On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 11:07 PM, Kevin Grignon <kevingrignon...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hey All, > > Great thread, many great research questions in here. > > Overall, we are moving in the right direction. We need to understand who > uses AOO, and what they use it for. What works, what doesn't . Context of > use, when and where is also important. >
I bet almost all of our users (> 95%) are using OpenOffice as a Microsoft Office substitute. So their expectations and tasks are highly influenced by the feature set and UI of Microsoft Office. But not necessarily the latest version of MS Office. There is a lag. So Office 2003 might be more influential in expectations than the "ribbon" UI of Office 2007 and later. But this will shift over time. There have been various attempts to re-imagine the basic editors, some more successful than others. Lotus tried with its Improv application to take the spreadsheet to the next level. Some users got it, but the network effect of 1-2-3 (and later Excel) compatibility was too great. This is a huge effect in this market. The value of user training in the predominate editors as well the benefits of interoperability with other editors that have a very similar feature set -- these factors conspire to keep us in a narrow orbit around a conventional view of personal productivity apps. That said, it is possible to be bold and strike gold. Prezi and their unique view of a presentation is one example: http://prezi.com/. In such cases the new feature set might be intrinsically so valuable to the user that it more than compensates for the learning curve and lower interop with other editors. They re-base their expectations on the new thing, and that defines the new normal. So that is something we'll need to figure out: What relative attention should we give to: 1) improving the conventional set of features we already have in AOO? 2) Adding new features to achieve greater parity with MS Office? 3) Being bold and adding new features that don't exist anywhere else? If you survey users, I bet you won't get many requests for #3. And if you queried users the day before the electronic spreadsheet was invented no user would have asked for one either. -Rob > Let's move the conversation to the UX wiki, and capture some our research > question candidates. > > Also, let's look at previous research efforts to help us quickly build a > strong survey. Sun, Oracle, IBM and the OO community have performed user > research in the past. Let's leverage this content, where possible. > > In addition to a capturing a series of research questions, let's capture > our thoughts in the UX wiki on our research strategy. Beyond email list and > forums, we may want to consider how we might use social media channels to > drive traffic to the user research questions. > > Finally, let's think about how we take the output of the research data and > turn the data into UX work products that will help drive informed design > and development decisions. Harvesting data to create user roles and usage > scenarios would be a logical start. > > I volunteer to create some UX wiki pages to help capture this content. > > Regards, > Kevin > > > On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 11:14 PM, Kay Schenk <kay.sch...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> >> On 05/20/2012 11:54 AM, Wolf Halton wrote: >> >>> On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Albino Biasutti Neto >>> <biasut...@gmail.com>wrote: >>> >>> Hi. >>>> >>>> 2012/5/20 Paulo de Souza Lima<paulo.s.l...@varekai.org> >>>> >>>> I think you mean "How old are you?" =) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Sorry, thanks. >>>> >>>> >>>> Maybe we could contribute to improve those questions. My 2 cents: >>>>> >>>>> Are you using it at your work (ask where does he/she work) or at home, >>>>> or >>>>> both? >>>>> Do you think you have enough support? Where do you use to get support? >>>>> (manuals, friends, forum, mailing lists, etc) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Good! >>>> >>>> Open to suggestions. :-) >>>> >>>> Albino >>>> >>>> >>> Where will these questions be asked? During the download process? During >>> the registration process? A poll on the web site? >>> >>> -Wolf >>> >> >> I'll throw my .02 in here. >> >> Assuming we could get them to "register" somehow and supply an e-mail >> address, would it be an idea to send them an e-mail like a month later and >> get feedback *after* they've used the product for a bit? >> >> No ideas about questions except for the general items like performance >> issues, etc. >> >> >> >>> PS Website polls 1 to 2 question open-ended questions (questions without a >>> set choice of answers) have been known to produce very useful data-sets >>> among users of public library services, and I would suggest that model as >>> an interesting way to find out our own blind spots, regarding usage >>> trends. >>> Closed-end questions such as "do you like seagulls" can only get 3 >>> responses, "yes," "no" and "no response at all." >>> >>> >>> >> -- >> ------------------------------**------------------------------** >> ------------ >> MzK >> >> "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." >> -- Mark Twain >>
