04 May 2008
Girlfriend says, Hardy Heron not usable
A fellow blogger, called Contentconsumer, has made nifty little usability test with her girlfriend and with latest Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Test included using disributed software, installing new ones, customizing Ubuntu desktop and such, all in all rather mundane tasks.
When staring down the results one can clearly see the problem, Linux/Ubuntu still has. When arguing of system usability 99 out of 100 would claim that things do not need to be dumbed down, as “Linux users are not Windows users“, or other as creative arguments. Now, test like this clearly shows, even underlines, that for the basic desktop user needs the user interface that is “dumbed down“, the user interface needs to guide the user, not just slap things to hers/his face and just hope for the best.
Windows ain’t the golden system either, I give you that, but at least Vista has less of them everyday usability problems. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Ubuntu, but desktop ready it ain’t.
Read more at
The Content Consumer – Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment
