[686] in Athena User Interface
Re: aui and I hope you're feeling better
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Susan B. Jones)
Tue Feb 27 16:06:01 2001
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Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 16:05:55 -0500
To: Bill Cattey <wdc@mit.edu>
From: "Susan B. Jones" <sbjones@MIT.EDU>
Cc: aui@mit.edu
How is this? http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/icons/auicons2.html
Susan
At 5:51 PM +0000 2/27/2001, Bill Cattey wrote:
>Susan:
>
>Thanks for sending me the raw data. Now I see how I had been
>confused by the presentation at:
>
> http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/aui/icons/auicons.html
>
>1. In the section titled "Results (continued)" I was grouping the count
>of yes/no with the first line of replies to the question, "What do you
>think it means." I know there were no lines to say I should do that,
>and in fact, now that I'm understanding how I should interpret the
>groupings, I don't know how I got it into my head that I should have
>grouped things as I did.
>
>2. In the section titled "Results" I concluded that because people
>did not see a red X with the picture of a terminal, they did not recognize
>the icon as a terminal emulator. But in reviewing the source data, it
>seems instead that there were a mix of opinions about which icons
>were preferred, with one person saying the red X seemed to imply a
>kill operation, and others saying they liked the icon with the red X, and
>a surprising number of people choosing #5, the perspective monitor
>as meaningful.
>
>3. With the groupings of icons in subsections, I kept trying to associate
>comments with the icon that was at the corresponding position vertically.
>(Perhaps this is where I got the mis-interpretation I report in #1 above.)
>
>----
>
>I think I have a suggestion how to reformat the page to more directly
>say what needs to be said:
>
>Take what is in "Results" and "Results (continued) and organize them
>into two different major sections:
>
>Section title: "Test 1"
>
>Introductory text: "We presented the sheet with the first task bar to
>six different people with a variety of Athena experience, from none to a
>lot. Here is what they said they saw".
>
>Table: The contents of "Results (continued)" with only the icons showed
>on the first test page. I.E. only the X term icon with the red X, and only
>the "Out" logout icon.
>
>Section title: "Test 2"
>
>Introductory text: "We then showed the other four task bars and asked
>them to speak specifically about the XTerm and Logout icons.
>
>Table: two columns Icon, comments.
>
>With each icon show the comments, like, "liked the red-x and if not that
>#5", and "sending e-mail or something to the printer?"
>
>Put each icon in a separately delineated row with one or more comments
>in the row directly associated with each icon.
>
>----
>
>Now I see that I mis-interpreted the conclusions at the bottom of the page,
>and have been advocating an approach to the Prompt icon that is NOT what
>the usability testing suggested.
>
>Sigh.
>
>-wdc
