"The icons and shading are nice and use nice colors, not dull, but not distracting." (Pilot)
"Pretty, nice graphics that don't compromise performance." (P3)
"The icons are big and easy to see." (P9)
"I like the 3-D design of the icons." (P7)
"There were nice choices for themes and screen savers." (P2)
"This desktop has a cozy feeling." (Pilot)
Users also were pleased when they were able to complete the tasks, whether they required hints and help from the staff or when they managed on their own:
"It has a familiar feel." (P3)
"The response was fast. The tooltips were faster than Windows." (P5)
"There are lots of games. Kind of neat. If I had time I'd try them." (P1)
"It is easy to navigate around." (Pilot)
"I felt there were avenues to explore for discovery." (P9)
"It is personable. I can still relate to it [even though it is new]." (P1)
"I liked clicking and learning, that wasn't a bad thing." (P2)
"The basic feel was fairly intuitive; the menus were where I expected them to be." (P6)
"It was easy to find things, like Windows. I can relate to everything." (P10)
"It is like a cross between Windows and a Mac. It looks like it is designed for everybody." (P10)
We should emphasize that we anticipate some of the issues which we uncovered result from the first time experience. For people who return to GNOME day after day, at least some of the visual elements and behaviors of the interface would become familiar. The importance, however, of a study such as this one is to remind ourselves of the many parts of GNOME that are part of the fabric of the GNOME community's life, but are absolutely mysterious to ordinary users. The inconsistences that remind us of the history of the product's development will be rough spots for users. To promote adoption of GNOME by others, we will be served well by the adage "We are not our users" and to evaluate the product again at frequent intervals in the development process.
Send feedback to Sun-GNOME-HCI@sun.com