On 18/10/11 22:38, Andrew Thornton wrote:
1. the distance the mouse travels across the screen to use a GUI
2. the number of mouseclicks.
3. the clock time taken to do task x.
1 + 2 + 3 = user figure for a GUI. The lower the score the better.
All you guys here who make software. Do you do any measurements like
this to arrive at the usability of software such as a GUI or anything
else? Or is it just Macbeth Witches style chuck in eyes of newt, frog
legs, pigs' blood and basil into the cauldron and hope for the best?
Building the next generation graphical interface is a huge challenge for
free software. In the past we've spent a lot of time playing catch-up to
ease of us of proprietary graphical interfaces. It's exciting to see
Unity and Gnome 3 breaking new ground.
I can't comment on Unity, but Gnome 3 had a great deal of usability
design and testing put in. The focus was to make it a desktop that's
easy to use. The progress they've made has been amazing.
That said, some technical users may prefer a more minimal interface.
Being free software, they are free to choose another interface.
I'm personally looking forward to hearing Karen Sandler (Executive
Director of Gnome Foundation) speak at Linux Conf Australia in January.
Regards,
Ben
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