User research, Icon-Testing et al.

Hi all,

first of all, sorry for hopping on and off communication every now and then. I
did have some limits in time and I really needed to make up my mind about how
to start the User Research topic. I think I have an idea now - and will most
likely have some more time next weeks or so.

So here is the plan:

I am looking for some people that join me to improve the icon-set based on
evaluating the icons with our end users.

I would like to try this approach, because
- we can change the iconset easily and are not much dependent on competencies
we do not have within our community (but yes, your different skills are
needed!)
- we create quick and visible effects in the real world that help to motiviate
the team
- Icons really could use some love ;)
- we can simply start to add other user research questions easily and together
find a fitting approach, and perhaps together gain new experiences.

As a tool for doing the work with, I would like use userweave [1] which
basically is a aGPL-based [2] service hosted by my company. We use and develop
this tool to use it for our consulting work. So we take care for it running,
and we keep it free of cost for Free Software.

Communication will still take place here (or if there is need for it: on
another LO-Mailinglist) and everything will be openly visible for everyone.

Anyone who is interested to participate in this initiative please

- register in userweave [1] (sorry, there is a bug displaying some
confirmation page and the activation mail in German always - please simply
ignore the first page and click on the link in the mail you get sent to finish
registration)
- join the discussions.

After signing up you have to fullfill the first remote usability-test:
Become a registered guest in the Public Project "LibreOffice".

If you need any help, simply mail me privately. If you succeed, please also do
so ;) -  I can then make you member of the team.

I will kick-off actual work on this project in a seperate mail.

Björn


[1] http://userweave.net
[2] https://github.com/bbalazs/userweave/


P.S. To put it clear: This software is still in a beta state. You will
experience bugs and you can help to improve the software simply by reporting
anything strange to the github-project [2]. We try to fix.

--
www.OpenUsability.org
www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com

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Hi Björn,
I'm excited to try out UserWeave. However, please do consider this a trial.
It seems a bit premature to advertise LibreOffice as an active user.

And since I had to sign off on the Terms of Agreement, I'd like to point
out its inadequacies so that you may correct them (smaller grammar
mistakes/typos are put in bold):

I hereby accept explicitly that all the input I make on UserWeave is
> automatically – unless I stated something different before


What exactly is meant by "unless I stated something different before"? Does
that mean I can put proprietary data on UserWeave as long as I've released
it elsewhere under a proprietary license before I joined UserWeave?
(I'm sure it doesn't, but given that this is a legally-binding agreement,
this phrase should be worded differently or taken out altogether.)

– licensed according to the conditions of www.OpenDefinition.org. Currently*
> ,* my textual contributions will be licensed with the CC-by 3.0
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/*.* As an attribution ('by')*,*'UserWeave.net' should be applied.


Strangely worded. Perhaps it'd be better to say that "I agree to all my
work being attributed to 'UserWeave.net'".


> Data that I collect or generate will currently b*e* licensed with th*e*Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0
> http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/*.*

"licensed under" would be a better phrase

> The operators of UserWeave may relicence all my content even with *with*retrospective effect with a different license as long as this license
> complies with www.OpenDefinition.org.


Is it legal to relicense content with retrospective effect?
I.e. if I release something under CC0, can I relicense it under CC-by-sa
and forbid everyone who has already used my work from using it without an
added attribution and a relicensing of their work?


> Expections are all data the has to be particularly protected according to
> German or European privacy policy law.


This should say "exceptions". I'd also leave out "particularly", since I'm
not sure what its meaning is in this sentence.
Also, what about any other privacy policy law? If I'm an American, African,
or Asian, shouldn't my privacy be protected according to local law?

This kind of data stays my personal property and will not be seperately
> licensed. I am aware of the fact that my entries are publicly accessible. I
> hence commit myself to treat my own and the privacy of others carefully and
> respectful*ly*. Especially when I conduct studies, I will take care that
> the participants are not identifiable.


It also seems some pages are in German only. Since the design team works in
English, could you translate the more important pages?
Thanks.

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Hi Mirek,

thank you for your contribution! Together we will make this a better tool :)


Am Samstag, 16. Juni 2012, 18:04:25 schrieb Mirek M.:
> Hi Björn,
> I'm excited to try out UserWeave. However, please do consider this a trial.
> It seems a bit premature to advertise LibreOffice as an active user.

I really hope you will change your mind, once we started working with it. But,
yes - it is a beta-product. It is open-source and everyone is invited to
contribute. And it definiately works well enouge (tm).

Concerning my motivation: it is not marketing. I care about Free Software. I
think this service is simply another peace we need to solve the big Free-
Software-Puzzle. It does happen to legally belong to a company and it might
make money (tm) but most importantly it follows and serves Free-Software
principles.

 
> And since I had to sign off on the Terms of Agreement, I'd like to point
> out its inadequacies so that you may correct them (smaller grammar
> mistakes/typos are put in bold):

Thanks a lot. I will only comment those with related questions. I will file
these to the Bugtracker. It will take some time to get fixed though. Sorry.


> I hereby accept explicitly that all the input I make on UserWeave is
>
> > automatically – unless I stated something different before
>
> What exactly is meant by "unless I stated something different before"? Does
> that mean I can put proprietary data on UserWeave as long as I've released
> it elsewhere under a proprietary license before I joined UserWeave?
> (I'm sure it doesn't, but given that this is a legally-binding agreement,
> this phrase should be worded differently or taken out altogether.)

There is a potential long term business model (tm). The idea: people that want
to use the service can pay for not having their data released and published.
This money shall be used to to finace the development and hosting of the
software under the best of Free Softwares principles. But it will always be
free of charge for projects working in the open. So this "state"ment is meant
to refer to this potential business model. I will have to think about
rephrasing it. I have been talking to some open knowledge foundation guys
before, perhaps they can help.

 
> > The operators of UserWeave may relicence all my content even with
> > *with*retrospective effect with a different license as long as this
> > license complies with www.OpenDefinition.org.
>
> Is it legal to relicense content with retrospective effect?
> I.e. if I release something under CC0, can I relicense it under CC-by-sa
> and forbid everyone who has already used my work from using it without an
> added attribution and a relicensing of their work?

I think i did this on advice with the guys from open knowledge foundation.
Will check this together with them. This is intended to allow to apply better
suited Free Software Licences if this is needed. Stricly speaking, affected
content would actually get two licences in the scenario instead of one, as the
term "relicence" might imply.


> > Expections are all data the has to be particularly protected according to
> > German or European privacy policy law.
>
> This should say "exceptions". I'd also leave out "particularly", since I'm
> not sure what its meaning is in this sentence.
> Also, what about any other privacy policy law? If I'm an American, African,
> or Asian, shouldn't my privacy be protected according to local law?

This is actually rather needed, because the company that is liable for
providing the service is located in Germany.

> It also seems some pages are in German only. Since the design team works in
> English, could you translate the more important pages?

Really sorry for that, but I cannot get that fixed right away. So, please
trust me, simply ignore the confirmation-page after registering (It basically
says a confirmation mail is on the way).

The basic idea: You get a mail (sorry, german again) - that basically asks you
if you are the owner of this mail-account. Click the link. Afterwards you
should be able to sign-in with name & pwd. Please try to follow these
instructions to guide you through the german jungle... :)


> Thanks.

Thank you very much for reporting back! Much appreciated!

Björn
--
www.OpenUsability.org
www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com

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Hi Björn,


> Concerning my motivation: it is not marketing. I care about Free Software. I
> think this service is simply another peace we need to solve the big Free-
> Software-Puzzle. It does happen to legally belong to a company and it might
> make money (tm) but most importantly it follows and serves Free-Software
> principles.

Making money is always a laudable goal for a business. ;)

 
Please do think about rephrasing it. For instance, if we upload (other
people's) icons there, this will create a huge licensing issue for us.
It can be hard to track down everyone who's worked on an icon and it
will be even harder to convince them to relicense their icons "just" for
research.
Maybe you could ask for people to use an "OSI-approved open source
license"/"GNU-approved free license" instead and just default to CC-by?

Astron.


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Hi Astron,

Am Dienstag, 19. Juni 2012, 02:11:27 schrieb Stefan Knorr:
> Hi Björn,
>
> > Concerning my motivation: it is not marketing. I care about Free Software.
> > I think this service is simply another peace we need to solve the big
> > Free- Software-Puzzle. It does happen to legally belong to a company and
> > it might make money (tm) but most importantly it follows and serves
> > Free-Software principles.
>
> Making money is always a laudable goal for a business. ;)

I simply wanted to make the point that this 'product' is not the way my
consultancy makes money. It is basically the result of my (mostly) voluntary
work in Free Software. As there was nothing out there, I decided to start a
new project, which I am OpenSourceing right now. To put it in the company
simply makes things (like handling money) easier for me.


Thanks for pointing me to this misunderstanding. I actually do not want to
affect the license of things that get tested (e.g. Icons). People uploading
them should be aware that they need to have the right to use them. The whole
licensing issue should only affect things that get actually produced on
UserWeave, like surveys, personas etc.

So sorry for the misunderstanding here. As it is FreeSoftware and I am not
really the best person for legal stuff - anyone around with a good idea how to
get this right?

Hope that clarifies it all a bit!

Cheers,
Björn

>
> Astron.
--
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www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com

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Mirek, Astron,

once again thanks for your input. We have changed the registration texts -
some nice formatting and checkup with the OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION still
stands out.

Just wanted to say, perhaps you would like to take another try :) - I am
really thankful for any comments!

Cheers,
Björn

Am Mittwoch, 20. Juni 2012, 18:17:21 schrieb Björn Balazs: --
www.OpenUsability.org
www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com

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Hi Björn,

sorry for not doing anything on Userweave these past days ... I was
updating splash screens and such... will try to get back to the icon
testing thing next week or so.

Astron.

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Hi Astron,

no problem at all and thanks for pinging me on this issue! We will continue
when time is ready for it ;)

To all the others: We are still looking for more companions to join the
testing initiative! Feel hearty welcome if you like to discover who our users
are and what they like and do not like :)

Cheers,
Björn

Am Mittwoch, 4. Juli 2012, 15:36:53 schrieb Stefan Knorr:
> Hi Björn,
>
> sorry for not doing anything on Userweave these past days ... I was
> updating splash screens and such... will try to get back to the icon
> testing thing next week or so.
>
> Astron.
--
www.OpenUsability.org
www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com

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