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Instrumented GIMP To Identify Usability Flaws
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jul 10, 2007 02:33 PM
from the phoning-home-in-a-good-cause dept.
from the phoning-home-in-a-good-cause dept.
Mike writes "New users of the GIMP often become frustrated at the application's unwieldy user interface. Now Prof. Michael Terry and a group of researchers at the University of Waterloo have created ingimp, a modified version of the GIMP that collects real-time usability data in order to help the GIMP developers find and fix its usability problems. Terry recently gave a lecture about ingimp and the data it collects. During each session, ingimp records events such as document creation, window manipulation, and tool use. A log of these events is sent to the ingimp server for analysis. The project hopes to answer questions such as 'What is the typical monitor resolution of a GIMP user?' and 'Is the GIMP used primarily for photo editing or drawing?'"
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The GIMP UI Redesign 549 comments
sekra writes "The GIMP UI Redesign Team has created a blog to collect ideas for a new design of the most popular image manipulation program. Everyone is free to submit suggestions to be published in the blog. Will a new GUI finally get more users to choose The GIMP as their program of choice?"
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representative ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:representative ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:representative ? (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife does Web design for University of Waterloo and she's always moaning about the usability of the GIMP. I too am more into design than development these days, so that makes two people who're--more or less--ideal for the task.
Not to mention we have both customised our GIMP's to look and behave more like Photoshop (the missus was fiddling with the keyboard-shortcuts for ages). It seems this data should be collected in this project, as I doubt we're the only ones who've changed everything to our tastes, the developers should finally realise what people want in an image editor.
On a related, by tangential, note: GIMP's new core (GEGL [gegl.org]) seems to be nearing completion, with that comes all the things people have been clamouring for. Such as non-destructable layer effects, CMYK etc. If they fix the usability and shift to GEGL as the core of GIMP it might finally become the Photoshop killer we've all been waiting for! Failing that Krita [gegl.org] is coming along very well as an image editor, it lacks a few features, but is far more usable than the GIMP.
Overall, I don't think anyone should be saying: 'year of the Linux desktop!' just yet. But this is definitely a step in the right direction. :)
Parent
Re:representative ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that a significant majority of people who use GIMP probably used Photoshop first, I wonder what percentage of "moaning about the usability of the GIMP" comes from simple acclimation to a different way of doing things? I'd be interested in seeing the results of introducing one group of people who haven't done any digital graphics work before to Photoshop, another group to GIMP, and seeing how long it takes them to feel comfortable and learn the ropes. Then, you'd have them switch tools and see how well they adapt.
As it stands, I think we're seeing a lot of selection bias.
Parent
Re:representative ? (Score:5, Insightful)
From version to version
Photoshop does NOT change locations of things very often. (V4.0 compared to V8.0(cs) does have some different locations but not many)
it's what pisses off every windows user when a new release comes out. "where did they hide function "XXXXX" this time!
After using a new version of gimp for a few days, it's as usable as Photoshop. Some people lose their mind when they have to do different things in similar apps, I dont. It's like my wife who cant drive the Ford because the wiper controls are different from the GM. I find it entertaining.
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Re:representative ? (Score:4, Insightful)
So no, I don't think this is a case of selection bias - it's pretty clear to anyone who's used it that GIMP is simply the odd one out. I have quite a few other peeves with GIMP but those *do* stem from my own habits rather than the app's design flaws, so I won't comment on them.
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Re:representative ? (Score:5, Informative)
The 'G' in GTK stands for "gimp," FYI.
-:sigma.SB
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:representative ? (Score:5, Insightful)
My main "this is fucking stupid" remark is the irritation at having menus for each of the little sub windows. I can handle saying "File->New" on the tool palette, if I absolutely must, but everything fucking else is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Gimp is the ONLY application that EVER does things this way; the only reason I want "Gimp to be like Photoshop" is because at least Photoshop follows the same fucking UI paradigm as the rest of the god damned operating system (or desktop environment). From my novice->intermediate usage of Linux over the years (i.e. I feel comfortable I can install and get Linux to do whatever I want, but it still takes a while sometimes), I haven't found a single fucking program that does similar things to Gimp. I'm not saying they don't exist - I'd be astonished if they didn't, but I am saying the fact that MOST don't work that way is an utterly confusing lack of consistency. If Gimp is so tightly coupled with GTK, and one would assume, Gnome is pretty tightly related to GTK, then you would THINK that consistency across Gnome applications (at least those that come bundled with the vanilla Gnome release) would be pretty in tune with each other. I've not yet seen that to be the case.
That is what irritates me. Gimp will always be an easter egg hunt for me; I only use it at work since I don't have a ripped off version of Photoshop there. I would be okay with that if the UI were at least similar to other UIs on the Gnome DE. But they're not. Not even close.
This is exacerbated even more when you consider the fact that I primarily use GIMP on Windows. I realize the GIMP is targeted primarily for Linux distributions, but to expect people to be happy with a UI paradigm that is utterly foreign to their OS of choice (whether Windows or OSX) is at best silly and ignorant.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed, to an extent. There are several things very wrong with the GIMP, such as layer sizes, the multiple windows, the vast amount of screen real-estate (unless you put everything into one panel like I have), the number of tools that should be merged into one, the brush sizes, needing to go through 10 dialogues just to save a png (or some format other than xcf), the transformation tools mess the image up if used more than once, the obfuscated w
Re:representative ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, selection bias against anyone who has ever used other computer programs, not just image editors. I don't know of many computer users who are accustomed to having a program with 12 different windows that doesn't even have a single document open.
If they want to create a new, more intuitive UI from scratch, then do it. Don't steal icons, toolbars, and palettes from Photoshop and then cry that it is unfair when people are baffled that it doesn't behave even remotely like Photoshop. There have been lots of successful image editors in the past 20 years that used different metaphors and tools and layouts and methods than Photoshop does. People don't universally complain about the horrible UI of Paint Shop Pro or iPhoto or MS Photo Editor or Lightroom or Aperture (or Photostyler or Live Picture or...).
People complain about the GIMP UI because it is a horrific example of what happens when programmers design interfaces, not because they're trained monkeys who can't operate anything but Photoshop.
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Re:representative ? (Score:5, Informative)
In any case, having some data is better than having no data at all. Currently, there is a very active and vibrant group of individuals working on GIMP usability issues (see http://gui.gimp.org/ [gimp.org] ). ingimp's data complements this other data to help quantify the ubiquity of behavior/activity/computer hardware setups in the wild.
Michael Terry
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Re:representative ? (Score:4, Informative)
Anything is better than nothing.
But even just by examining a few users, you will learn a lot. We went through this exercise in an HCI course I took. We were divided into groups of 4 students and we were required to observe 4 students (no in the class) while they used predetermined website they had never seen before (usually small online stores selling furniture). The total man-hours in the assignment would have been 1 hour pre-user * 4 * 4 observers = 16 hours. The operations were simple: find a bed and matching night stand, find 4 chairs and add them to the cart, etc.
With only 16 hours of work and 4 subjects it was immediately obvious that there were significant flaws and things that could easily be fixed. For example, there were many times where the user sat there and stared at the screen because they were trying to figure out how to do what they wanted to do.
I imagine with this GIMP project you could do two things: collect data about users of gimp (distributing the tool to anyone) and hand selecting users of the tool and examining the results on a case by case basis. That should provide a wealth of information.
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It's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
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About that name... (Score:3, Insightful)
But I am scared of change. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Representative? (Score:5, Interesting)
(No, I have not RTFA yet.)
Gimp needs to be surpassed (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been using Gimp for a long time. When I first installed Linux it was the only program everyone used to talk about. KDE's kolourpaint was not yet there for general purpose paint-brush replacement. I have used it for years under the hood of open-source fanboyism. And I think that is the reason why it has suffered. It had no competition, and now it is just a software which you don't want to open, again.
Now, I know it is not a paint-brush replacement. But it is neither a Photoshop replacement... and the middle land is already full of other utilities. Inkscape, Krita,
PS: posted this on journal before... this is shameless re-posting.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Gimp is often called to task as compared to Photoshop for:
The main usability flaw I find (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The main usability flaw I find (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
- Linux Image Studio
- EasyMail Professional
- Open Vector Drawer
- Web Navigator
- Open Developer Environment
- TextEdit Pro
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
* Deafy
* Retard
* Dumbass
* Drooler
GIMP isn't a bad name because it doesn't describe what the program does, GIMP is a bad name because nobody wants to use gimped software.
Re:The main usability flaw I find (Score:4, Funny)
Professional Image Manipulation Program...
Oh, never mind.
Parent
Audio-visuals (Score:5, Funny)
----
"Our performance traces indicate large amounts of cussing when images are resized."
---
"Wow. During that file open, three hundred users gave the finger to the camera."
"And that one guy --"
"I don't want to talk about that guy. Wahwahwahwahwah I-can't-hear-yoooo. Don't remind me of what he did."
---
"Nine hundred instances of users hitting the computer with a hammer while cropping. At least, that what we think the accelerometers were saying."
--
"The rapid rise in temperature was probably caused by the users pouring gasoline on the system and lighting a match. We'll try to address that issue in the next release."
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to find out what makes the GIMP ui suck? Ask the damn users! They won't exactly shy away from telling you.
I'm a Photoshop user and I have GIMP installed here to use the occasional esoteric plugin functionality. Let me tell you few things you can immediately get busy fixing:
1. for some reason GIMP developers decided every single thing needs its own window and its own menu bar. It's weird as f*ck: put the entire layout in a single window with integrated panel layout (similar to how Eclipse does it, for example).
2. each plugin is its own modeless exe dialog that takes arbitrary amount to start after it was called (at which time you can modify the processed image.. sometimes, and sometimes GIMP crashes because of it): create a proper lean plugin API and modal plugin dialog.
3. the menus and options are all over the place: there seems to be no strategy at all about what goes where
4. GIMP has really bad startup time, and performance, compared to commercial graphics editors (such as Photoshop)
5. There's no way at all to organize your layers in a more complex setup: there are no layer groups, layer folder, or anything like that. It's just a big sack of flat layers, that you can select one at a time, and link them together. This is Photoshop 4 level functionality, and most graphics editors are waaaay past that by now.
6. There are no proper drawing tools in Gimp at all. For a graphics package that claims to be targeted at geeks making icons and web devs making web designs, this is ridiculous. We're forced to fake our ways with selection tools and scripts, which covers only a fraction of what we need.
7. A personal issue I have with Gimp: no proper grid. I use the grid in Photoshop all the time, set on unobtrusive "pixel" mode, and usually at 8, 16, 32 pixels with subdivisors. In Gimp, no subdivisors, no pixel mode, and for some reason the *mere fast of displaying* the grid, makes everything slow down to a crawl.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Our data is intended to complement this data by quantifying the ubiquity of tasks/activity/system setups. For example, what are typical resolutions of monitors? This type of information can help focus design by indicating what types of interaction designs are feasible and not feasible given the hardware of current users. What we've seen so far is a far great
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ingimp doesn't intend to supplant these techniques. In fact, it would be a mistake for people to assume it could or should. And the GIMP project already has a good group of p
SUV / New Coke / added armor fallacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks to me like they're about to fall into the fallacy that caused Daimler-Chrysler to do a redesign of the Jeep line that killed their market.
The marketing department looked at what fraction of SUVs were actually used off-road. They came to the conclusion that it was small. So they redesigned their line to be more comfortable on-road at great cost to its off-road performance.
Turns out that a significant fraction of their market was people who NEEDED the off-road capability - and had the resources to pay for it, reliably buying cars, year after year, through all economic cycles.
Jeep stopped being the car they needed and became another clone of the rest of the market: "Mall Terrain Vehicles" that LOOK like an off-road car but are really just a funny-looking small/high van that qualifies as a "truck" to escape the fleet mileage regulations. Their guaranteed market went elsewhere and they were in head-to-head competition with a slew of vehicles over which they had no advantage.
Similarly, Coke looked at all the people buying Pepsi, saw that they were younger and that Pepsi's main difference was that it was sweeter, and replaced Coke with New Coke, which was sweeter yet. Result: People who drank Coke because they liked a less-sweet drink switched to Pepsi.
And then there was the high-ranking officer in WW II who spent months counting all the bullet holes on the returning bombers, then did a big presentation on how those areas should have armor added. At the end of his presentation a lower-ranking officer asked "Shouldn't we, instead, add more armor to those areas that are only lightly holed? After all, this sample represents only the planes that came back."
= = =
I think the same thing could happen here: Paying attention to what people do a lot of just focuses on what you're already doing right - at the cost of ignoring the things that people do occasionally, or only some people do, but which they need to have. Further, the things they do rarely may be used rarely specifically BECAUSE they're hard to use and the interface needs improvement.
Or IBM optimizing the most-heavily-used opcode. (Score:5, Interesting)
They found one particular instruction that accounted for some exceedingly large fraction of the execution time. So they went to work on the microcode and doubled its speed. Then they deployed the new microcode and measured the application performance, expecting to see a big improvement.
It didn't change a bit.
After a little more research they discovered they'd optimized the idle task's wait loop.
= = = =
Collecting data can be useful. But making good decisions based on it requires wisdom and insight.
Parent
Is GIMP still being developed? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been a big GIMP fan for years. Years ago, I was excited about the 2.0 release of GIMP. It brought many new features and the UI got a serious revamp. But now it has been several years, and it seems that GIMP development has slowed down. They're still releasing newer versions with bug fixes, but no new features. For example: I recently bought a Wacom tablet, and while GIMP has Wacom support, I miss some of the things that Photoshop has, such as support for variable brush width based on tablet pressure. The long-awaited GEGL, which was introduced years ago and will supposedly add CMYK and 16-bit support, is still not ready, and to my knowledge is still pre-alpha. (Not that I need CMYK and 16-bit, but at least that silence all the complainers.)
A year or two ago I also read an article about someone wanting to sponsor GIMP development. But that effort went nowhere, as his request was eventually ignored.
What is going on? Is GIMP still being actively developed? Are the GIMP developers still interested in adding new features?
Re:Is GIMP still being developed? (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, it is still being developed and we are very close to finally releasing GIMP 2.4 which will bring lots of new features and usability improvements.
Parent
Self-selected group? Self-denial? (Score:3, Interesting)
From the presentation slides, it seems like 200 people have installed it (netting "over 100,000 commands" in the log files). Obviously more will do so in response to the Slashdot article (and appropriate web pollination)... but aren't these self-selected geeks already? How are you going to get non-geeks to install this instead of the regular GIMP (assuming you convinc them to take a look at it)?
Furthermore, how does this help determine what GIMP isn't doing properly? I mean, if you have various tools at your disposal, and GIMP sucks at doing X, then you might do half your work in GIMP and the other half in another app. So all the usability problems around X won't show up in the logs -- almost a kind of self-denial.
I use Photoshop on a nearly daily basis. Last time I tried GIMP it was not ready for professional print design, to be sure, and only probably good enough for desktop publishing or Web graphics. How about Pantone or CMYK support? Non-destructive layer effects? Variable-sized brushes? Actually useful text formatting?
Keep it simple. (Score:3, Interesting)
Photoshop is getting progressively more bloated but I still find it more fluid than anything else. I'm not constantly hindered by the application.
The solution isn't to do more coding. The data they gather may result in solutions that only complicate the issue. What they should do is sit down with a small team of designers. Include people with experience in photo-editing, website layouts and interface design. Ideally, find people that have little to no experience with GIMP. Work with this team to develop an interface. And most importantly, keep things simple.
Inevitably, most applications end up being overly complex because of some overwhelming desire to cram in every last feature the developer can dream up. There also seems to be little planning. Build a set of guidelines and adhere to them. And one last thing, be sure that all essential function can be activated via the keyboard. When I'm doing time-consuming production I don't want to hunt around for small icons, or be constantly switching between the mouse and keyboard.
Re:GIMP will always be a gimp (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:GIMP will always be a gimp (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:GIMP will always be a gimp (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:GIMP and Photoshop (Score:5, Informative)
For a while, I actually believed the folks that repeated ad nauseum the mantra that GIMP's user interface was difficult compared to their beloved Photoshop. Then one day I sat down to try to do some quick photo edits on a Photoshop box. Two hours later, I gave up on its bizarre layer model and just installed the GIMP so I could get some work done.
The ease-of-use of a graphic user interface, in general, correlates far more with the user's pre-existing familiarity with the interface than it does with any design decisions of the interface itself. There are certainly areas where GIMP's user interface could be improved, but let's not pretend like it's some kind of embarrassment -- because it's not.
Parent
Re:GIMP and Photoshop (Score:4, Informative)
That said, there are some basic problems that surpass the complexity.
However, most of this pales to the limitations that are inherent in the functionality. One of my biggest gripes is that the anti-aliasing code is sloppy in non-uniformly implemented. Try this: select a circle, and then use Edit->Stroke Selection. Select a 2 pixel stroke line and go. You will get absolutely HORRID aliasing. The same thing happens (though not quite as bad) with the paint tool stroking.
Overall, the GIMP is an amazing and powerful tool, but it has some serious warts.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Two hours later, I gave up on its bizarre layer model and just installed the GIMP so I could get some work done.
GIMP and Photoshop have essentially the same layer model as far as I can tell. Can you explain what was hard to use about Photoshop's layer model? Also, since you like to use GIMP, can you answer some of the complaints about the UI that other people have posted? For example: (plagiarized from another post)
1. for some reason GIMP developers decided every single thing needs its own window and its own menu bar. It's weird as f*ck: put the entire layout in a single window with integrated panel layout (simil
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The last time I used PhotoShop was on a MacII, before porting it to Windows was even considered. I've been using Gimp since the first release and never found its interface to be unusable. The G
Fanboyism, user interfaces... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is an awful mistake for F/OSS fanboys. "Oh, it's free, so we shouldn't complain". This is like being blind to the problem. If it's free and it works, why isn't EVERYBODY using it? (In other words, why is Mozilla Firefox MUCH MORE popular than the GIMP? Think about it).
Sometimes we can forget that graphical applications are meant to be used by designers who use most of their time retouching photographs and stuff. Here, time is money. And if the lack of usability in the GIMP makes me spend 5 times more the time than I would with Photoshop (and i'm being considerate), it's just not worth switching. To put it another way, Photoshop's user interface _IS_ worth the price. I still can't believe the GIMP guys CANNOT make something as user friendly (or don't want to, which is worse). It shocks me and frustrates me.
A quote from a designer's blog [intelligentdesigns.net]:
Ooooh... what a bold statement! The GIMP is *NOT* user-focused. Don't tell me.
See, professionals don't want just "a better pile of poo" [lostgarden.com] to do their imaging work. They (and I, too) want something that IS EASY TO HANDLE. Because in graphical applications, form is function. And this is something that many programmers (at least many of those that I've discussed with) simply fail to understand.
Parent
User interfaces... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, some questions, then. What if an interface offered approaches more consistent than Photoshop's or GIMP's? For instance, in the main toolbox, both Photoshop and GIMP mix area selection tools
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The problem here isn't that graphics designers are actively seeking to make fun of GIMP. It's that GIMP's developers and fans keep trying to push GIMP down our throat. It gets really old real fast, and we're forced to tell you straight in the face that GIMP sucks c
Re:Fanboyism, user interfaces... (Score:4, Interesting)
And here we have it, folks: the key weak point of OSS. Perhaps, more accurately, the key failing point of the OSS fanboys.
EXACTLY!
Fanboys fail to understand that there is something in the world called CUSTOMERS, unable to program, unable to send patches, but with specific needs. Fanboys like software made "by programmers, for programmers". Or actually "by programmers, for themselves and screw everyone else, if you don't like MY software, fork it or fork you!".
In the link I mentioned about "a better pile of poo" we see that this kind of software, by programmers for programmers, was made in the early stages of software developers. Today, software is made by teams of developers, artists and user interface experts (aka "interaction dudes").
You know what's interesting? That fanboyism is usually greater in linux circles. Windows developers are used, accustomed to nice, friendly user interfaces - and although most of the time they make crappy software with awful programming techniques in Visual Basic, sometimes they excel and make wonderful user interfaces. (Now mix nice user interfaces with an MVC approach and woo hoo! )
I tend to think that Linux programmers are so used to hack and slash code, that they forgot what it feels like to have a nice UI, with keyboard,mouse shortcuts, context help, cut-copy-paste, etc etc. Most of the Linux open source software I've tried have a crappy interface. This is why I prefer Irfanview, Pixia and Virtualdub to the GIMP or AVIDemux respectively. By the way, I tried Jahshaka once. What an awful UI.
Update: This is just in. A friend of mine just told me: "gimp is a bunch of garbage. I downloaded it and the gui is adobe photoshop chewed up and sneezed at the monitor". Your honor, I rest my case
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Why do people so often complain about GIMP's UI, and not about the fucking awful user interface of Photoshop(TM)?
I totally agree, as a casual user, I actually find GIMP easier than Photoshop. However, as I noted above I'm not letting GIMP off that easy, IMO it's not competing against Photoshop(do Pros use GIMP?), for me, it's competing against the likes of Paint Shop Pro (and other mid range image manipulation packages), which is a hundred times easier to use than either.