We recently conducted usability testing to see how users respond to Ubuntu on their first encounter.
Overall, first impressions are good. Typical remarks include:
“It is bold and different.”
“Ubuntu is fresh and accessible ….”
“This is good. People are getting tired of Windows.”
What we were looking for during these sessions, however, were things that could pose strong challenges to unfamiliar users — that could, in fact, be ‘show stoppers’ in the sense that they had the potential to keep such users from coming back.
Here is some of what we found.
1. File compatibility
Almost all our participants habitually used Microsoft Office. As they explored OpenOffice, one of their main concerns was the degree of its compatibility with other software. One participant asked: “How compatible is ODF?”, while another wondered: “When someone else receives my document will it look the same [as when I sent it]?”
Saving in the current format or in ODF was also confusing to participants. They didn’t know how the format would impact their document or in what format their document was in the first place.
2. Lack of feedback on system behaviour
Our participants needed to be reassured that their actions had an impact on the system. Constant feedback on how (or whether) the system was responding was crucial to their sense of being in control. As one participant noted, “[the system] needs to say what it’s doing. My feeling is that it’s crashed [and I don’t know what to do].”
3. Use of jargon
During their exploration of Ubuntu, participants encountered words they didn’t know, or didn’t expect, or terms that they had no use for: examples included ‘Gwibber’,’broadcast’,’terminal’ and ‘server’. “You lose me with ‘terminal’ and ‘server’.” one person said.
The use of such specialised language significantly influenced how users perceived the brand and the intended audience for Ubuntu. Some of the participants wondered whether Ubuntu was meant really for expert users rather than for them.
4. Getting flash
Most users of Ubuntu will need at one point or another to get flash in order to view a website. When attempting to download a flash player, participants had to choose between, YUM, .tar, .gy, .rpm, .deb or APT. Most didn’t know what to do at that point. No-one succeeded in downloading the flash player.
5. Software centre
All our participants found the software centre right away and responded very positively to it. The centre is simple and promises access to a large amount of software.
However, when they looked at the software available to them, participants did not always understand the descriptions, and they tended not to be able to distinguish major applications from minor utilities. The names and descriptions were not always clear to them. Indeed, the descriptions of apps are typically feature- and technology- centric, and do not describe the use and benefits for users. Additionally, the descriptions tend to assume a level of sophistication that most new users don’t have. “Software centre descriptions are geeky,” remarked one participant.
Many participants didn’t know where to find apps once they had been downloaded and as a result were unable to run them. One person, expecting to find the new app on the desktop, asked: “Where did my app go? Is it installed somewhere?” Another wondered: “Is it downloading or is it within the thing?”
When asked, many participants could not recall the name of apps they had downloaded from the software centre and had no way to find them again.
6. Adding a printer
Many participants didn’t understand the dialogue boxes – ranging from “Enter device URI”, “Host” “Queue”, “LPD network”, “Samba”, “SMB” – which were presented to them when they wanted to install a new printer. One person commented: “Not terribly helpful. Assumes you know what you are doing.” Another asked: “What is Samba? [I have] No idea.” Many did not succeed in adding a printer.
These six issues – the extent of file compatibility, the lack of feedback on system behaviours, the use of jargon, challenges to the ability to use flash, access to applications in the software centre, and installing a printer – are central to whether Ubuntu will be taken up by ‘ordinary’ users. For many, if they’re unclear about these things, they’ll simply be unable to use Ubuntu to accomplish their basic goals: to communicate and exchange documents, to feel in control, to use the internet fully and to access new software. In that sense, these issues can really be show stoppers.
Yet, it would be relatively easy to prevent users’ frustrations by taking thoughtful steps: to clarify issues around file compatibility and reassure our users; to promote system transparency through ongoing feedback and put users in control; to simplify the language we use and make this language serve the concerns and goals of our users; to make our processes effortless.
Really, really hoping that all of these points are addressed! The collected work done with this aspect might be the most important work Ubuntu/Canonical will ever do for the free/ open source software movement.
You know, thinking about it, except for “lack of feedback” I have had all these problems 4 years ago when I was first introduced to the linux world. I still have minor issues with the file compatibility and installing software and keeping my packages up to date the easy way. It would be more than wonderful to see the ubuntu fixing these issues,
I’m so glad work like this is being done. Even though I’ve used Ubuntu for about two years now, I can agree with (5). A lot of those application descriptions are in-jokes that you won’t understand unless you already know what the application does. I also can’t wait until we get reviews in there.
As for (3), goofy application names has got to be a real obstacle. These software authors need to stop thinking they’re so clever.
And although I sympathize with (2), I’m not sure in what regard Ubuntu fails to deliver feedback. Maybe working with a slower machine would make those problems evident to me.
I have all of these problems when installing Ubuntu for friends, family members, neighbours and some customers. I tend to setup Ubuntu so it has a single bar at the bottom (like Windows) and install all sorts of PPAs, pieces of software and libraries so the users can play flash, DVDs, etc. All of these, except for the bar at the bottom like Windows, is available through my bash scripts called Ubuntu Assistant. Removing the need for my script is an ultimate goal for Ubuntu and all the points addressed above will result in such a conclusion.
http://github.com/brettalton/ubuntu-assistant/
@Brett It would be interesting to see usability tests conducted on Ubuntu after applying your script.
@charliine This is wonderful to see you guys doing! It would be useful for the community if you released an overview of your guidelines for the test so that those of us in the community can duplicate your test in a meaningful way.
1. Was there a script that you read to participants?
2. Did you measure participants in any way?
3. Did you have them perform anything in specific?
4. Were there any metrics recorded from the tests?
Things that cause problems:
-user permissions on trusted home networks. Save file from one pc to NAS and try getting at with second pc & often permission problems (unless you know about it). I’ve started using Ubuntu (instead of Xubuntu/Lubuntu) just because of Nautilus integration and getting/putting files around the network (without doing fstab updates or running mount commands).
-OOo file saving should be clearer regarding default to MSOffice formats (without digging through menus to set up). Put a bright button on the tool bar that when pressed reads/saves everything with .xls/x, .ppt/x, .doc/x defaults (maybe an evil glowing, throbbing green misty button when in effect). Kind of like turning the “P” button on to see hidden paragraph characters in Writer. Btw, market more the .pdf output – I use that all the time.
-Quick setup kit for people that installs many of the typical things like mp3, flash, etc. use a popup to explain why it’s a separate step, but have it easy. Linux Mint is capturing a lot of users because of the pre-integration of these things.
-Link to some of the sites or a google search option in Firefox bookmark that list ‘Windows Linux Equivalents’. Continue having application menus with name:function listed like ‘firefox – web browser’.
Printer is more plug n play than Windows, no need to search for drivers, flash is in repos and works quite well, rest is Windows mentality, quite hard to wean people off that.
Lack of feedback is a good point. Quite often GUI frontends to things that would have been done from the terminal earlier fail to give feedback on errors. For example, the network manager applet in Kubuntu either connects successfully to a wireless network, or fails silently. Not even a “connection failed” notification, let alone a reason for the failure.
With the majority of printers you just turn them on and plug in the USB cable and a few moments later the system pops up a window saying your printer is configured and ready to use.
That is as easy as it can be, and if the printer is plugged in during install it is generally configured and ready on first use. If any one has trouble with that, then they probably could not do it in Windows either.
Printer is more plug n play than Windows, no need to search for drivers, flash is in repos and works quite well, rest is Windows mentality, quite hard to wean people off that.
No, it’s not ‘Windows mentality’ it’s poor usability in Ubuntu.
If any one has trouble with that, then they probably could not do it in Windows either.
So the aim of Ubuntu is to be: ‘Almost as good as Windows, but not quite.’
Fantastic aim, I can really see the FOSS desktop getting past 1% market share with that attitude.
A couple of ideas to address issue five (in case anyone at Canonical is even reading these comments):
1. Add a ‘launch ‘ button in the Software Centre for installed software (on the app details page and when an app is highlighted on the list view).
2. Add a button on the app’s detail screen that drops-down the ‘Applications’ menu and highlights the app’s entry. Not too fond of this idea though, it’s hard to describe in a button and the drop-down might be confused for a call to action.
3. Maybe there shouldn’t be a concept of installing and uninstalling applications, users just open the Software Centre and click ‘Use ‘ on the app they want to install + run, then have a smaller, set-apart ‘I don’t want to use anymore’ button to remove the app.
Point 1:
This one is probably the hardest to get right – the “right” way of going about it would be to make the world switch to the open format (it happens, here and there) and that’s politics, not technology.
I personally ask and train people to send PDFs for everything that isn’t supposed to be edited by anyone else, which is just about every document sent. Has the added benefit of not invoking red curly lines in the recipients viewer program, which always looks bad. :)
Perhaps a better save dialog, which saves according to how it’s supposed to be used, don’t care about the format as such (Word user, OOo user, view only), and uses PDF for everything not meant to be edited?
Point 2:
I would be very interested in more details – in what way do they mean?
Point 3:
The jargon, of course, is horrible at times, and it’s a thousand times worse in some translations, such as Swedish (the one I can judge). The people translating into Swedish are making up their own words and often seem to translate word-by-word with no sense of overall sentence and meaning. I’m sure this is a common problem – in Sweden, almost everyone use English instead, because this is understandable… (and then we get bitten by the strange default that language choice, of all unrelated things, decide what day of the week calendar starts at and stuff like that…)
I really wish that writing and translations would be done by paid professionals, because this is so very very HARD to do. There’s a reason why companies hire tech writers and translators, it’s something almost impossible to do. I know this kind of goes against the idea of community-developed software and everyone can contribute, but this really is a highly specialized area that few master (but many think they can do). Been there, done that myself, as have many of the people I know – we all learn the difference when we see that it doesn’t work. :)
It would be worth it, if only to have professionals clean up the language afterwards (that’s how we usually work, we write the texts (poorly) and then professionals clean it up).
Point 4:
As for flash, when encountering such a site, I think you get the message “click here to get flash” or something? That should be caught by the system and offer to install flash. I think that there are projects doing that kind of work already, but otherwise maybe there would be a way to intercept this from Firefox and Chrome, and pop up an installer question instead of going to Adobe. Essentially the same as is needed to do with other restricted formats, and a much better experience overall.
Point 5:
Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a way to add shortcuts to the desktop on installation. I don’t like it much myself, but it’s very common in Windows installers to offer this option, often pre-checked, or even to just do it, so that’s comfortable to many people.
I’m thinking that upon installation, the software center could show a top information bar (like gedit does when a file needs reloading, or chrome does when asking if it should save the password for a site) that asks if the user also wants a shortcut on the desktop (possibly with additional choices “always” and “never”).
Point 6:
It’s really easy to add a (supported) USB printer, but really hard to add a network printer without extensive googling. Then again, I think I was also bitten by some bug (can’t recall it now) that makes searching for network printers not work without sudo. I know that I have had it work easily enough before.
But yes, when it doesn’t “just work”, the fall back is heavy jargon and unexplained protocols. How is this presented on other OSs?
Creating improvements in the areas cited is a laudable goal, but the first avenue of remediation should be better, more accessible documentation.
Point 1:
The “compatibility warning” dialog for MS formats needs to go. Unless the user tries to use some specific feature that’s not supported by the .doc/x exporter, OOo’s office exporters are good enough that it’s not really needed.
Point 2:
This was the first problem I noticed when I switched to Ubuntu. In particular:
a) most applications don’t have any kind of splash screen when you launch them. You get the “Starting” thing in the panel, but it’s inconsistent (try launching evolution from the indicator applet) and doesn’t provide any indication that it’s actually doing anything.
b) applications that crash just disappear without any explanation (unless you’ve explicitly enabled apport). What’s even worse is when applications crash on launch — combined with the lack of application launch feedback, you have absolutely no idea whether you should keep waiting or give up.
c) Applications often don’t pop up progress bars or busy cursors when they should (Evolution is the worst offender here — it can hang up for MINUTES during IMAP syncing with no indication that it’s doing anything at all).
3. This isn’t one I noticed, but then I already know most of the jargon. It’s interesting that people thought of “Gwibber” as “jargon” rather than an application name.
4. I’m not sure what problems people could possibly have getting flash. The first time I visited a flash-requiring website, Firefox found the Flash plugin in the repository and offered to install it. Failing that, it’s a one-click install from the Software Center.
5. Something in the Software Center showing where applications are installed would probably be useful (e.g. “This application is installed on this computer. You can launch it from the Applications menu.”). A windows-style highlight in the menu for categories with newly-installed applications might help too.
6. Most USB printers get added automatically when you plug them in, so some of this goes back to item #1 — a “Please wait while Ubuntu installs your printer” message would solve most of these problems.
Don’t really want any splash screens, but perhaps there could be a “launching X” message on the top of the screen, disappearing after a window has been created (or a timeout as fallback). I’m thinking on the line of the chrome status “bar” that is unobtrusive and disappears on hover, but still provide valuable feedback that something is happening. I’d put it in top, and probably in middle so it’s a bit more easy to see, and also to connect it to from where applications are launched. Alternatively, if possible, put it close to from where the app was launched, or is that too messy?
> The first time I visited a flash-requiring website, Firefox found the Flash plugin in the repository and offered to install it.
It does? Huh. Well that is how it should work, of course, haven’t seen it happen though – and it sounds like the people in the study didn’t either. Bugs?
> A windows-style highlight in the menu for categories with newly-installed applications might help too.
That’s a pretty good idea, if it’s possible it would be nice if Applications, then on open, the category and the application entry was pulsating so there would be attention to the fact that something has happened there.
Adding a printer is a nightmare in Windows, specially if it’s not a directly attached one.
Considering the current status worse than Windows is … weird.
To be fair the average user will have many of the same issues in Windows. To find a program you’ve installed there you need to know the name of the vendor not just the name of the program. At least the ubuntu way is (in theory) more logical.
Installing flash is a problem. It’s not there by default. *We* know that it’s only a couple of clicks to install it from the software centre. However most people will only realise they need it when they see the “Click to install missing plugin” button on a web page. This takes them to adobe and confusion reigns.
I’ve found printer installation on ubuntu to be almost a zero config experience. I’ve just plugged in the printer and got an OSD “Setting up printer” followed by “Printer ready” a minute or so later. The experiences mentioned all seem to relate to network printers and these are a PITA on windows also. That doesn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t improve the experience though.
Hi Charline,
Thanks for sharing ! What were the scenarii asked to users, and how were they recruited ?
Bye,
Yann
Regarding (4), the browser is supposed to guide the user to install Flash from the software center when they visit a web site which requires it.
Was the researcher aware of that, and has anyone looked into why it didn’t happen for these users?
1) I think the title of your article could be misleading – a showstopper is the *best* thing about something, not a hurdle to usability!
The canonical software repo is getting better, when I first used it, it was command line only. Now it has descriptions and pictures for everything. I only wish installing something was a predictable affair, for example if it doesn’t end up in the system menu bar, where is it? There’s no simple location for ‘basic programs I use’.
File Formats: OSS developers have to give in and realise that even if I’m happy working on an open format like ODT, I want to open, edit and send back documents in .DOC from a colleague. Seamlessly.
Printers: I want extended functionality. I want to be able to specify the URI of a printer. However, I don’t want to see this on the first screen. I want to see a list of printers that it’s found (by any method possible) and an Add button.
really nice survey, that’s a kind of problem that microsoft and apple already solved long time ago. If linux don’t get rid of it, linux desktop will not go any furder. Congratulations canonical, you’re on the right path.
You cannot correct something you have not measured. Simple truth.
Keep up the research and work. Well done.
1) I defy anyone to get Apple’s own iWork documents to be instantly ‘compatible’ with Microsoft Office… or vice versa. You may be able to ‘Save As’ under iWork or Microsoft Office but that is no more or less complex than ‘Save As’ under OpenOffice.org.
2) I couldn’t agree more.
3) I’m in two minds over this. Anyone who’s never been exposed to any computing environment would have no idea what “a powerpoint” is. Jargon is part of the terrority of any system. If we replace the Ubuntu jargon with more Windows-esque equivalents, we risk alienating the non-Windows converts. Maybe better descriptions (see below) would help.
4) Maybe the proposed change of asking the user (upon installation) if they want to be able to use encumbered technologies (MP3, DVD, Flash etc) would help here. Equally, the default browser (Firefox) clearly reports Ubuntu in the User Agent String – maybe Adobe should do a better job of interpreting what system you’re running and presenting the correct option by default.
5) Again, couldn’t agree more.
6) Likewise, couldn’t agree more.
Regarding point 5., Windows actually solves that nicely by highlighting any new programs in the start menu. If the Applications menu would flash every time a .desktop file is added to it, and briefly highlights it, that might improve the discoverability.
I suspect that the fact that most installers on Windows add a desktop icon AND often even a quick launch icon, makes it easier to find the apps. Basically, overkill works there but that’s not something we would want.
That said, I do miss the dialog the old add/remove software app had after you installed something, listing the applications it installed and offering to start them. That’s also the kind of feedback that point 2 is about.
This is an excellent todo-list. I’d like to know how you conducted your study (largely, how many participants were surveyed). Although all of these projects are connected to separate pieces of software, it would be good to have links to where we can go to contribute towards solutions as developers.
I can sympathize with these points but I really don’t want to see Ubuntu/Gnome/KDE become grandma-ware that hides or does away with all the nasty inner workings so that more knowledgable users won’t have access to them
if the user is unsure about what a ‘terminal’ or a ‘server’ does then they should not use it
please do not Disneyfy Ubuntu and make it like OS X or Win7!
Just switched to linux and had all these problems.
still don’t know where some software i downloaded went and how to install it since it didn’t show up in package or software manager.
also the inability to search every drive on a computer for a filename is annoying.
also it is not obvious how to make mylinux computer with its printer be the printer that other windows users onmy wireless network can use.
Matt, I don’t know if this is the case here, but some web sites try to outsmart the browser and detect whether the user has Flash installed. If they do, the Flash elements are presented, and if not, Flash installation instructions are presented in their place. Said instructions very rarely take into account that the right thing to do if you’re running Ubuntu does not involve going to Adobe’s web site to download a blob and all the rest of it.
It’s really annoying and I’m not sure how to address it. Adobe could provide better instructions for people running Ubuntu, but having to read through any instructions at all is still a substantially less polished experience than Firefox in Ubuntu actually can offer. Maybe Firefox could detect the user’s attempt to go to the Flash download page and ask if the user really, really wants to see that page, or if Firefox should just go ahead and install (some incarnation of) Flash and be done with it.
excellent wake up call.
two points:
1) saying ‘windows has similar problems’ is irrelevant. Ubuntu has to do it better if you want people to change, especially as linux users are on their own a lot of the time with no local support
2) people therse days have a very windows/pc view of the world. Unlike old codgers like me most people, no matter how expert they are as db admins, tei coders or whatever, have next to zero experience outside the windows monoculture
Ubuntu/linux needs to build on the UX above to make it easy for windows users to do what they want to. Most people after all want to do work, run applications, not bugger about with xrandr etc
As a native windows guy that’s been playing around with Ubuntu for a couple of years, I find all of these points to be true and critical.
Ubuntu seems to me to be for a raw novice that won’t need to install anything or someone who knows linux well and/or has a whole lot of patience. I’m somewhere in the middle, and I am often frustrated. I like .debs, a lot. tar.gz not so much, I don’t want to compile stuff, I want to install it already.
OSX & Windows are very easy to use. It’s so easy to install software on Windows, people install awful stuff they don’t need. On Ubuntu, I sometimes finally get stuff installed and realize I have no idea how to run it if it’s not in my menus and command line doesn’t nail it. I spend a lot of time researching things that turn out to be simple, but I had no idea they were simple and it takes me hours to figure out. That’s not simple.
… and as far as .odf, I’d much rather see it save as a .doc out of the box.
I worked at Sun using StarOffice, so I’m really glad to see OpenOffice come into it’s own. StarOffice was awful.
But, yes, most people use MS Office, so proprietary formats are a pain.
I had a client recently who wrote an entire novel, only formatted for AppleWorks, and he had a new PC. He had to pay someone around $100 (which is high) to convert it to something anything else could read, and the formatting was hosed. Let’s just pick a decent format and stick with it, ok?
I think a set of OGV videos (no need for flash) named “First steps with Ubuntu” covering those key points: (1. installing software, 2. asking for help online, 3. adding printers, etc.) might make a lot of sense.
The problem is where to place te videos, there’s no space in the live CD.
Maybe host them somewhere and place the links in the firefox home page. Now FF supports ogv.
I pointed some new users to a youtube video called “installing ubuntu in 5 minutes” and they feel they can really install it easily (mainly because it’s a preety girl telling them how easy it is, even manual partitioning).
Ken Ham: A year ago I specified a “Where Is It?” button that people could click to see where a program has ended up in the Applications menu. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareCenter#where-is-it Now we just need someone to implement it. We have previously considered your other idea, of hiding the distinction between installed and not, but that would introduce a new feedback problem. How to explain that this program will launch in a few seconds, while that one will take minutes because it needs to download and install first? How to explain that this program can be used offline, but that one can’t?
Rambo Tribble: Well-written help is important, but an hour spent improving the interface will help people more than ten hours spent improving the documentation.
Connor, Matt Zimmerman: Ubuntu does not automatically offer to install Flash if you visit a Web site that uses Adobe’s recommended method for detecting Flash. http://launchpad.net/bugs/161818
Stoffe: The kind of launch feedback you’re describing is exactly what the window list already does. I don’t know exactly what people were lacking feedback on; I’ll ask Charline for more details.
– Please clean up the menus.
‘Preferences’ and ‘Administration’ have to much entries. Also I don’t get why we have under ‘Accessories’ and ‘Sound & Video’ an entry to burn CD/DVD. When installing Ubuntu on a friends computer I HIDE HALF OF ALL APPLICATION LAUNCHERS in the menus.
– A feature a lot of people ask for is that the OS checks every X minutes for new mails and informs the user about new once – there is more the one mail program → support better Thunderbird!
– Big fail is still that you can stockpile documents on the Desktop. An old man I’m helping out with computer stuff, saves most of his documents on the Desktop and can’t find them because he can’t see his documents! http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1582/screenshotbo.png
– The ‘Add to Panel’ menu is cluttered. Show a preview how the selected item would look on panel. My dad couldn’t find how to get the pcspkr symbol back (he is not the only one that I know having problems with this menu).
– Install a tool like ‘Kupfer’ by default and integrate it very good into the system = big usability plus for Ubuntu when user got used to it!
– A right click on the Desktop should enable you to CREATE A NEW PANEL (solves the problem – “what to do if I have deleted all panels”).
– Get devices working is sometimes to complicated → Scanner. It doesn’t always work out of the box, so I have go check some online forums where the solution waits since years for me. Why can we not collect them, write a small script to execute the necessary steps easily and put them in a user prompt when connecting a Scanner. My dad don’t know how to use a terminal and I’m not always there to help him.
– ‘Remote Desktop Viewer’ is to complicated = useless. I allays now install TeamViewer (http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx) – thats how Remote Desktop should work (Remote Desktop could be connected with and though Ubuntu One).
– Braseros interface is nice but was never working right for me (last time I tried to burn a music CD and it doesn’t worked | some ogg files). I always use K3B instead of Brasero.
I’d like to add something here about the names of the applications. I am Dutch speaking, and I can really see there is a lot of work being done in translating to any possible language. But please, don’t translate or rename the names of applications. For example, I installed Abiword. It took quite some time to find it, because it is named ‘tekstverwerker’ (wordprocessor in English), not Abiword. On top of that different distributions tend to rename some applications to what they think it should be. I would suggest not only to keep in mind those people that switch from Windows or Mac to Linux, but also the people that switch to Ubuntu from a different distribution. Be consequent in naming your apps, name them as what they are, and stick to it!
Hey MPT, thanks for the reply. I see you’ve thought this stuff through better than I have. :)
This article is a great starting point for fixing Ubuntu. I’m a Computer Science major who had only used Linux to compile software up until a few months ago when I found an old laptop and decided to mess with Linux (in the form of Ubuntu on it) to learn more.
Let me tell you, Linux, and Ubuntu IS NOT user friendly in the least. It’s easy enough to do “work tasks”, that is, pick up and play in the sense that you can open up OpenOffice and do your work, but customizing it, adding/removing programs, changing settings, and media playback — the core of a personal computer outside of word processing/internet browsing is extremely tough to do on Ubuntu.
What it feels like to me is that Canonical is spending too much time focusing on the competition (such as OS X) and not spending the quality time it needs on the basics. You can pour thousands of dollars into developing a theme that moves the buttons to the left, windicators (which I think will be a HUGE eyesore) and a dock, but the fact is that theme support on Ubuntu still sucks.
There are themes that I need to install Beryl for. Some that I need Emerald for. Then there’s Metacity, and I’m sure a mess-load more “Window Managers”. And what do they really do? Control the tops of windows. Something as simple as theme editing done on Windows and OS X becomes a mess on Ubuntu because of all the different options. Create a base theme, stick to it, and allow the user to edit the theme from there. Don’t just give a light and dark option and then have the user go out and find other themes, or else they’ll run into the Emerald, Equinox, Beryl, Metacity trap like I did, and I can’t get figure out how to get rid of them cause the documentation for them are crap to zilch!
That’s another thing, which falls into point 5. The software center is a GREAT idea. It’s very modern and an elegant solution, but Canonical relies too heavily on outside developers to support their software center. There are barrels of “crapware”, which are just programs with names and no descriptions. No screenshots, nothing. Just “pyshell-module-compat”. What the hell is that? Why does it come up when I search for Program X? Do I need it? Those are problems that even experienced users such as myself have. And then, even as a computer scientist, I get crap from the community, your “customer support” for the individual users, that as a computer scientist I should automatically know the ins and outs of Linux. But I digress.
Before I end this very unorganized message, let me show you something very simple that Windows does right, as opposed to how Ubuntu handles it. The battery icon/status. First and foremost, there is a mousehover that tells you if it is charged in and what percentage your battery has left. Ubuntu needs you to click it to see how much juice you have. In Windows, clicking the battery icon gives you power options. These names are very well thought out, and when you go to the advanced menu (which is linked through the battery status menu bar as opposed to the Ubuntu method of not telling the user they can change power settings through Admin > Preferences), there are very good descriptions of the power settings and what they do. These are written in plain English (or I should say, they are jargonless and very low-tech). In Ubuntu, picking a “power plan” is a very complicated matter.
Without picking at the terminal, you’d need to know that you need to right click on the bottom panel, drag in the CPU frequency monitor, add it to the panel, click it, and then choose how you want your CPU to run, without any explanation of the settings. There’s conservation, ondemand, and increments of 1GhZ up to what your processor can do, if I’m not mistaken. This is not user friendly! Windicators and docks cannot fix this simple issue! What is a very simple one step process in Windows becomes a mess in Ubuntu, when all a user wants to do is switch to a power setting to either maximize battery while discharged, or maximize performance while plugged in so his YouTube doesn’t lag.
Please, Canonical, I like Ubuntu, or else I wouldn’t post this. I’m very, very interested in user interface/experience to the point where personal computing is my concentration. But I see Ubuntu and I see the fans asking why people don’t adopt it and all I see is “Windows stranglehold!” and bashing yet anyone with a clear mind and a decent vision for user experience can see where the problems lie. Stop spending so much time on new things and fix the basics. At this point, Ubuntu feels like a late 90’s OS with an overcoat of new ideas to push the product. But the problem is at the core.
I found this interesting article about usability design, might thought it would help you.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/24/10-useful-usability-findings-and-guidelines/
MPT thanks for clarifying the flash issue. It’s easy for us to forget how the Flash install went because it’s something we may have only done once over the course of many years.
Hey, people, if the only thing of OS you need is clicking mouse buttons on the icons–install Windows or buy yourself Apple. Get your hands off Linux!!!
linuxmint addresses much of this, they always seem to be a step ahead of ubuntu.
i think these usability studies and attention to details/papercuts are great.
add button @launch@ for everyone programs in Software Centre. It will allow Software Centre operate everything operations with software: install, launch, uninstall programs. No need more menu, label on a desktop, etc. Good for netbooks.
Sorry for my english.
I do not understand why no UBUNTU his face. Customers accustomed to WINDOWS – but in order to introduce the world of Linux – should have its own, and not someone else’s. Let them get used to many things we have in Linux, yes – to simplify some things stand, but not to such an extent as they say underdeveloped, users who were unable and unwilling to overcome their habits. The problem of compatibility – and it is from Windows to Linux?