Having just recently looked at the Gnome Usability Study by Sun
Microsystems, it occurred to me that many of the suggestions recommended
for Gnome may apply equally well with Linux Mandrake.
Since a new menu layout is being worked on in Cooker, I'd thought it
might be wise to open a discussion of usability improvements. Therefore,
I'd like to make some recommendations for Linux-Mandrake which are based
on the recommendations given by Sun for the Gnome project:
(1) Mandrake Control Center should be moved to the top-level menu. In
other words, it should be seen on the first menu when a user clicks on
the Gnome or KDE "start" menu icons. It should NOT be buried two levels
deep in a group called "Other." In fact, all of the items listed under
"Other" should be moved to a group with a more descriptive name.
(2) I don't think that the Mandrake configuration tools should be
divided up and interspersed throughout different groups. They should be
grouped together.
(3) Programs of a like nature should be grouped together, rather than
divided into different groups. For instance, Gnapster and Gnome-napster
are listed under "Networking - File Transfer", while "Gtk-Gnutella" is
listed under "Networking-Other." Likewise, "Gnomba" is listed under
"Networking - Remote Access", while "LinNeighborhood is listed under
"Networking - Other," and "Gfontview" is listed under "Applications -
Publishing" while "Gnome Font Selector is listed under "Applications -
Text Tools" and "Kfontinst" is listed under "Configuration - System -
KDE".
(4) The "Applications" group should probably be renamed to something
more meaningful. It isn't clear to a user which programs might be found
under "Applications" and which might be found under "Office." For
instance, I expect to find the "Finances" group under "Office".
These are just few of the changes that I'd recommend, but hopefully it's
enough for starters.
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