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Monthly Archives: June 2011
Un-installation is frequent when users try many alternatives
Some users installed multiple competing software packages to try them out. In some cases the software packages that they installed were not at all what they had expected. This is an indication that the discovery and/or evaluation processes had failed … Continue reading
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Updating is easier than knowing if you are up-to-date
In a previous post, I discussed the results of users attempting to add the Wine PPA using Synaptic Package Manager, so they could download the latest version of Wine. Users found instructions using web search, and followed those directions to … Continue reading
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Big catalogs need more navigation features
In Jakob Nielsen’s recent article on international usability, he makes the following statement: If you’re designing an e-commerce site for a 5-item product line, you shouldn’t confuse users by offering search or filtering options. Focus on brief descriptions that clearly … Continue reading
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On-line tutorials make usability better, but not good
Sometimes the software a user wants to install is not available in the standard repositories of a package manager. In other cases, the software is available, but is not the most recent version. To explore this case, I had users … Continue reading
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