Findings from the January 2003 Design Evaluation Sessions
Author: Mike Wulkan
In January of 2003 a Design Evaluation was held for a large commercial Eclipse product. One of the tasks the participants were expected to perform was the installation of the product's add-on component. Observing the participants with regards to this task highlighted several usability issues with the Update Manager. This report discusses these findings.
When participants were first exposed to this perspective, they had no idea what the difference between the Install Configuration view and the Feature Updates view was.
The Update Manager perspective contains three views; Install Configuration, Feature Updates and Preview. From a task perspective it is unlikely that a user will require both the Install Configuration and Feature Updates views at the same time. The Install Configuration view is primarily used for examining the product’s existing configuration and modifying the settings of the current configuration, whereas the Feature Updates view is used for installing updates and new components.
Reduce the Update Manager perspective to two views. The Install Configuration and Feature Updates view should be merged into one tabbed pane.
Most participants proceeded down the path of selecting Available Updates and then clicked the "Search Now" button, expecting to see all of the components that the product could be updated with. The participants were surprised when the “Search Now” function returned “No Available Updates”.
Users blur the concept of updating an existing component with that of installing a new component. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the other root of the tree is called “Sites to Visit”. This title, although accurate, tells the user absolutely nothing as to why he or she would want to visit a site!
The view needs to be re-factored so as to guide the user between the two roots. This can be done in several ways. One simple thing would be to add another level above “Sites to Visit” called “Add New Components” in order to more accurately distinguish between the Add and the Update paths.
When expanding the “Sites to Visit” node in the view, the contents of the view are really bookmarks or web links, yet there is nothing to indicate that the subtree is dynamically generated as would be expected if the user understood that he or she was really browsing.
As it stands right now the Update Manager perspective presents a combination of information displayed like a local view and information presented like a web browser. This makes it difficult for users to construct a mental model of how the Update Manager really works.
Most participants took this to mean that they had to restart, even though they had several other components to install. This lead to restarting the product up to 11 times!
This dialog should be reworded to read, "You will need to restart the workbench for the changes to take effect. You may continue to install other components before restarting the workbench. Would you like to restart now?"
I would also consider changing the default to be "No".