[Tfug] Why not do usability research?

[Harry McGregor]

On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 13:00, Claude Rubinson wrote:

> But there are already other, professional organizations pursuing this
> course of research.

It depends on what research you are talking about.  The educational
environment does not currently, to the best of my knowledge have a
specific usability research group in place for the GUI of operating
systems.

Many parents, teachers, and other educators, who would normally resit
vocational education of topics, with specific exceptions, follow the
line that "Well that is what is in use in business today, so we have to
teach with it" when it comes to technology.

If you look back at a student who just gradated from college today (lets
say may 2004, 5 year plan of a 4 year program), this student would be 23
years of age.  When the student was in 2nd grade the year would have
been the 1988-89 school year.  What was the top of the line "business"
word processor of the day?  Microsoft Word 4.0 for DOS or possible
WordPerfect 4.1/maybe 5 (I could not find the exact release date for
WordPerfect 5.1
http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/comphis6.html)

Would learning every short cut key combo in Word 4.0 for DOS or
WordPerfect 5.1 help with the use of Office 2003 today?  Probably not,
but learning the concepts of word processing would be greatly beneficial
to the student.  Learning that you can just "Write" and then go back and
fix it, and improve it, is quite helpful.

You don't have to learn Word 2003 today, just because commercial
entities are currently using it.

>   Both GNOME and KDE have projects devoted to
> studying and improving the usability of their environments.

Usability by whom?  This would be a direct comparison of usability in a
home and or an educational environment.  GNOME, KDE, RedHat, SuSu/Novell
are all interested in the Corporate environment, but not the home or
educational environments (though Novell/Ximian seems to be waking up).

In the trenches research such as this, is best initially done by a small
research team.  After initial findings are found, other groups will pick
it up and continue with it.

			Harry

>   GNOME, in
> particular, has the backing of a number of large corporations.  If you
> want to help, it's probably better to join one of those initiatives
> rather than start your own.
> 
> Claude
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--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor at osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org
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