Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Hi Vincenzo, You might have more luck if you describe your changes as feature requests. Whether or not you personally think they're bugs, calling them new features should avoid the "always been that way" reaction from developers. You might also want to try helping out with the "improved me too" blueprint: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/malone/+spec/improved-me-too - useful "me too" data would let you argue that behaviour is non-obvious. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
> Let me suggest that Ubuntu appoint an usability triager/ombudsman, > to determine (from the Ubuntu users' perspective, not from an Ubuntu > developers' perspective) how much attention ought to be paid to each > and every usability-related bug report. My 2c: I have to whole-heartedly agree. Probably the largest focus group of the *buntu distros are the kinds of user who are intimidated enough at posting some kind of bug / annoyance / usability issue, let alone having to directly contact the grumpy developer(s) of the actual project (hey, I too can be a grumpy dev; users can get a bit much). It would (imo) be a huge boost for Ubuntu to provide a service (for lack of a better term) whereby requests such as these are proxied to the relevant dev(s), even better with some kind of relevance count (eg, how many people find this issue to be a problem). I know this is asking for even more from the free ride, but I think it would be in the interests of the distros involved -- a lot of devs (myself included) may overlook usability issues because the system seems intuitive to them. Most devs that I know, however, if faced with a 99% frustration rate from users, would change their product (if you're not in the FOSS dev sphere to make good software for people other than yourself, then why exactly are you here?). Most users, on the other hand, either don't have the time, patience or 1337 5k1llz to (a) find the "correct" person to inform of the issue and (b) convince him/her that it actually *is* an issue. The very fact that someone had enough motivation to report something as difficult to use should be of interest to the projects in question: it's more often the case that people just can't be bothered. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
+1, me too, etc... See the comments in bug 294523 at https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/294523 A few users have tried to report/push/discuss for this for a few releases already but it seems the bug is low priority even though its a usability pain and that too right at the start of the ubuntu experience - installation... I'm sure even though only a few are reporting it there are many users who silently suffer because they are simply not aware of the fact they can go to launchpad and/or the forums and be heard. I wish this bug would gain higher priority - maybe for the DX team? Looking forward to a fast and painless out-of-box ubuntu installation experience... Cheers, Visha -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Il 22/07/2009 22:53, Mikus Grinbergs ha scritto: > Let me suggest that Ubuntu appoint an usability triager/ombudsman, > to determine (from the Ubuntu users' perspective, not from an Ubuntu > developers' perspective) how much attention ought to be paid to each > and every usability-related bug report. > Do we really have so few usability related report that a single man could do that? I hope not! An usability tag, which alerts the developers, so that they don't default to istinctive reactions such as "it's always been like that" or perhaps even getting to newbie-handling techniques, would be sufficient but is there one already? V. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
>> However, it is very easy that a developer does not recognise an >> usability-related bug report, and confuses it with a more or less >> strange support request, and I often have to discuss to have it >> accepted as a bug. > > The issue is that Ubuntu doesn't write most of the softwares it > distribute and the current team doesn't have the manpower to work on > those and isn't well placed to decide on behavior changes that should be > done a software they are not writing. Ideally submitters would open > those bugs upstream too and argue directly there. I would like to speak up for the users out there - they too might have only limited resources and time. The following happened to me on a platform different than Ubuntu, but has colored my attitude ever since: A beta release failed to provide one significant multimedia function. I reported it. The report was rejected (with the notation that I should go upstream), on the grounds that I had used an application not supplied by the platform developers. That mode of response upset me: * *Every* multimedia application I had tried on that particular beta failed to produce that kind of output, whereas on other versions those same applications worked correctly -- and I had said so in my report. I had expected the developers to check into my claim (of *every* - i.e., that it was the fault of that beta system), rather than suggesting that it was my fault for choosing a third-party application. [The application I had named was the one easiest to install.] * It would have taken significant effort on my part to discover whom to contact regarding the application I had named. And in my mind I could imagine that person's reaction if I requested: "Although your application works on platform XYZ-111, and on all other platforms I have tried, it fails to produce the expected output on beta XYZ-112. Please fix your application." Let me suggest that Ubuntu appoint an usability triager/ombudsman, to determine (from the Ubuntu users' perspective, not from an Ubuntu developers' perspective) how much attention ought to be paid to each and every usability-related bug report. mikus -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
On mer., 2009-07-22 at 18:47 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > However, it is very easy that a developer does not recognise an > usability-related bug report, and confuses it with a more or less > strange support request, and I often have to discuss to have it > accepted > as a bug. The issue is that Ubuntu doesn't write most of the softwares it distribute and the current team doesn't have the manpower to work on those and isn't well placed to decide on behavior changes that should be done a software they are not writing. Ideally submitters would open those bugs upstream too and argue directly there. Cheers, Sebastien Bacher -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Il 22/07/2009 19:04, Henrique Almeida ha scritto: > Agreed. Ubuntu developers either don't understand my usability > reports or tag them as low priority bugs, which gets triaged for many > releases. This is because these are not crashers and typically just affect a small portion of the application and of the codebase. My conclusions are that priorities are absolutely bad for dealing with usability. Alternative solutions include the use of special tags, special packages (e.g. the papercut approach) or whatever. But this can only happen if developers are interested in assigning a separate kind of priority to usability bugs. E.g. one may say that a bug is high priority as an usability bug but certainly it's not going to be prioritised over kernel crashes! The hundred papercut approach is absolutely perfect, so perhaps a "papercut-potential" tag, if accepted by developer, would be nice. The idea being that such tagged bug may have a different meaning for priorities. Your mileage may vary. I certailny can't decide :) Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Agreed. Ubuntu developers either don't understand my usability reports or tag them as low priority bugs, which gets triaged for many releases. Once I have submitted a bug report on an usability issue that caused "information loss", which is serious. In certain PDF files, I can't search for accented characters. This affects not only, say, evince search, it also affects tracker searches, for example. The main (non duplicate) bug for this was reported 2 years ago by lherrmann and, right now, it's tagged as confirmed/unknown, triaged/low. https://bugs.launchpad.net/poppler/+bug/116453 This is just an example, I have reported other bugs that have been ignored for years. 2009/7/22 Vincenzo Ciancia : > Dear all, > > sorry for crossposting, please notice it before replying to all. > > I tend to report all usability bugs I find, in the hope that ubuntu will > become better. The hudred-papercut effort shows that I am not wrong in > reporting those as bugs. > > However, it is very easy that a developer does not recognise an > usability-related bug report, and confuses it with a more or less > strange support request, and I often have to discuss to have it accepted > as a bug. > > It is typical that on usability bugs I get trapped into endless > discussions (e.g. it's always been like that, it can't be fixed, it's an > obvious behaviour and so on). > > In the future, I will try to remember to add a sentence like "this is an > usability related bug report, please handle it as such, I am reporting > it to ease the user experience of the whole ubuntu community" and maybe > link this e-mail, but in the meantime, could developers try to be a bit > more careful in rejecting bugs? > > I am NOT going to link specific bugs here, because that would get > personal, but this is becoming tiresome. Today I went to IRC and > convinced a developer that a bug is a usability problem indeed. This > costed me a quarter of hour, in addition to the time spent to identify > and report the bug. He had just closed the bug, without at least > reassigning to ubuntu, because it's not specific to the package I > reported it in. But in that case one reassings it to ubuntu perhaps! The > apparent problem is that he took me for a newbie not understanding an > obvious fact. Which I understood perfectly, but is not correct. In the > end I convinced him, but it was a waste of time and it happened a lot in > the past. > > Discussing all the time makes bug reporting an unpleasant experience, > and discourages especially usability reports, as some people tend to > assume a "technician" attitude in thinking these are stupid requests > from unexperienced users. Being constantly confused with a newbie is > also a bit irritating :) especially because I think reporting usability > bugs is something people do not do usually, so we all really need this > kind of things. > > Thanks for listening and the work all of you do everyday on my ubuntu, > and thanks to the developer involved in today's discussion because he > did not discuss too much, and as soon as he recognised it as a bug, he > kindly offered cooperation. > > Vincenzo > > -- > Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list > Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss > -- Henrique Dante de Almeida hda...@gmail.com -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Il 22/07/2009 18:47, Vincenzo Ciancia ha scritto: > Dear all, > > sorry for crossposting, please notice it before replying to all. > I am possibly a bit of an idiot for what I did, but luckily the other list which has nothing to do with my target has a moderator. I generate too much noise. My apologises. Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Dear all, sorry for crossposting, please notice it before replying to all. I tend to report all usability bugs I find, in the hope that ubuntu will become better. The hudred-papercut effort shows that I am not wrong in reporting those as bugs. However, it is very easy that a developer does not recognise an usability-related bug report, and confuses it with a more or less strange support request, and I often have to discuss to have it accepted as a bug. It is typical that on usability bugs I get trapped into endless discussions (e.g. it's always been like that, it can't be fixed, it's an obvious behaviour and so on). In the future, I will try to remember to add a sentence like "this is an usability related bug report, please handle it as such, I am reporting it to ease the user experience of the whole ubuntu community" and maybe link this e-mail, but in the meantime, could developers try to be a bit more careful in rejecting bugs? I am NOT going to link specific bugs here, because that would get personal, but this is becoming tiresome. Today I went to IRC and convinced a developer that a bug is a usability problem indeed. This costed me a quarter of hour, in addition to the time spent to identify and report the bug. He had just closed the bug, without at least reassigning to ubuntu, because it's not specific to the package I reported it in. But in that case one reassings it to ubuntu perhaps! The apparent problem is that he took me for a newbie not understanding an obvious fact. Which I understood perfectly, but is not correct. In the end I convinced him, but it was a waste of time and it happened a lot in the past. Discussing all the time makes bug reporting an unpleasant experience, and discourages especially usability reports, as some people tend to assume a "technician" attitude in thinking these are stupid requests from unexperienced users. Being constantly confused with a newbie is also a bit irritating :) especially because I think reporting usability bugs is something people do not do usually, so we all really need this kind of things. Thanks for listening and the work all of you do everyday on my ubuntu, and thanks to the developer involved in today's discussion because he did not discuss too much, and as soon as he recognised it as a bug, he kindly offered cooperation. Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
