User Experience

We need help doing user experience testing! This means users testing our software, observing what does and doesn't work for them, and recording that.

If you're here to help (HOORAY!) go to the testing instance set up by Caleb Davis: http://omgmg.dyndns.org:6543/ (was down, is back up!)

Sign up for an account*, add some pictures** and play around. Take some notes and then either set up an account on this wiki and add your thoughts to this page or email them to press@mediagoblin.org. Please include your operating system and what browser you're using.

* Your email validation link may be in your spam folder!
** NOTHING ON THIS INSTANCE IS PERMANENT. This is for user experience testing only... your pics will be wiped!

You'll be able to give us the best feedback if you don't look at anyone else's notes before you start. Thanks for helping us with usability!! We really appreciate it!

User notes go in this section

From Justin, on Mac OS X 10.6.8 with Google Chrome on 8.16.2011

• username incorporated hyper-link "sk00's media" looks cheesy if username is underlined/a different color in order to signify a link: i have a hunch hundreds of users will click their own user name/other user's user names expecting to be returned to the respective profile. this is strictly personal preference and entirely aesthetic.

• is it possible to allow a user's profile website link to display tag other than "www.example.com/92921398/#/"? like using ahref code, but automatic? i know i'm reluctant to click on and/or care about a link which appears like the example i've provided.

• CAPCHA! without this it is much more likely to become an image dumping plant like imageshack and the like.

• UPDATE: my delete button is not linked/clickable/functioning.

From Justin on XP with IE and Chrome on 8.17.2011

• OBSERVATION:My first account "sk00" was registered with a gmail address and your notification email went to the inbox, whereas my second account "sk00z" was registered with an old aol address and your notification email went into spam. I'm almost certain it had to do with aol sorting for emails from senders named “notice" and gmail not caring so much.

This is probably caused by a difference in AOL and Gmail's spam detection systems. My best guess is that the MediaGoblin sender address does not pass in SPF tests. Gmail's seems to care less about that than AOL.

I know from personal experience that Gmail does not always kick non-SPF-valid emails to the spambox.

--Joar 14:35, 2 September 2011 (EDT)

• SUGGESTION:Are you thinking of including any sort of friend system? Not nearly as intrusive as facebook or myspace, but some way to follow another user as you would on tumblr and the like? If you were posting all sorts of bitchin' images from the time your family went toad licking in Arkansas, then I know I'd want to subscribe to your media channel for unrestrained access to future antics.

From Deb, UX notes on 8.16.2011

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx. It's the Netbook remix version on an Aspire One, with Firefox version 3.6.18 for Ubuntu

• Login page did not prompt for the possibility of forgotten password

• login is really big on netbook, so that not all felds are visible on the screen at once, not ideal for just four fields

• Not clear how you get to a page for adding media from the email verification page.

• The submit box is really large on a netbook, the whole box should be visible on one screen

• The tagging field should have small text underneath it about what format tags should use

• Thumbnails on the little nav buttons from one pic to the other would be nice

• The media submission page could also be scaled for the netbook screen

• people will want to submit multiple images which it seems you can't yet do

• Animated gifs work! Awesome.

• Tags seem to be not case sensitive and strip punctuation. Also awesome.

Nelson's notes on 8.13.2011 (paraphrased)

• hey, where's my notification?
• everything is working alright
• successfully uploaded stuff ...
• commenting works
• profile works ...
• is that all I can do?

I'd like to be able to

• find other users
• friend them ... or something
• go somewhere else besides my profile page
• download original image
• see full-size image
• use a public server

Other Comments

• go to a real domain and make it public

I played around on 2011-09-02 (Iceweasel on Debian)

• A user icon/avatar on the profile and for use when commenting would be cool.

• On the first page after email verification there is both a "submit media" and an "add media" option/button which might be confusing as it's likely to be the first time someone is visiting and they can't know that the "submit media" button is always there.

• Maybe have an instruction on the profile page under the images (or on hover) to click on the image to enlarge and/or edit it as it's not obvious.

• Noted that the profile page would not display added images unless they were tagged

• Noted the profile information (even though the "profile edited!" message was received) would not display unless a website was entered as well. Also noted that the website field required properly formatted urls, most people are probably just going to plug in "www...", if they have a web page at all.

• The "X" for the navigation between pictures is confusing (I think most people associate it with "delete"). Maybe have it say something like "Nothing more here" or have a picture of a sad goblin, etc. instead.

• Get a "the file doesn't seem to be an image!" message when I try to upload an .xcf file. Maybe consider allowing .xcf as it may be useful for people working on collaborations, etc.

• Images tagged "NSFW" show up on the "Explore" page, maybe an image holder (for those who will voluntarily tag their images) could be useful.

• Animated .gif s aren't animated on the "Explore" page, maybe allow that or display the file name of .gif files as "whatever.gif" to indicate they may be animated.

• I really like the use of coloured bars/text boxes as a recurrent design element :)

General thoughts on running a user experience test

Could someone with experience with this fill in info here? ;)

I (Jan-Christoph Borchardt) write a thesis at the moment on Coordinating low-cost usability testing in independent free & open source software projects
There are many small tips and recipes on how to do your own testing. Especially look into the Methods part.
Please let me know if you have any other experiences with testing, I intend on regularly updating that document and release the full version freely licensed once it’s done as well as some kind of a quick start guide.