Re: [Usability] Programmer needed for minimal and basic design for GNOME HIG experiment

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sun, 5 Mar 2006, Christian Neumair wrote:

> Subject: Re: [Usability] Programmer needed for minimal and basic design
>     for GNOME HIG experiment
>
> Am Samstag, den 04.03.2006, 19:03 -0800 schrieb William Szilveszter:

> > I am currently in the process of designing a true experiment for my

> > Currently my aim is to show the effectiveness of section 4) Menus. The
> > experiment will focus on menu icons and whether they truly interfere
> > with reaction times. My aim is very simple, however I will be

I like having menu icons however I do think the icons like Save and Save
As" are confusingly similar, and the time it takes to disambiguate the
icons in such cases may well slow things down.  If that turned out to be
the case would be inclined to draw the conclusion that icons should only
be used selectively and the artwork be distinctive.  I would not advocate
removing them, so my point is be careful not to draw overreaching
conclusions as there will be plenty of people happy to use whatever data
you gather to prove whatever point they had to begin with.  ;)

> Inside the GNOME project we have an ongoing discussion whether icons
> increase usability or - when used excessively - don't help much but
> rather confuse users. Some claim that you can read text more quickly
> than figuring out what an icon means [1].

> My personal opinion is that it would be very, very interesting to test
> how quickly people find a particular function with icons completely
> turned off, with icons turned on only for a particular selection of
> functions, where the likelyhood that a particular function is needed
> should be incorporated, and with icons turned on for all menu entries.
> If you have enough resources, you may also want to permute the icons
> which have menu items.

I'd be interested to know how you intend to implement this.  (I was
thinking Glade + Python could be a relatively easy way to do it but I'm
not sure how it could fullfill the self contained .exe requirement.)

Depending on how you go about implementing this test program you might be
able to come up with a tool/toy/game which could be used afterwards to
help introduce beginners to the tasks of navigating menus.

> We're looking forward to your further steps, and encourage you to
> publish more information on the experiment you plan.

Yes, please do keep us updated on your progress.  We regularly get all
kinds of requests for information but we dont often get follow up
information afterwards.

-- 
Alan H.