Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, April 15, 2011 12:52:58 AM Kate Stewart wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 23:40 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 14, 2011 10:00:31 PM Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> > > In this summary, I have numbered the participants:
> > > - P1, 19, a student and Mac user
> > > - P2, 33, an administrator and Mac user
> > > - P3, 25, a student and Windows user
> > > - P4, 32, a teacher and Windows user
> > > - P5, 27, a compliance officer who uses both Windows and Mac
> > > - P7, 44, a life coach who uses both Windows and Ubuntu
> > > - P8, 30, an IT network manager and Windows user
> > > - P9, 22, a student and Windows user
> > > - P10, 21, a student and Windows user
> > > - P11, 47, a teacher and Windows user
> > > - P12, 34, an operations manager and Windows user.
> > 
> > Would you characterize this as a reasonable (for it's sample size)
> > representation of the target audience for Unity?
> 
> I'd also ask that a couple of folks 60+ (retired, new user to computers,
> as well as existing Mac and windows) be surveyed if possible.
> 
> I'm running into a lot of folks in that demographic (think start of baby
> boom retirement bubble ;) ) that tell me they like Ubuntu, and certainly
> like the price, so getting that demographic's input and factoring in
> their impressions could be useful.

I think that would be interesting, particularly since there seems (from my 
casual observation) to have been a lot of focus in Unity's design on making 
'good' choices that aren't constrained by being in line with what experienced 
computer users would expect.

One dichotomy I see between this study group and this discussion is a lack of 
any dedicated Ubuntu users.  I know there's a lot of focus on jumping the 
chasm, but I would have thought it would have been useful to see how an 
experienced user of Ubuntu's version of Gnome managed to transition to Unity.

Scott K