[libreoffice-design] SpinachCon UX Testing Results

Hiya,

I've typed-up and collated the user feedback from SpinachCon, and have
information for you!

The event was a ton of fun, but was far from having a standardized or
controlled testing environment. Most of our testers were seated at the
same table, and when I was working with one person to get a daily
build up and running on their machine, I'd often have 2 other people
asking me questions at the same time. And then there was a toddler
running around! Luckily there was tons of pizza, salad, and soda, and
I (happily) managed to avoid dropping too much of it into my laptop
:-)

In the end, I got 6 filled-out feedback forms and 4 full writeups with
answers to the UX test questions.

For next time (or a different time), I'd love to have
- Video recording
- Standardized test machine (also would make it easier to save data)
- Wider range/longer list of activities to choose from (pick only a
few per person)
- The opportunity to test the same group twice (re: improvements)


Here are some of the most explicative responses from the event. The
letters correspond to the columns in the spreadsheet:

Sheet: Survey Data
==============================

(G) One feature I'd like to see

* That a welcome screen would link to the formats available,
explaining on how the[y] differ from proprietary formats

* Table of contents that updates automatically as I add and remove lc
honge [??] things

* Autocomplete activated by 'Tab' key

* Auto insert of (c) notice footer with CC-BY CC-BY-SA options encouraged

* Welcome page explaining the main purpose of [this component]


(H) Something I liked was

* Nice integration with Gnome3 however, the UI integration ends after
you enter each application

* Easy access to extensions

* The color bar conditional formatting in Calc

* Lots of power when you can find it

* the large amount of features that seem to [exist] here


(I) If you had trouble performing a particular task, what was the first problem?

* Tool boxes lack of categorization

* Resetting styles. The Formatting & Styles window has no reset button

* Updating the Table of Contents (I expected it to be automatic)

* Updating content page - should be done automatically

* generally finding the right command

* Perhaps the examples should be displayed first?


(J) What do you think would help this software gain wider adoption?

* Fewer people using MS-Office

* I don't know; maybe support for proprietary formats? But that might
cause freedom issues

* less steps to get right to desired commands

* a little tutorial or short video tutorial



Sheet: UX Tests
==============================

(B) Regarding the appearance of the whitespace on the right on a fresh install

* I thought it was an open window to start typing.


(C) Expectations re: the Extensions Button

* Expect to see options for downloading extensions

* I expect to find extensions. I expect to be able to search for
extensions in various ways (by name, by license, by what part of
LibreOffice they work with (Writer, etc.) and to be able to do a
one-click install.

* I expected to see a list of [file] extensions that LibreOffice can
open. Instead, it opened a webpage that talked about addons/extensions
for libreoffice (which then makes "extensions" make sense).

* GNU LibreJS complains about non-free javascript. The script files
below are blocked as they are non-trivial, but not clearly licensed...


(D) What are LibreOffice extensions?

* files that can be edited by Libre Office. [Ed. Looks like same
confusion with file extensions]


(G) Problems creating a paragraph/character style?

* I went to the styles dropdown, chose "more..." (since there was no
other appropriate option).
Next, I looked for new style options, but there was nothing clear, so
I went with "new style from selection"
That wasn't exactly right, but I knew it would make a new style.
Then I thought I could edit the style by double-clicking, but that didn't work.
There's no indication since the style wasn't a change from current,
but I guessed that it changes the style of the selected text.
I tried right-click and found the update option.

* I find the way the tabs in the edit window move around -- it is very
disconcerting. It frustrates my attempt to kind of mentally map out
the range of options.

* I found how to make "New Style From Selection." Not sure if there's
another way to do it from not making it from a selection. Also, what
is the difference between a paragraph and character style? One is a
style you apply to a single letter? While a pargraph style applies to
a whole paragraph? Huh? Why would someone do this?

* I was able to create a style (the tooltips were needed to
figure out how to do it.) I thought that the font that I had
picked was part of the style that I created, but it was not.


(K) Create a Table of Contents

* That was awfully frustrating. I had to use the wiki help from the help menu.

* Done although I noticed that the table of contents don't update with
I add stuff. I have to right-click and tell it to update. I might not
remember that. The computer's supposed to keep track of this for me
and keep the table of contents updated as I add/change/remove stuff.

* NO. Not easy to find.


(L) Change a heading, and make sure the ToC is in sync

* Yeah, right-click worked, but that's not cool.

* Table doesn't update, even after saving the document.

* UPDATE OF THE TABLE OF CONTENTS SHOULD BE AUTOMATIC.


(M) Insert a page number in the format "Page n of m" into the footer
of your document

* finding the initial one was harder, but I saw "page count" next to
"page number" so that was easy


(N) Conditional formatting in Calc: Have you ever used this? Do you
know what it is?

* No

* No and no. I imagine it invovlves writing some script/code stuff
that if something is equal to or less than something then assing
something a particular color or font or whatever.

* Yes, and yes very much.  [Ed. Don't think he actually understands]


(O) Apply a color bar to a range of cells

* Do you mean just make the cells have a background color?

* I manually selected some cells and gave them a color. If it was
supposed to be done conditionally I have no idea how to do that.


(P) Any other notes or comments about LibreOffice or the UX Test?

* The difference between "delete" and "backspace" stikes me as
strange. [Ed. Perhaps specifically regarding cells in Calc]


==============================


To look at the full data from the event, grab the spreadsheet from here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Events/2014/SpinachCon#Test_Results


Thank you guys for the questions -- I'll let you know if we get
invited to more user-testing in the future!

Best,
--R

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted