Package management usability project

[Frank Ploss]

Hello,
I'm studying informatics and for my thesis, I want to do research on usability 
of application installer user interfaces for Debian, targeted towards 
non-expert users. My plan is to analyze current users' use of and 
expectations for an application installer tool, (re-)design a prototype, and 
test this prototype with users. Of course, if possible for me, I'll work on 
this further on after I'm done with my thesis.

The idea came up because I found that the package management tools were not 
usable for non-experts and even I had problems finding the right package. I 
want to use the adept-installer as a basis for user testing and prototyping, 
and I'd like to incorporate debtags if reasonable and feasable.

Because the debtags project seems to have emerged from the debian-usability 
project, I hope to find people on this list who are interested in this 
project.

I want to use usability engineering methods in an "open-source way": I will 
publish my daily or weekly results, the methods and techniques I use etc. on 
a website (not yet ready to announce), and hope there will be much feedback 
or support from usability people as well as users and developers.

Anybody interested? Any critique, positive or negative, is welcome!

Best regards,
Frank

-- 
Frank Ploss
email frank.ploss at informatik.uni-hamburg.de
OpenPGP key ID: 50614447 * download my key: http://kluenter.de/frank.asc