Hey folks,
Matt from the FSF very helpfully volunteered to be our test subject at
the Fedora usability session at FUDcon today. Here is my writeup of his
experience. He took 5 of our 10 tasks on. I took a screencast of the
test but it's ~30 megs so I'm not sure how to make it available right
now. This is kind of in a transcript style.
~m
FUDcon Usability Report
Test 1 with Matt: Download Fedora
=================================
- starts at http://www.fedoraproject.org/
- clicks "get fedora" on the left
- "hmmm... okay...?"
- hovers over "direct download" for x86...
- "but where's the live CD? that's the DVD"
- "hmmm"
- finds direct download link for 686 LiveCd
- waits
- "is this just going to go to the file?"
- waits
- clicks again b/c nothing is happening and the page is loading slowly
- "this is taking too long. i think it's broken"
- "oh there it goes"
- finished... 2-3 minutes
Test 2 with Matt: Join Fedora
=============================
- starts at http:/www.fedoraproject.org/
- clicks "join fedora"
- "hmm..."
- reads through text at top
- clicks "web dev/admin" icon
- jumps to wiki description, reads
- "why is there no way to actually join here?"
- "I clicked the icon because I want to help out by doing this; there's other things I want to do too."
- "why doesn't this let me sign up?"
- clicks back and re-reads join page "oh there, set up a new account"
- signs up for account
- "what is the [i] account for?"
- clicks on it a few times, two help windows pop up
- continues sign up process, password emailed
- on password emailed success page, "what is this locale thing? it just appeared out of nowhere."
- "okay now i'll check my email for a password"
- "okay I have a password"
- "I would expect this email to provide me a link to automatically log me in and allow me to change the password. It just asked me for my password and then asked me for it again on the next screen in order to change it. This seems very manual; I had to enter my password twice"
- error - i wants an 8-character long password. It didn't tell me up front that it needed at least 8.
- done
- took 5 minutes
- FAS - why can't I click on logo to go back to fedoraproject.org?
- why does it look so different than the Fedora site?
Test 3 with Matt: New user getting help- I want to install packages, how do I do it?
====================================================================================
- goes to www.fedoraproject.org
- clicks on "what's new in Fedora 9" link front & center underneath main banner
- "that's strange, I'm reading the website in english and it doesn't just take me to the English docs, it asks me what language I want the docs in. If I was reading the website in spanish I would expect the link to take me to the spanish docs as wlel"
- this doc is not terribly easy to navigate
- it's telling me to read the latest release notes. aren't i already in them? <clicks>
- whoah
- large grey ugly chart, clicks on latest f9 again, end up back in the same doc
- This doc links to the Fedora tour, maybe that will help me
- every page I go to seems to be a wiki page. i feel like a lot of these shouldn't be wiki pages, they should be a permanent part of a static website.
- I logged out of the FAS but I'm still logged into the wiki?
- 8 minutes and I haven't found out what's new in Fedora, or how to install a package
- click on gallery of screenshots... okay so I would have seen these already since I've *just* installed Fedora
- sees a package kit screenshot - this looks like what i want but the screenshot doesn't tell me how to get it
- returns to fedoraproject.org to see if I did something wrong
- this banner is strange (upper left small banner) I didn't see that before
- click get help => documentation => installation guide => doesn't look useful clicks back => desktop user guide
- if this is only in one language, why is it asking me to choose a language?
- this looks useful but there's too much here
- I still can't find how to install something
- it seems like it might be easier to click around the os itself, ill try that later
- sees 'software management with yum' in docs left nav
- sees 'draft only' warnings - i'm a bit worried because this is telling me to not rely on it, should i bother reading?
- sometimes these docs have me click on "en", some of them have me click on "US English"
- I don't know what yum is
- it looks like what I need to use
- I'll start looking for yum in the menus
- apps > system tools - it's not there
- system > admin > add/remove software - that looks good but it is not the same as yum, it does not say yum
- not sure what to do
- reads section two of software management with yum, it says it's about concepts i should read about before running yum
- doesn't make sense, refers to RPM packages once then always says 'packages' - do i need to remember "RPM" as a term?
- reads section of repositories
- this doesn't seem helpful. this tells me more about how Fedora organizes things and less about how I can install something.
- at this point I'm confused. I'm expecting a way to install software through the GUI, but this talks about the command line without any reference to a GUI.
- reads 'package names' section - this isn't info i want to know as a user
- i'm done reading and i still don't know how to install software
- this is talking about tsclient as an example, i don't understand, it's assuming i have installed but i need to install it?
- i've read through chapter one and don't know what to do
- i'm going to go ahead and try the add/remove software app
- this is what i expect to see
- click on games - nothing
- says package kit is waiting
- i can't get it to work
- gives up on task. not completed.
- looks at get help
- i might go to irc at this point bc im familiar with it but i dont know if many folks are
- I would expect to see a quickstart guide for new users. e.g, here's how to get your ipod working, your camera working, here's how to install and remoe software
- no search on homepage! that would have been helpful!
~18+ minutes
Test 4 with Matt: Download FC6 for x86_64
=========================================
- start at http://www.fedoraproject.org/
- clicks on get fedora
- I guess these are all F9 although they aren't labeled as such. I guess I can't use these links
- scrolls down. this no internet section does not apply to me
- I don't know what to do! sigh
- click get help => documentation => get fedora => i'm back at the same unhelpful page
- clicks back
- sees FC6 installation guide
- strange to not be able to click on the language link. clicks on 'read online' link
- skims TOC, nothing useful
- clicks next (~20x)
- sees chapter 3 "before you begin"
- this section links to /wiki/Distribution/Download
- oh here's an ftp link. I'll go up the FTP tree to find it
- no luck
- at this point i'm very confused
- i would give up at this point
- a search box would be good. i'll try google
- searches 'fedora core 6 dvd download'
- search results unhelpful, returns get fedora page and /wiki/Distribution/Download page which only has f9 on it
- this isn't giving me what i need just lots of unhelpful text
Test 5 with Matt: Get Fedora Bling - I want a T-shirt
=====================================================
- start at http://www.fedoraproject.org/
- click "learn more" front & center of page
- i'm on the wiki now and can search in the left nav
- searched for "tshirt"
- returns nothing (not even the T-Shirts page with actual tshirt designs)
- goes back to fedoraproject.org to try again
- clicks "communicate"
- lots of mailing lists, not helpful
- oh here's a link to the marketing, maybe it will help
- clicks fedora ambassadors - maybe this will have it?
- finds 'request fedora materials' link
- brings to a /GetStuff wiki page
- finds a cafe press link
- success, took 10 minutes
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