Rebooting...

So Grace joined to work on this as a course project for Usability Testing...
And here are few things I pulled out that are needed to get (re)started for us.

Website of the product
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/index-home.html


Going through the online manual will help you understand the product functionality:
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/online-manual/

Here are few notes on other personal finance tools I looked at for landscape analysis:
http://usabilitykmymoney.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

Wubi and other rituals to install KMyMoney
http://wubi.sourceforge.net/
This allows us to install Ubuntu over windows like an exe. I will get it running on my laptop and get more detailed instructions for you to install it if you need.
Then we need KDE on ubuntu to install KMyMoney... those 2 things too I will do them over weekend and let you know the steps. If you are familiar with Linux then you can go ahead.

Todo before we write the proposal:
- install wubi, kde, KMymoney
- go through help documentation to know the features
- go through KMyMoney user feedback and run the product to help us identify key usability questions

Message

Hi, I have started my masters since mid Sept and I have been waiting to post this message. Its been so hectic and it will only increase until the end of the quarter. I will still reply to any comments you make as you go through the work posted till now. And will try to squeeze as much as possible in the middle of quarter too. Will resume work from mid Dec, for the period during my quarter break.

Cancel Search Button

This is the general UI pattern of canceling the search results view.
The general UI patterns to cancel search is to have the X button inside the search box to the right end.

Cog walk through - Accounts

New ... Buttons Missing - Since the icons to create new schedules, accounts, institutions etc may not be very clear/convenient, we should have New ... buttons for each screen "consistently". Here is a picture that shows this -

Type of Accounts Having some information text/label on the screen, about the kind of accounts that exist(credit, loan, debit, checking etc) will help users understand what are the requirements in opening that account. ( See image below)

Opening Balance for a credit card ? Is it a dead field in a Credit Card context ?

Preferred Account New Users may not have an idea of whats a preferred account. Any informational label can help here too.

Help The help button on the New Account wizard, does not take me to the current topic but to the KMyMoney General Help. Context sensitive Help would really help :)




Parent Account - Asset, Liability are type-of-accounts than an account itself, they should not be named as parent accounts . Income and Expense are categories and shouldn't show up in Accounts screen (They should show up in Categories view only). IMHO, Hierarchies in accounts and usage of term "Parent" account is confusing.




















Edit Account Dialog The Disabled 3D control (drop down lists) have unreadable text, it would be nice to have them slightly darker .

Edit Account Limits Tab Absolute limit does convey clear meaning and Credit Limit exists for all type of accounts.


Edit Account Tax Tab Lots of free screen area could be used to explain what is VAT etc. as an informational label.

Features that need to surface out

Online Banking - KBanking Plugin should be better exposed(than mentioning it in the release notes) to user when they are getting started.

Configuration Screen - Encryption option in the configuration screen should be upfront to allow users to create login IDs and Passwords. The Encryption screen is disabled to work with.

Cog walk through - exploring the toolbar

Screen 12
1)quit is right under the "file' menu, not a safe placement visually. This maybe a personal opinion so feel free to ignore. few question in this case...
(i)is it necessary there?
(ii)is it a standard according to KDE? I am not too familiar with KDE UI
(iii)it didn't even prompt before closing... now that is scary

2)new "file".. now is that for a completely new financial management? the file concept for a personal "account" is confusing.. login might be a better metaphor. few question in this case...
does new file =
(i) new finance management file?
(ii) new user?
(iii) Why would same user want two different files to manage his finances?

Cog walk - Bug report

Nice to see "report Bug"
(i) Will it gather information about the current context user is in?, would be good as the user may not be very descriptive or specific while filing a bug
(ii) if collecting such data care should be taken to not breach and privacy or gather any sensitive financial information. just the screen landed or path to the screen could be sufficient