[CoLoCo] ubuntu and science fairs

[David L. Willson]

On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 10:32 -0700, Jim Hutchinson wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2008 10:21 AM, David L. Willson <DLWillson at thegeek.nu> wrote:
> > How about usability testing between Ubuntu, Windows Vista, and
> > Macintosh?  It brings in stats, but it could be difficult to find
> > untainted test subjects.
> >
> > That's one idea, I'll try to think of others.
> >
> > I can help provide gear and whatever.
> 
> Thanks for the idea. That does sound like a good option but I'm not
> sure how to actually pull it off. Obviously we need to find a subject
> pool. Students at the school would be an option but they are all
> familiar with win and have never seen lin so not exactly untainted.
> Although between mac and ubuntu could be cool. However, anything using
> human subjects could be sticky as there are ethical considerations.
> Not that this is unethical in any way it's just that in general there
> are guidelines to follow and the school may have a blanket policy
> against human subjects.

My hope was that we could at least partially nullify the
Windows-tainted-ness of most candidates by using Windows Vista rather
than Windows XP.  One might be able to gather fifty subjects who are
relatively unfamiliar with Vista.  I'm thinking of a seven test battery,
with tasks that are known to work on all three platforms, like "download
the pictures from this camera", "check out this Myspace page", "watch
this YouTube video", "check your web-mail", "find the word-processor and
write a letter", "print a picture", "print your outline", "email a
picture", etc...