[Tfug] Why not do usability research?

[Joshua Bernstein]

My thoughts are this...

Why waste the time? I mean while its already an interesting point of 
debate don't really all basiclly know the outcome? I mean I'm all for 
participating. In fact if I set this up as a school project the 
Engineering College can donate the Windows XP license under the MSAA 
(Microsoft Academic Alliance)...

But I mean really... Isn't our time spent better elsewhere? I know there 
are more people on this list then I that have jobs and school...

-Josh

Justin Zeigler wrote:

>Jim Secan wrote
>| From a price perspective, I agree.  But this isn't the box a "typical" home
>| user would be buying.
>
>If we were testing complete systems, this would definitely be a hard
>point to get around, but the entire point of such a test would be
>usability of a desktop environment. Thus, let me amend the idea:
>
>Each test group would receive a baseline system of /well/ proven
>hardware. The systems will be pre-installed, and the users will
>have support in customizing the system for themselves on the first 
>day (this entails Internet setup, email client and other
>'personalization' things and /not/ theme, colors, skins or 
>background).
>
>As for distro, I do not consider Debian an option, due to the staleness
>of the current 'Released' version(woody). RedHat has precluded itself
>already, and SUSE is firmly aimed at Corporate users.  This would leave
>mainly Mandrake, Xandros, Lycros and Lindows (am I missing any?)  
>
>I know that for me, Slack, Gentoo and Debian are vastly superior, But
>unless you are living with a hard-core geek, you are not getting these
>dists in the home.
>
>  
>