). But again, this article is just a reflection of his personal preferences, and should be taken as just that.
— Rob
personally, the worst thing I can stand is a cluttered screen. My desktop is very pastel (many themes are way way too dark, as if that is cool ;-)) with sensible icons that I use a lot. I have the taskbar vertically along the left, as I work in documents / sourcecode mostly and it makes better use of the screenspace then (didn’t the original parc toys have portrait screens? That made sense).
My gripe about desktops at the moment is that if a shortcut points to a directory, it opens an explorer window (insert your OS naming convention here). Then you make your selection, and you are left with a useless window open. That is why I really liked the potential in Lanscape for AtheOS ( http://www.stun-software.com/landscape/ ). I’d want it so that a single click opens the territory like a submenu (still looking graphical) which disappears when you’ve made your selection, whereas a doubleclick rolls-out or rolls-up a territory. And I’d rename ‘territory’ to folder/subfolder.
here’s wishing,
/Will
“It does seem like a stupid place to put stuff, seeing as how if you actually _use_ your computer (instead of
staring at the “pretty pictures” on your desktop) all those icons should be covered up by your open
windows. ”
Only if you run programs on your desktop/finder/workbench screen.
“As for usability, I really feel that its whatever you get used to. I have only used a Mac a few times and it didn’t seem that much easier to use. I am sure it is for some but once again its what they are used to”
You would need longer exposure to see the benefits.
“At the least I find that the fewer layers of complexity, say with Wizards, and Paper Clip guys, the better I am able to use a computer.”
These UI features drive me NUTS. I find them both patronizing and UN-helpful. The trouble with wizards is that they are so linear– you can’t skip ahead usually if you get stuck on one of the questions.
I hate “Word” because it has unhelpful features like its highly inacurate spellcheck that flags everything, and its propensity to number bulletted lists the way IT wants to do it that are hard to turn off.
The paper clip guy is just plain insulting.
Mouse is actully good for you wrist compaired to the keyboard. It’s ergonomic (sp?) and you move in around alowing your wrists to move. though if you have say a thick mouse pad this could be a problem cause you would be putting your wrist in the same bad way. The there is the fix of not using a mouse pad. I could never get into them. I think i have owned one in my life and i through it out.
Mice have always caused flare-up in my carpal tunnel problems (I think it’s due to the amount of movement in the lower arm and wrist to operate a mouse), as do standard straight keyboards. For this reason I spend a lot of time choosing a new trackball when I decide I need a new style (ie I was using a 2-button trackball with no scroll wheel for a very long time, I now use an MS trackball with 4 buttons + scroll wheel, note: not the thumb-ball one) and I have to use the ‘Natural’ style keyboards if I’m going to use the computer for more than 30 minutes. Because I work on a computer all day and then go home and play guitar/bass and use my home computers for just about everything (games, programming, finding and storing information, etc), I am always very careful about what I use for the input devices on my computers, because I rarely have a chance to slow down over a flare-up, or I’ll basically end up with very little to do if one does hit.
As for the rest of the stuff:
I use the desktop to store things temporarily. If I used the temp folder (which I always override the default on so I can find it easier for cleaning, though I do NOT assign the desktop as my temp folder) I would completely forget that they’re there. Basically clutter on my desktop reminds me to clean up, and I usually do fairly quickly. There are rarely more than a half dozen icons on my desktop. It’s especially convenient, to me, to download zip and other compressed files to the desktop, extract the contents, and then either delete the zip file or send it to a backup directory (which usually ends up on a CD eventually).
If I had to use maximized windows all the time, I’d probably go nuts. That being said, if I did use maximized windows, I’d set my screen on it’s side and find some way of displaying everything correctly for that orientation. Very few of my windows are configured to take up more than 1/2 to 2/3 of the width of the screen, though they usually take up the full height. This is especially the case for browsers and editors, the exception being editors like Visual Studio that have a lot of extra panels, which I will run in full screen mode (and Visual Studio has a real full-screen mode if you want it, which will put everything behind it and use the full screen space). I only use the QuickLaunch bar for things I really use a lot, and usually stick to things I use for short periods of time (ie things I will open and close frequently, rather than just minimizing them; notetab, command prompt, and browser are good examples of this) or things that I open right away when the computer first starts up. I’ve just recently added the ‘My Computer’ icon to that area as well, since I’ve found that I frequently have to mess with various windows to get to that area when I want to manage files.
Generally I keep a few things visible all the time, and I’m really happy with Windows Media Player 9 beta for giving the option of putting it’s primary playback controls in the taskbar, which means one less thing active on my screen (though the keyboard I currently use at home has special keys to access media player functionality anyway). I also use the Start button key on the keyboard a lot, and with WinXP’s default start menu (and the ability to customize the number of entries there with TweakUI), it gives me similar functionality to a mouse-menu, without having to deal with the mouse to do it (or sacrificing the functions I currently use those 4 buttons for, I can’t stand not having back and forward buttons on my mouse in browsers, where so much is mouse driven already and my mouse cursor is rarely at the top of the screen).
My desktop is very pastel (many themes are way way too dark, as if that is cool ;-))
While some people may do it because they think it’s cool, there’s a valid reason for using dark backgrounds on computers (with bright fonts, of course). Because CRTs display black basically by shutting off light going to that portion of the screen (and white by turning on all light going to that portion of the screen), it’s easier on your eyes to have a dark background with light text (assuming proper fonts and so forth). I find that I do a great amount of changing my desktop settings when I’ve been working far too long into the nite and my eyes start to get tired, and it’s almost inevitable that I end up with white-on-black or something similar for most of my system settings when I do so.
Man you just made me laugh out loud quite a bit here at work… thanks! Personally, that middle-finger button would just be a “kill” button for me. Anytime I want to stop somethine (like some app spending 48 seconds to start when in fact I don’t WANT it to, it was just a mistaken click) or automatic things like in Windows or that obnoxious cartoon character.
Ever seen the Farside comic about “Stop-It!” ?
If you’re not sure how the article is going to read on its first draft, make another draft. Or three, if needed. If you’re sick of working on it at the moment, then please put it away for a few hours. Come back later, when you’re refreshed and ready to work. Re-read it. Proofread it. Make another draft.
Believe me, it is a lot more effective to make sure you say what you mean in the way you intend it than to respond to all kinds of attacks or questions that could be avoided with better writing. Not everyone is skilled at written communication, but I think most people can do a good job if they have some patience and a proof-reader or two.
As for your article… well, I have to agree with DCMonkey’s responses. Your article makes a few valid comments (not really new material, honestly), while the rest has to do with your own personal experience and your own preferences.
What I admire is that you’re thinking about usability at all. Most people don’t. You started off the article with a great idea in your first paragraph:
“First, usability is often thought of as how easily a process can be completed on the first try. A process does not have to be 100% brain free in order for it to be highly usable.
I would like to see more of a focus on this topic. There are two groups of people that piss me off: computer experts that think people are idiots if they cannot work with computers and users that think computers should just read their minds (usually these two groups have other emotional/psychological issues beyond computing, but that’s for your article, not my comments). There is a medium that can be reached, but is not yet available in the computer industry: a computer that can be learned in a relatively short time, is easy enough for mere humans, operates reliably and still has enough potential to satisfy tech people.
My point, as always: computers suck. Until more people understand this and study why and how things have come to this and how and why they can and should be changed, computers will continue to suck.
White on black? Ewwww. Pastels are much better than bright whites. Orange on black would be nice (and it’s what I usually use). It’s far less stressful on the eyes.
Orange on black? yikes thats messed up, like halloween?
White on black is very nice, it’s like using a blackboard. Easy to read, not as bright as the reverse, and just looks neater.
Pastels? sounds like easter, i just can’t see how pastels would work at all, they tend to have poor contrast.
there is allways secret setup, black on black, white on white, etc., and you have to hi-lite it to see it. Kind of anoying but gives a nice clean look
I haven’t decided if there really is some “ultimate” guideline for usability, or if it’s really just about what people are used to.
Keyboard equivalents are nice and fast, *as long as* you take the time to learn them, and Windows probably does keyboard equivalents better than any other OS I can think of. But keyboard equivalents are not so helpful if you’re doing a lot of point & click or click & drag stuff with the mouse, say in a drawing program, or an audio editor.
I like having *some* icons on my desktop, but not too many. I try to put important or frequently used icons on the desktop, but if it looks like there’s going to be too many, then I’ll group them into folders on the desktop. I also try to arrange my menus into a decent, usable fashion.
I agree that it’s generally better to run apps full-screen, although there are times when you need to switch frequently between apps, or see more than one app at a time. For some reason, I’ve never liked the way Windows tiles apps. If I need to tile apps, I prefer to do it manually, so I can adjust them to show the most relevant parts of the windows I’m looking at.
But full-screen apps shouldn’t make it harder to switch to another app. Taskbars or icon bars should remain unobscured even when an app is fullscreen. The MS Office bar would be pretty good if it weren’t so buggy, and most other icon bars don’t prevent windows from obscuring them. WindowMaker is actually pretty good, because it allows the user to define the “edges” of a “fullscreen”, giving you more or less space so that the task or icon bars can remain unobscured.
Of course, the most important thing is to not confuse “eye candy” with usability. I don’t care how cool transparent windows and menus are, if they make it harder for the user to see what he’s doing, you’re better off not using them.