Day 15 Readings

Today's readings pick up on the practices of usability in the open source world. The following are a series of pages that talk about some of the tools that the open source community has built to address the issue of usability in the context of open source projects (from Human Interface Guidelines to portable usability labs):

• GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
• Mairin Duffy's Portable Usability Lab : Part 1 Part 2
• OpenUsability.org
• Open Source Usability : The Birth of a Movement
• Season of Usability
• UX at OpenOffice
• Blender Institute - Open Content Projects

Let us begin by taking a look at probably the most common Human Interface Guideline document used by the Open Source community, the GNOME HIG. While the document prescribes some guidelines for a variety of different commonly used components, we will focus on the usability principles of the document, as it is the zeitgeist of the document:

1. Design for People - Know who your users are and what you want to enable them to do
2. Don't Limit Your User Base - Make systems that are accessible to people of different cultures, disabilities, or who may speak different languages
3. Create a Match Between Your Application and the Real World - use easily understable metaphors to achieve this when appropriate
4. Make Your Application Consistent - In terms of appearance and behaviour between your own application and the application ecosystem
   
5. Keep the User Informed - the user should always be aware of what the system is doing
6. Keep It Simple and Pretty - Design the application to show only useful or relevant information - avoid clutter as it distracts the user
7. Put the User In Control - Avoid using modes of mechanisms which limit or control how the user interacts with the software, or the amount of tasks they can do at any one time
8. Forgive the User - Provide mechanisms (such as Undo), to allow the user to escape from mistakes, especially if they may be learning how to use the system
9. Provide Direct Manipulation - Allow users to directly interact with the data or objects rather than having to go through conduits such as dialogs

It is important to note that not everyone in the usability are supporters of Human Interface Guidelines. Probably one of the most famous paper written by a usability expert against Human Interface Guidelines is Don Genter and Jakob Nielsen's: The Anti-Mac Interface

We now move on to the issue of usability testing in the Open Source world. As we have read in previous readings, traditional usability testing where users enter a formal usability lab with equipment and an environment especially designed for usability testing is expensive. In addition, it doesn't take into account the globally distributed nature of users, where having colocated studies may not be possible. Therefore, it is refreshing to see that a usability professional has put together an entire usability testing system that is relatively inexpensive and can be easily moved around. The following are the tools that are used in his usability testing system:

• Carrying case to carry all of the testing components around
• Microphone and microphone plate
• Digital Video Recorder/Video Mixer
• 3 Sony Colour Security Video Cameras to record observations from three different perspectives
• Camera Stands
• Scan Converter, to convert the video coming out of the testing computer and turns it into a signal that the DVR can record
• Various accessories (i.e. power supplies/cables for cameras, DVRs, scan converters)

Looking through his site, we see that the total kit costs him around $908.08, to purchase all of the components for the kit (excluding carrying case). Therefore, it is possible to build a portable usability lab for under $1000. While you may not have exactly the same quality as a professional usability, you have the portability and affordability that the OS world requires. One thing that could be improved is the portability aspect of the kit, as I suspect that it would take a non-trivial amount of time and effort to setup the usability lab.

Openusability claims to be an initiative that promotes usability in FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) development. They want to make usability more transparent and accessible to the open source community. By sharing methods and best practices of usability and providing hands on support to usability they could make usability happen in Open Source. The project encourages FLOSS projects to seek assistance from Openusability if they feel that their project could benefit from the assistance that Openusability provides. It also encourages usability professionals to look through such FLOSS projects that require assistance from Openusability and contribute their expertise to these projects. Finally, students are encouraged to join their mentoring program, Season of Usability, where students work with usability professionals and key developers from a FLOSS project to help improve the usability of that project during a 3 month period.

The blog post, Open Source Usability : The birth of a movement is a really nice summary of the past couple of day's readings. It covers many of the challenges already discussed about OpenSource usability, why people should care about improving the usability of OpenSource projects, and some of her experience in the field.

The OpenOffice user experience project website outlines the current activities of the Open Office UX team, the members of the UX team, various team blogs, their wiki, todo lists, resources, and Project Renaissance. They provide usability consultations for those developing new functionality for OpenOffice as well as to modify existing functionality.

What is interesting about the OpenOffice UX pages is the one on Project Renissance, which is the project that will create a new User Interface for OpenOffice. As you may or may not know, OpenOffice is a FOSS office suite containing a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, and other common office applications. A major complaint of OpenOffice is that its user interface is cumbersome and outdated due to the many overstuffed toolbar, poorly structured menus, and otherwise complex dialogs. In addition, many office suite vendors (such as Microsoft's Office(R) suite), have updated their user interfaces and user experience, leaving OpenOffices work seem dated by many years. Therefore, the goal of the project is not only to catch up with the usability and user experience offered by modern office suites, but also to better know and understand who uses OpenOffice so that it can become over greater value and desire for users. The project is interested in changing the information architecture, interaction design and visual layout of the OpenOffice suite. They are not interested in extending functionality further than what is currently offered by OpenOffice.

The Blender Institute facilitates the creation of open content projects related to 3D movies, games or visual effects. Open content projects, are projects whose content is licensed under a license model similar to Open Source model (for instance the artistic license). They provide, to participating projects a small staff of between 3 to 4 people including producers, projects co-coordinators and an administrator. They also provide a studio as well as additional space for training/workshops. Since the Blender Institute doesn't make money through conventional means (i.e. royalties and copyright), each project must get financed in advance through things such as government/NGO subsidies grants, corporate sponsorship, workshops, seminars, training, and other related activities. These projects typically last between 6 to 12 months. Some notable OpenContent created by the Blender Institute include Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny.