[haiku] Re: Master's thesis possibility with Haiku
- From: Eddy Groen <eddyspeeder@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:51:03 +0200
> Human factors (U.S.) or cognitive ergonomics (E.U.) is the name of the
>> applied field. This is where my heart lies, and what I wish to a compelling
>> Master’s thesis on. (...) As with the HCD / GSoC, someone must act as a
>> mentor (by the way, great to read that so many students passed this year,
>> IIRC it’s better than last year!). Furthermore, my C++ coding skills are
>> still far from adequate, so any implementation will have to be done by
>> others (but I’ll try to do what I can). Has the Haiku team got wishes for
>> design improvements of certain elements? How about a unified preference
>> panel? Or perhaps the Haiku menu, which to be honest is certainly not an
>> improvement over that of BeOS, usability-wise.
>>
>
> Even though I'm not one of the core developers, I would love to hear
> what you have in mind. People can only respond to your proposal when
> you present them with a concrete idea :)
>
Thanks Ankur. In between the lines I did put forth two ideas:
- Designing a unified preferences panel;
- Redoing the Haiku menu.
But you see, the thing is that I'd really like to stay modest in this
respect, simply because I only started using Haiku about three months ago
and I do not feel entitled to express criticism. That's why my main question
at this point really is:
*Has the Haiku team got any specific wishes on parts of the system to be
tested on usability and redesigned?
In other words, have the developers or designers already identified UI
issues that require attention?
*
Let me just be so bold as to write a quick proposal based on the Haiku menu
(not the Deskbar as a whole, yet including the Deskbar settings). It is a
drop-down menu with features akin to the Apple menu, although it holds some
additional features like all applications, as the Start menu in Windows.
Personally I dislike the approach Microsoft took with the Start menu in
Vista. It's bloated, messy and big. The one thing I do like about it is its
search feature, but Apple's Spotlight is better (and looks a lot like what
BeOS already has with "Find").
Apple chose to not launch applications from the Apple menu (except recently
opened ones), but they use a very strange "approach" (or actually, any
approach simply lacks). You just dump every app under Applications, and it's
up to you to regroup them, by using subfolders with Applications (I myself
made folders in which I placed aliases; the folders I then added to the Dock
to have groups of applications: "Internet", "Office", "Media", "Tools" and
"System"). Yes, this "sort-it-out-yourself" (or DIY-approach) provides a
great deal of liberty for the user, but it requires some degree of computer
knowledge. Any of my parents would not be able to grasp this concept.
So, in short, "steal the best, invent the rest" is my go here. Just to give
you an idea (I know I will offend some people by doing this, but Ankur asked
me to be specific, so here you are.)
1. I think I would change "Find" into what combines Microsoft's search
feature and Apple's Spotlight to make Haiku adhere more to modern day search
integration.
2. The Deskbar settings will simply become a preference panel because it
(a) is more consistent and (b) removes the need to do "Haiku Menu > Deskbar
Settings > [option]" eight times to change eight settings; the Menu should
not be used as settings controller.
3. The new "mount menu" is really cool. Someone has been thinking very
clearly there! Especially for novice users, this feature will make it much
easier to navigate through the system.
4. The "Shutdown" submenu is a downright usability "sin", I was appaled
when I first saw it. This has not been "okay" since the 1980s.
5. I would consider merging the "Recent" menu the way Apple has done.
6. The folders at the end, I will have to think longer about that.
7. But then, right now it's just a "normal drop-down menu" holding
important features. We see that in Windows, Microsoft chose to distinguish
it. As often is the case, Microsoft really *do* have good ideas (or they
take someone else's), but they then end up implementing it the wrong way.
I'd like to see if we can change the menu into something more distinct (but
NOT like the Start menu, I promise).
Let's say I finished the design phase. The "experiment" would then be more
or less the following:
1. Take a set of participants.
2. Generate a set of tasks that you counterbalance among them (for
example, "open the demo 3dmiX", "set the Deskbar to display a 24-hour clock
with seconds", "shut down the system", "mount the memory stick").
3. After they performed a few tasks, let them switch to the other design
and let them perform another set of tasks (half the participants started in
the "current" condition, the other half in the "new" condition).
While they perform the tasks, the performance measures could be:
- The amount of time taken to perform the action;
- The number of mouse clicks required to perform the action;
- Verbal reports of the participant on how he/she is searching.
Let me stress that usability testing really is of great importance, even for
an OS that has long been (and still is) highly acclaimed for its nimbleness.
You can see that difference between Mac OS (on which the UI designers have
the final say; UI is the limiting factor for the developers), Windows (with
Microsoft, the developers until recently had the final say; development
needs and possibilities come first; innovations like the ribbon interface
suggest that they are changing things around) and Linux (see the link in my
initial email).
Regards,
Eddy
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