Determining the usability of installing and using SuSE 10
I have conducted an experiment where a subject is to install SuSE 10, and has been given a set of objectives to accomplish throughout the session. The experiment itself is done in a virtual machine environment where the subject can be sure not to destroy anything.
The subject
The subject of this experiment is a 19 year old female who is fairly knowledgeable in using Windows. She has installed Windows applications and knows her way around the desktop.
Provided help
Help during this experiment is extremely limited. Answers will only be given to predetermined questions which are stated and given to the subject prior to the start of the experiment. These answers are the following:
- Choice of window manager
- Network settings
- Screen resolution
During this experiment, the above stated answers will be explained and commented why they are given to the user.
Goals to achieve
The following goals are given to the subject prior to the experiment to give an idea on what is to be done:
- Install the system in the native language (Swedish)
- Install the system security updates
- Connect to an instant messaging service like ICQ or MSN Messenger
- Download, install and start Skype
- Write an office document and save a PDF copy
- Listen to an internet radio station
The experiment begins
I start explaining to the subject that this experiment will be taken place in a virtual environment, so there is no need to feel uncomfortable knowing she could break something. I then start the virtual environment and give her the control while it is booting.
The first screen is the GRUB screen where the user is presented with various choices. After looking through the menu items for a while, she proceeded correctly by choosing the “Install” option.
The installation system asks the user to verify the time and date of the system. The computer clock was set to “local time” but instead of changing the UTC to local time, she changed the time itself. This is of course no problem in this evaluation, but if the computer should have had multiple operating systems, the time would have been screwed up.
The rest of the installation itself went smoothly, but she complained about everything not being translated. This is a valid complaint, as there should not be mixed languages in the final version of a product.
When the system had rebooted and the configuration part was initiated, the subject was given the option to test the internet connectivity. She did make the right choice to test it, but the test took very long which made her uneasy and she began wondering if something was wrong. This page surely needs a progress bar to give the user some indication that something is happening.
There were some problems with Yast Online Update as well as she did not know which packages should be selected. By giving some hints she selected the default options which was the correct choice.
After finishing the installation, the user was taken to the default KDE environment without any issues. When logging in for the first time the hardware wizard displayed a notice stating that the monitor did not report its display size, and asked the user if she wanted to enter them manually. She clicked no and did not give it any further thoughts.
Starting Kopete to connect to an instant messaging service was an easy task, but finding it in the menu took a while. This was probably due to the name that SuSE has for it – “Chat”.
Opening Firefox and downloading Skype was relatively easy, but she did not know which Linux distribution she had installed, so I had to chip in and tell her. She clicked on the RPM and YAST opened a preview in the Konqueror window. At this point she was completely lost — She did not find the “Install package using YAST” button, so finally I had to tell her to look at what the buttons say. After that she had no major problem installing and starting Skype, although it took a while for her to find it in the menu since it is located under the “More applications” sub menu.
Starting OpenOffice and saving a document was no problem at all. Exporting to PDF took a minute or two to find, because the subject tried the “Save as” and looked for PDF.
Listening to web radio went smoothly provided that one was using Konqueror and not Firefox, since the MIME types where not configured appropriately.
Conclusions
The installation was fairly easy and most things went like they should. The most important issues to solve are probably the translations and giving the user the ability to see what is going on.
Since the subject managed to install Linux almost completely without any help, I would say that Linux getting more and more ready for the main-stream audience. While there are still lots of small quirks, the most common tasks such as office work and web surfing are extremely easy and familiar to most people. This is much due to the programmers providing quality code for the big projects such as Firefox and OpenOffice.
Future research
It would be extremely interesting to see different age groups and users with different computer knowledge doing a test like this. This would give a fairly good measurement on what needs to be done and what has been done right.
“Listening to web radio went smoothly provided that one was using Konqueror and not Firefox, since the MIME types where not configured appropriately.”
s/where/were/
and this sounds like a server problem to me =)
“Starting Kopete to connect to an instant messaging service was an easy task, but finding it in the menu took a while. This was probably due to the name that SuSE has for it—“Chatâ€.”
Instant Messaging sounds like a better name. Maybe a mistranslation?
“She did not find the “Install package using YAST†button, so finally I had to tell her to look at what the buttons say.”
Not our fault that she isn’t reading what is presented to her.
Good study, though.
I have to agree, very interesting work. I have followed my wife arround sue 8.0 to 10.0 and things have gotten a lot better than they used to be. I will try out the chat stuff (the german suse uses Instant Messenger as name) on her.
Nothing about the ati-grafik problems?
@ John Jensen
Sorry for the late reply. Which ATI graphics problems were you referring to?
“She did not find the “Install package using YAST†button, so finally I had to tell her to look at what the buttons say.â€
Not our fault that she isn’t reading what is presented to he
I beg to differ. Installing or not installing should be the most common choices in that screen, so those buttons should be arranged to get more attention. I wouldn’t mind having them bigger and more colourful than other less common stuff (or even hiding the less important stuff with “More details” / “Less details” dynamics).
If there’s screen space to spare, a short instructional text helps the beginner. Like the button below says “Submit Comment” instead of the browser default submit-button-name (which vary a lot between browsers and versions and languages).
(First submit seems to have gotten lost?)
@ Simon B
I have to agree with you that it should be absolutely clear that the relevant actions are made extra visible, and other less important should be in the background.
If I have time sometime soon, I will conduct a similar study with the new Ubuntu Dapper Drake, and the new Suse 10.1 as well, and see what have been improved since the previous version.
Regarding your first submission; I don’t know what happened. Did you get an error message?
Great!
My submit problem — I guess it was some incomatibility between me and my browser. Now I’m repeating the same precedure, but I will probably click more carefully on the Submit Comment button. I suspect I click-dragged last time (because I’m not on my regular computer) and that wouldn’t activate the button. This could actually be solved like on (old) Macintosh, by flashing the button when you clicked properly. Or by showing the “ajax” update arrows both “up there” and by the button. Actually some javascript with onmousedown, onmouseup and tracking if onclick triggers or not, could solve this user problem. It is a common problem for my parents. Usually they double click everywhere though, so for each button they have twice the chance of getting one click right!