Hi folks,
Stephanie is going to be working on the final touches (fixing typos,
adjusting typography, etc.) of the survey for the anaconda usability
tests this week - thank you very much for all of the helpful feedback on
list.
I wanted to share with you a potential rough plan for the usability
test at Devconf, and I'd like to ask for your feedback on that as well.
Stephanie, Filip, and I have talked about given the time we have
allotted at Devconf, we'll probably run two rounds of tests, with four
users in each round. So we'll have 8 usability testers total. We talked
a little bit about the type of users we'd like to have test anaconda,
which I think was cc'ed to this list, but for easy reference they are as
follows:
1) Novice users who may be new to linux who just want to install a
desktop system
2) Experienced linux users who may dabble in system administration, are
very technical, and like trying out different technologies
3) Professional system administrators who work with advanced storage
devices and configurations, typically on the job, not for fun
Since installing Fedora without customization is the most basic thing a
user can do, and it is so critical that any user be able to do that, we
talked about recruiting 4 "novice" (#1 above) users to do basically just
that - we'll hand them a Fedora disk (or point them at an ISO file) and
simply ask that they install Fedora, with no special requirements or
customizations needed.
We also talked about recruiting more technical users ("experienced" and
"professional" / #2 & #3 above) for the remaining 4 slots. Since there
are a lot of features and paths someone could take through Anaconda
without unlimited time and testers, I would like to propose giving each
of the 4 'technical' testers each their own version of the test, each
one dealing with a particular feature of Anaconda:
1) Dual-boot: provide the user with a VM that has Windows installed,
and see if the user can install Fedora alongside it without wiping
Windows. How we do this depends on whether or not the shrink/resize
partitions UI is available - did we drop it for final?
2) Customized LVM: provide the user with a diagram and writeup of a
specific LVM layout we'd like him or her to use while installing Fedora.
3) Customized RAID: provide the user with a diagram and writeup of a
specific RAID configuration we'd like him or her to use while installing
Fedora.
4) Preserve /home: provide the user with a VM that has Fedora 17
installed on it with a separate /home directory, and see if the user can
install Fedora 18 on top of Fedora 17 without wiping the /home directory
from Fedora 17.
Some scenarios we are leaving out here:
- BTRFS configuration - there's actually a bug that is in F18 gold that
complicates BTRFS installations
(https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=893758) so it might not be
a good idea to include this anyway.
- text mode UI - I think having 4 folks who are not American & native
English speakers (the default setting for the UI now is English / us-en
keyboard) is much more valuable than having one or more of them split
off and do a text mode UI. We can test the text mode UI when we run
tests where I am here in Boston if need be.
- no network case - Another lower priority test case that I can cover
in Boston later on.
In case this explanation is confusing, here's a user-by-user rundown of
what the usability tests at Devconf should look like:
- User #1: novice user, given free reign of installer with simple task
of installing Fedora 18 to a VM.
- User #2: novice user, given free reign of installer with simple task
of installing Fedora 18 to a VM.
- User #3: novice user, given free reign of installer with simple task
of installing Fedora 18 to a VM.
- User #4: novice user, given free reign of installer with simple task
of installing Fedora 18 to a VM.
- User #5: professional/experienced linux user, asked to install Fedora
18 alongside pre-existing Windows install.
- User #6: professional/experienced linux user, asked to install Fedora
18 using a specific LVM configuration.
- User #7: professional/experienced linux user, asked to install Fedora
18 using a specific RAID configuration.
- User #8: professional/experienced linux user, asked to install Fedora
18 while preserving the /home from a previous Fedora 17 install.
Do you think this high-level, basic test plan makes sense? Are there
higher-priority test cases we're missing here, do you think? Do you have
ideas on how we might be able to run some of these tests using a VM, or
do you foresee any issues with making some of these test cases possible
at Devconf?
As always, feedback/advice very much appreciated.
~m
_______________________________________________
Anaconda-devel-list mailing list
Anaconda-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list
