The Usability of GNOME

Jim Hall — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 20:49:20 +0000

I work at a university, and one of our faculty members often repeats to me, "Software needs to be like a rock; it needs to be that easy to use." And, she's right. Because if software is too hard to use, no one will want to use it.

I recently spoke at GUADEC, the GNOME Users And Developers European Conference, and I opened my presentation with a reminder that GNOME is competing for mind share with other systems that are fairly easy for most people to use: Mac, iPad, Windows and Chromebook. So for GNOME to continue to be successful, it needs to be easy for everyone to use—experts and newcomers alike. And, that's where usability comes in.

So, what is usability? Usability is about the users. Users often are busy people who are trying to get things done. They use programs to be productive, so the users decide when a program is easy to use. Generally, a program has good usability if it is easy for new users to learn, easy for them to use, and easy for them to remember when they use the program again.

In a more practical view, average users with typical knowledge should be able to use the software to perform real tasks. The purpose of usability testing, therefore, is to uncover issues that prevent general users from employing the software successfully. As such, usability testing differs from quality assurance testing or unit testing, the purpose of which is to uncover errors in the program. Usability testing is not a functional evaluation of the program's features, but rather a practical determination of the program's operability.

Usability testing does not rely on a single method. There are multiple approaches to implement usability practices, from interviews and focus groups to formal usability testing. Whatever method you use, the value of usability testing lies in performing the evaluation during development, not after the program enters functional testing when user interface changes become more difficult to implement. In open-source software development, the community of developers must apply usability testing iteratively throughout development. Developers do not require extensive usability experience to apply these usability practices in open-source software.

I prefer the formal usability test, and it's not hard. You can gain significant insight just by gathering a few testers and watching them use the software. With each iteration, usability testing identifies a number of issues to resolve and uncovers additional issues that, when addressed, will further improve the program's ease of use. Usability cannot be addressed only at the end of a software development lifecycle. If you wait until the end, it is usually too late to make changes.

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It's about the User: Applying Usability in Open-Source Software

Jim Hall — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 19:34:49 +0000

by Jim Hall

Open-source software developers have created an array of amazing programs that provide a great working environment with rich functionality. At work and at home, I routinely run Linux on my desktop, using Firefox and LibreOffice for most of my daily tasks. I prefer to run open-source software tools, and I think most Linux Journal readers do too. But as comfortable as the open-source software ecosystem can be, we've all shared or heard the same comments about some of our favorite Linux programs:

"___ is a great program, once you figure out how to use it."
"You can do a lot in ___, after you get past the awkward menus."
"You'll like using ___, if you can learn the user interface."

That's the problem. No matter how powerful the program, that functionality is lost if people have to figure out how to use the program in order to unlock its secrets. Typical users with average knowledge should be able to operate a general-purpose program. If a program is hard to use, that suggests the problem is with the program, not with the user.

Usability and Open-Source Software

"Usability" refers to how easily users can learn and start using software, or any similar "information product". Usability is separate from the functionality of the program, and so usability testing is different from unit testing. Instead, usability testing allows us to uncover issues that prevent users from using our programs.

Most open-source software programs are written by developers for other developers. Although some large open-source programs, such as GNOME and Drupal, have undergone usability testing, most projects lack the resources or interest to pursue a usability evaluation. As a result, open-source software programs often are utilitarian, focused on the functionality and features, with little attention paid to how people will use it. Applying usability practices tends to be antithetical to how open-source software is created. Open-source developers prefer functionality over appearance. Although some projects may have a maintainer who dictates a particular design aesthetic, many more do not. In an interview for this article, open-source advocate Eric Raymond commented to me that most programmers view menus and icons "like the frosting on a cake after you've baked it", which is an apt metaphor. Open-source software developers tend to prefer assembling the ingredients and baking the cake, not applying frosting to make it look nice.

So how can open-source developers easily apply usability to their own programs? There are many ways to implement usability practices. Alice Preston described 11 different techniques to evaluate usability in the STC Usability SIG newsletter. These methods run the gamut from interviews and focus groups to heuristic reviews and formal usability tests:

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