Re: Gathering small usability suggestions

Celeste Lyn Paul wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 8:33 AM, James Richard Tyrer <tyrerj@xxxxxxx 
> <mailto:tyrerj@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
>     Celeste Lyn Paul wrote:
>      > 2009/7/26 Bogdan Bivolaru <bogdan.bivolaru@xxxxxxxxx
>     <mailto:bogdan.bivolaru@xxxxxxxxx>
>      > <mailto:bogdan.bivolaru@xxxxxxxxx
>     <mailto:bogdan.bivolaru@xxxxxxxxx>>>
>      >
>      > ï ï Hello,
>      >
>      > ï ï Have you figured a way to gather small usability issue
>     reports from
>      > ï ï users?
>      > ï ï I thought using KDE Brainstorm to publish my idea is a good
>     way and
>      > ï ï I tagged my issue [usability], what do you think?
>      > ï ï Could someone on the list help review the issues tagged
>     [usability]
>      > ï ï in KDE Brainstorm? Or, you're already doing it?
>      >
>      >
>      > I'm not really a supporter of gathering usability issues directly
>     from
>      > users since they can only experience issues and not analyze them
>     and are
>      > inadvertently biased towards themselves and don't have knowledge
>     of the
>      > entire system. But the "users are designers" issue is getting off
>     topic.
>      >
>     Well, yes and no. ïWhile we should not rely on users to do the actual
>     design work, it is very important to collect information from users as
>     we do said design work. ïSo, we do need users to report things which
>     they feel are hard to use, and perhaps even provide their ideas on how
>     these things might be improved. ïIn engineering, finding the fault is at
>     least half of the job.
> 
> 
> Yes we need to involve users -- participatory activities are necessary 
> for user-centered design. That does not imply that we need users doing 
> self-reporting. Gathering specific user data that we need to solve a 
> particular design problem is infinitely more useful than trying to 
> analyze unstructured and hope we find a pattern -- which we would have 
> to go out and validate with another study anyway.
> ï
> 
> 
>     This should be regarded the same as brainstorming; if 10% of the ideas
>     are good, then this is a very good result. ïIAC, I always find it useful
>     to know what users think although I do not always take their advice.
> 
> 
> It depends. It is a waste of my time to sift through all of the 
> Brainstorm activities to find those 10% which might be useful in some 
> way. I can do something much more useful with the time it takes to do 
> that. But for someone else who is just getting started with this stuff, 
> it would be more useful than doing nothing.
> ï
> 
Yes, I agree, you have more high priority tasks, you are correct that 
you need some assistants to sift throw the reports for you just like we 
need people to triage bug reports.

-- 
James Tyrer

Kde Sudo User +1

_______________________________________________
kde-usability mailing list
kde-usability@xxxxxxx
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability