GNOME Usability

"What's important is not that we can conceive the idea, but that when we actually test it on people you discover it doesn't work... your intuition is wrong." - Daniel M. Russell (IBM Almaden / Xerox PARC)

Usable Us"a*ble, a.

Capable of being used.

For such a simplistic definition, this encapsulates the fundamental goal of usability very well. Usable software is software that people can use; whether to write Email, play games or develop the next killer application. GNOME is many different things, but certainly one of its significant aspects is to provide an environment for users - for people. What a disappointment it should be when a user's ability to access one of the features we have coded is impaired or altogether halted because they don't understand how to manipulate the interface...[Read More]

About the Usability Project

The Usability Project strives to make the GNOME experience as pleasant and efficient as possible. The project aims both to aid developers in their efforts to create intuitive applications, and to lead by creating designs and detailed mockups toward a cohesive and beautiful new generation of the GNOME desktop. The Usability Project achieves these goals through the creation of an interface guide defining and evolving the GNOME user interface, working with maintainers to find existing interaction problems through user testing, and the visual/interactive engineering of new desktop components.

If you are interested in involving yourself with the project, please see the contact page for information on collaborating with other Usability Project participants by joining our mailing list, or by IRC.

Latest Project News

Betterdesktop.org

10-Oct-2005

Novell has launched BetterDesktop.org, a website that focuses on usability studies and analysis for the Open Source desktop.

Windows Migration Usability Study

27-May-2005

Presentation by Anna Dirks and Pete Goodall now online.

Usability Team Wiki

1-Feb-2005

There is now a UsabilityTeam wiki on live.gnome.org.

GNOME Human Interface Guidlines 2.0 Released!

26-Jul-2004

With over a year's worth of improvements, HIG 2.0 was released this week. See what's new here.