A look at the GUI from the perspective of a non-technical inclined user

[goebbe]

Recently I installed Vykar (0.16.1) for a family member, which provided the opportunity to look at the GUI
from the perspective of new non-technical user.

Background.

• The family member is not interested in computers or backups itself (it is just a tool)
• The family member is not interested in learning new technical terms
• Things should be self-explanatory

I found the results interesting, and decided to summarize it, here.

Summary:
What I thought is a nice, tidy and pretty self-explanatory UI was, for the family member, just a mess of strange and inexplicable technical terms that did not make any sense (without further research or explanation).
I had to virtually "translate" almost every term in the GUI, when I explained what we were looking at, while navigating through the GUI.
This made me realized that the GUI uses a lot of tech/ programming terms, that will very likely not ring a bell for non-technical users.

• What is a snapshot?
• What are repositories?
• What does config mean?

In the end I came up with a kind of translation, table. Obviously this table reflects how I tried to translate/ explain the terms.

Translation table

GUI in 0.16.1	Normal language	Explanatory text
REPOSITORIES	BACKUP locations	The location where Vykar will save the backup
Overview	Overview
Snapshots	Past backups
Find Files	Search in past backups	Search files or folders in past backups
Restore Selected snapshot	Restoration of past backup	Restoration of files and folders of a selected past backup
CONFIG	backup settings
Sources	Files and Folders	Files and Folders that should be included in the backups
Advanced	Advanced backup settings
Log	Reports	Reports on recent Vykar actions and their success
Settings	Vykar settings

My key insights was that if a GUI is supposed to work for "normal people":

• If possible, it should avoid the use of technical terms in the user interface.
• If possible, it should stick to known terms (e.g. "settings" instead of "config")

Additional observations:

• With less than 4 repositories, the "trees"-view for Repositories should always stay open to expose the submenus: Overview/ Snapshot / Find Files.
• The small grey "number", right of "Sources" raises more questions than it answers. The family member interpreted the number as notification or potential "call for action" (like 1 action pending or / 1 new information available)
• In Snapshots-view, the "Restore selected snapshot"-button should probably be highlighted, since this is a key functionality of a backup program.

And for some of the terms in the config.yaml:

TERM	Normal language
schedule:	automatic_backups:
retention:	keep_past_backups:

Obviously, the used terms should take the target group of Vykar-gui into account:

• Is Vykar aimed exclusively for advanced users, that have prior experience with backup tools?
• Or is Vykars supposed to work for anybody (and lower the barrier to-do backups) ?

When it comes to naming, there are some obvious trade-offs: e.g. "Repo" is a short and precise term - if you know the term and understand what a repository actually is. But it requires prior knowledge and is certainly not "dummy-proof" or self-explanatory.

Anyway, hope this is helpful.
What are your thoughts?

[m3nu]

That's great user research! Now this needs translating to actual code changes.

Question is how far you want to simplify before precision of meaning gets lost.

[goebbe]

I believe a good UI should be inferred from the "target user group" of the Vykar-gui.

Examples:

• I am using Linux for almost 20 years. Therefore, terms like "Config" or "logs" are familiar, to me. And since I used borg before (which had a pretty steep learning curve) I understand what a repository is and what are snapshots and pruning, ...
• The family member does only use Windows and is not interested in technology itself. For this user group, it does not make much sense to use technical/ Unix terms in the GUI. This user group prefers "normal language".

To design a "good" user interface for the (future) users of Vykar - one should probably start from the target user base:

• Is Vykar supposed to become the most used Backup solution on Windows?
• Is Vykar supposed to be THE backup solutions for anybody on Linux and Mac (also unexperienced/ new users)?
• Is Vykar meant for high performance backups for advanced users with prior Unix/Linux/Mac experience?

Of course, one could also start with some steps/ compromises in the GUI:

• Which terms can be replaced by "normal language" without hiding the existing complexity or making the life of developers miserable?
• Avoid abbreviations: "log" is the logbook, "Config" is the "backup configuration", ...
• As a programmer, you probably want to use the exact same terms when programming AND in the CLI AND in the GUI - but perhaps it makes sense to replace some of the terms in the GUI anyway?

[lamixer]

I support @goebbe proposed 'normal language' translation table! And I'm someone who has created borg backups both at the command line and using Vorta. I do have to read back again in this project's information to remember what the goal actually is. Was it to be to re-implement and imporove Vorta on a new back-end (not borg)? Borg is such a mature piece of software it does make me happy to trust it with my backups. But that's for a different discussion!