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Desktop Environment User Interface Surveys

Submitted by khanreaper on Tue, 2005-03-29 12:28. Usability

Reading over GNOME's desktop-devel mailing list and KDE's Dot News, I stumbled across two sets of user interface and satisfaction surveys that inquire into users think about GNOME and KDE's offerings. The organization performing the inquiry is the Human Aspects of Software Engineering (HASE) group over at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

I have to be candid in saying that I am surprised to see that a link to the surveys never made it here to, so I am including the links below for those who are interested in participating:

Linux lover who just can't understand strawmen

Submitted by Anonymous George on Thu, 2005-03-31 07:14.

Thought I would fuel the opposite position

I may not hate MS (though I hate Windows), but their UI is still much worse than
Gnome's unfortunately. There are just a ton of really small quirks here and there,
that should be really easy to fix.
Like for example, how come I can not just drag and drop a file or folder on my desktop
and it then ask me to create a new shortcut ? The "launcher" is just too complex; I
should be able to just browse the file/folder I want and click on it (Gnome does this),
but instead I have to type in what program I want with no auto-completion of course.
The default install icon and theme are pretty ugly and make you feel like it's still
1995. It's pretty inconsistent too. I can't even change the icons !! I should be able
to just download a "theme.zip" file or sth, and go into themes and say use this theme
right ? doesn't happen ... The only way to get it to work right is to unzip it and
place all the files in their appropriate folders, and I won't even go into how much I
hate windows style folder layout b/c that's not Windows fault ... Oh wait !
How come my desktop just don't come up as I left it when I log in ? With the app in
the right position and workspa... oh wait, there are no workspace !!! How come it still
does not work right ? How come the most used apps is still broken ?
How come apps grouping still does not work right ? How come my mp3 codec are still
erased with all media update ? How come ...
Anyway, to sum it up... I too love linux and open-source, and I want to tell everyone
I know to jump on board ... Oh wait I do, since it's still a lot more user friendly
in comparison to WinXP (don't know OSX, but my users sure are not familiar to it).
My users are amazed at this Linux (Mandrake actually) thing :
- It plays all their media files (with totem on Mandrake, go figure), Windows could not
- It never crashed on them, never locked on them, and some had 128 Mo of RAM
- Most things are in French (except most Gnome docs), not in Windows (they are french
people, me too)
- It does not go in flame 6 months after install (all my users Windows install did)
- When they select a list of items, they come in order, not the contrary (should be
an easy fix)
- They can work on remote folders !!! At least I found no evident way to work on a file through SSH in Windows

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