Title: Use-ability
Date: 2007-02-27 11:19
Author: Femke
Tags: Tools, Usability links
Slug: use-ability
Status: published

At the [FOSDEM](http://www.fosdem.org/2007/) (Free and Open Source
Software Developers Meeting) conference in Brussels, two
[openSuse](http://www.opensuse.org/) developers presented their research
on usability of [KDE](http://www.kde.org/) desktops.

[![p1000537.JPG]({filename}/images/uploads/p1000537.JPG)]({filename}/images/uploads/p1000537.JPG "p1000537.JPG")

Their testing methods consists of interviews, questionnaires, screen
recordings plus precise video documentation of a group of 10 people
trying to accomplish 12 tasks using various desktop systems (KDE
classic, KDE reloaded and Windows Vista). Besides looking for 'succes
rate' and 'accomplishment time', they also measured 'the hedonic aspect'
which I thought was pretty interesting. The [AttrakDiff
standard](http://www.attrakdiff.de/) (which is in itself a proprietary
method ;-)) measures 'pleasure' i.e. the joy of using a system. Instead
of asking: 'Did the interface do what you expected', it tries to find
out whether it was an interesting experience. Which of course could also
mean, that the system did the opposite of what you thought it would do.