Comments for Claudia Müller-Birn http://www.clmb.de/wordpress ||||| academic homepage ||||| Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:12:15 +0100 hourly 1 Comment on Usability in small-sized open source software projects by Claudia http://www.clmb.de/wordpress/?p=442&cpage=1#comment-325 Claudia Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:12:15 +0000 http://www.cl-mueller.de/wordpress/?p=442#comment-325 Unfortunately it is not that easy. First of all, you need a common understanding of an efficient interface design. Actually, we internally applied an adapted user-oriented design process. It worked out fine, but now we are struggling with the implementation. Secondly, the whole community should share this understanding. Even though we had these discussions, there is still no awareness of talking about usability before (!) implementing a new function. Thirdly, we need the resources to define our guidelines, but this is a problem we share with every software project. :-) However, it doesn't stop here because now we have to think how to grasp the user experiences. Maybe there is a certain work around we find very intuitive but nobody else. Just simply imagine you have a certain problem in using SONIVIS and you want to tell us, where you problem is. How can you do that with a text-based bug tracking system? Unfortunately it is not that easy. First of all, you need a common understanding of an efficient interface design. Actually, we internally applied an adapted user-oriented design process. It worked out fine, but now we are struggling with the implementation. Secondly, the whole community should share this understanding. Even though we had these discussions, there is still no awareness of talking about usability before (!) implementing a new function. Thirdly, we need the resources to define our guidelines, but this is a problem we share with every software project. :-)

However, it doesn’t stop here because now we have to think how to grasp the user experiences. Maybe there is a certain work around we find very intuitive but nobody else. Just simply imagine you have a certain problem in using SONIVIS and you want to tell us, where you problem is. How can you do that with a text-based bug tracking system?

]]> Comment on Usability in small-sized open source software projects by Max http://www.clmb.de/wordpress/?p=442&cpage=1#comment-324 Max Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:00:07 +0000 http://www.cl-mueller.de/wordpress/?p=442#comment-324 Well, simply follow the <a href="http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/XHIGIntro.html" rel="nofollow">Apple User Interface Guidelines</a> and you're done. They are really concise and good. I like especially the section "Apply the 80% Rule". Well, simply follow the Apple User Interface Guidelines and you’re done. They are really concise and good. I like especially the section “Apply the 80% Rule”.

]]>