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GNOME Usability Study Report :: Exploring the GNOME Desktop

July 2001
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Exploring the GNOME Desktop

After logging in to the new system, participants were asked to describe what they saw on the desktop. They were asked not to move the mouse, so tooltips would not provide clues about the icons and objects on the desktop. After about 5 minutes, they were told they could move the mouse to see the tooltips and explore.

We heard general comments about icons and tooltips that included the following:

"The icons are not immediately obvious" (P2)
"Some of the icons could be more helpful. Icons that work well are really simple." (P4)
"The icons are not clear." (P6)
"The tooltips make no sense." (P7)

Participants misinterpreted many of the same icons, found others indecipherable, and consistently pointed out the same tooltips as "confusing" and "not helpful".

Logout Icon:

Relevant Usability Principle: Match between system and the real world.
11 out of 12 people misunderstood the logout icon.

Logout icon

Users' guesses included:

"I would click this to set a screensaver." (P2, P4, P6, P9, P10)
"...power saving." (P5, P8)
"I would click this to use less energy." (P1, P8)
"I would click this to put the monitor to sleep." (P7, P11)
"...monitor settings." (P3)

"I expected a screen saver; [for logout] I'd expect something that communicates "finish"...night time did not connect [with me]." (P4)

Design Recommendation: This icon relies heavily on elements commonly associated with sleep, a moon and stars, to convey its meaning. A moon and stars can convey night time, but users did not associate night time with the end of the day and logging out. This icon also uses the same computer as the terminal icon, making it difficult to distinguish between the two. We suggest redesigning the icon and removing the moon and stars as well as the computer imagery. Alternate design elements that might communicate "logging out", "leaving", or "exiting" more successfully include arrows and/or doors. We recommend trying to illustrate the physical aspect of "leaving" rather than relying on "sleep" or "nighttime" imagery to imply "the end of a work day or work session". We recommend testing new designs with a wide range of users to ensure that they interpret it correctly.

Terminal Icon and Tooltip:

Relevant Usability Principle: Match between system and the real world.
None of the 12 participants knew what the terminal icon meant. They referred to it as "a footprint on a monitor" (P2, P5, P11), or a "pathway to the system" (P4) and one (P10) said "it looks like someone has kicked the computer".

10 out of 12 participants commented that the tooltip for the terminal icon, "Terminal emulation program" was confusing.

Terminal icon and tooltip

"Tooltips for terminal icon were unclear, even with the icon." (Pilot)
"'Terminal emulation program', that doesn't tell me anything." (P4, P9)
"Don't know, no idea, not sure what that means." (P2, P3, P4, P8)
"What's emulation?" (P10)

"That seems weird, you're actually using a terminal with a UI emulator on the terminal." (P11)
"'Terminal emulation program', that doesn't tell me a lot, I'm more comfortable with 'console' or 'shell'. (P5)

"Oh, is this DOS?" (P3)
"Is this for programming?" (P8)
"[this is] a scary window with a black background, I'd have to type in some kind of code." (P9)

Design Recommendation: This icon might be more clear if the logout icon is redesigned to not use the same computer imagery (see the logout icon design recommendation). However, we recommend testing a version of the terminal icon that does not have the small GNOME footprint overlaid on the computer. The footprint seemed to confuse users the most. The icon might also be improved by thickening or brightening the color of the small light gray lines on the monitor so there is greater contrast between the lines and the black screen. We recommend testing new designs with a wide range of users to ensure that they interpret it correctly.

We also recommend rewriting the tooltip for this icon. Suggestions to test with users, as alternatives to "Terminal Emulation Program", might include "Command Prompt" or "GNOME Terminal Window". We also recommend following the GNOME Documentation Style Guide and involving a technical writer in the review of any terminology, error messages, or other on-screen text delivered into GNOME. Developers are encouraged to ask terminology questions on the gnome-doc-list@gnome.org mailing list or the #docs channel on IRC.

Browser Icon:

Relevant Usability Principle: Match between system and the real world.
At least 4 participants were confused by the browser icon.

Browser icon

There were a couple of incorrect guesses that clicking this icon would invoke email. Other guesses included, "global browsing", "translation", and "language or keyboard language". One user who was unsure of what the icon was before seeing the tooltip remarked,

"This is not the standard Netscape icon, this is not helpful." (P2)

Once users saw the tooltip they understood this icon would launch a browser. This icon confused users but did not keep them from successfully completing tasks related to surfing the web.

Design Recommendation: Consider using the existing application icon for the default browser in the default configuration of the panel. If Mozilla is the default browser, use the application icon for Mozilla in the panel. Likewise, if Netscape is the default browser, use the Netscape application icon in the panel.

GNOME Main Menu (Foot Icon):

Relevant Usability Principle: Match between system and the real world.
Because they had never seen GNOME before and were unfamiliar with the GNOME logo, several participants did not know what the foot icon was.

Gnome Main Menu (foot icon)

Guesses included:

"The footprint of the computer?...for traveling or search and replace? Its local, not global. I don't know why its there." (P4)
"Where I've been before? A history?" (P2)
"A "footprint" of where I've been or a list of tasks I've performed most recently." (P8) "I don't know. I have no idea what the foot means." (P6, P9, P10)

"Where everything is; like a start menu like in Windows." (P5, P9)
"...to go to programs." (P3)
"...a 'Go' button." (P11)
"From my previous experience, I'd click there for a list of programs." (P2)

Two participants missed the ability to click on the GNOME foot icon, one because "there was no tooltip" when he moused over it and another because he missed the small arrow indicating the foot was a menu.

Most participants did not understand what the foot icon represented when they first encountered it, but after clicking on it, most recognized that it was something similar to the Microsoft Start menu. Not knowing that the foot was the GNOME logo did not keep them from successfully completing tasks. However, some people did not realize on the first pass that clicking the foot icon would invoke a menu.

Design Recommendation: We recommend redesigning the GNOME Main Menu foot icon so that it is more obvious that clicking it will display a menu. The small arrow above the foot, that indicates a menu is invokable, needs to be made more noticeable. Possible redesigns could include enlarging the arrow or changing the color of the arrow when the user mouses over the foot icon.

Help Icon and Tooltip:

Relevant Usability Principle: Match between system and the real world.
Most people interpreted the icon correctly, although one person did ask if clicking it "turned on balloon help?" (P8).

11 out of 12 participants were confused by the Help icon tooltip, "Integrated help system (info, man, HTML)".

Help icon and tooltip

Only one participant out of 12, Participant 5 (P5), understood what 'man' meant. He was one of only three participants with Solaris and CDE experience. When we asked users to rate their expertise on a scale where 0 = novice and 5 = expert, P5 rated himself 3 for Solaris expertise and 2 for CDE expertise.

Two participants (P6, P10) thought 'HTML' meant "help with writing HTML [code]". Others thought this meant "help using a browser" or that there would only be help "if an item is related to the web". One person commented that the tooltip was "not intuitive" and asked "what format would I get these types of Help in?".

Design Recommendation: Most future GNOME users coming from Macintosh or Windows will have no concept of man pages, just Help. Therefore, the emphasis on 'integrated' help will only confuse them. We recommend rewriting this tooltip. Suggestions to user-test, as alternatives to "Integrated help system (info, man, HTML)", could include "GNOME User Guide" or "Online Help". We also recommend following the GNOME Documentation Style Guide and involving a technical writer in the review of any terminology, error messages, or other on-screen text delivered into GNOME. Developers are encouraged to ask terminology questions on the gnome-doc-list@gnome.org mailing list or the #docs channel on IRC.

Spider Foobar Icon (gnome-mnemonic.png/gnome-spider.png):

Relevant Usability Principle: Aesthetic and minimalist design.
The spider icon (gnome-mnemonic.png/gnome-spider.png) which appeared in the foobar, the menu bar along the top of the screen, provides an amusing example of users' reactions to indescriminable icons.

Spider foobar icon

All 12 users commented on the icon. Participants commented:

"Is that supposed to be recognizable?" (P4)
"I can't decipher it". (P2)
"What's that? It looks like decoration." (P5)
"Is it a quick link to the internet?" (P11)

"a squashed bug", "a fish", "a crab", "a rose", "a sun", "a spidery thing"

Design Recommendation: Icons at small sizes must be clear and simple designs. Most often, a large icon squeezed down to 16x16 will become unreadable. While the spider foobar icon might not be the most important icon for the average user, it illustrates a larger problem throughout GNOME, where one icon design is used at all sizes, much to the detriment of icon legibility.

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