EmpathyVsPidginUsability

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This is a comparison of the usability of Empathy and Pidgin (as suggested in DesktopTeam/Meeting/2008-08-07), to help in deciding which should be used in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

Test performed by MatthewPaulThomas on 11~12 August 2008, with empathy 2.23.6-0ubuntu2 and pidgin 1:2.4.3-ubuntu1 with Intrepid Ibex alpha 3.

Access and installation

In the Applications menu, Empathy had the tooltip “Send and receive instant messages”, and Pidgin had the slightly geekier “Send instant messages over multiple protocols”. In both cases, this is slightly missing the point: sending and receiving instant messages are the means by which you chat with people, not ends in themselves. A better tooltip would be “Chat with people on AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Jabber”... etc.

Empathy access

Empathy appeared in “Applications” > “Internet” as “Empathy Instant Messenger” with no icon ().

Pidgin access

Pidgin appeared in “Applications” > “Internet” as “Pidgin Internet Messenger”, and a purple bird icon.

Installation

Whichever program is chosen will be installed by default, so the package description matters more for whichever program is not chosen. However, the description still appears in Add/Remove Programs’ “Installed applications only” view. And for both programs, the description presented in Add/Remove Programs is user-hostile.

In Empathy (inappropriate sections underlined): ()

  • Empathy Instant Messenger

    High-level library and user-interface for Telepathy

    Empathy consists of a rich set of reusable instant messaging widgets, and a
    GNOME client using those widgets
    . It uses Telepathy and Nokia's Mission
    Control
    , and reuses Gossip's UI. The main goal is to permit desktop
    integration by providing libempathy and libempathy-gtk libraries.

    libempathy-gtk is a set of powerful widgets that can be embeded [sic] into any
    GNOME application.

    This packet contains the empathy IM application and account manager.

And in Pidgin (inappropriate sections underlined): ()

  • Pidgin Internet Messenger

    graphical multi-protocol instant messaging client for X

    Pidgin is a graphical, modular Instant Messaging client capable of using
    AIM/ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Napster, Zephyr, Gadu-Gadu, Bonjour,
    Groupwise, Sametime, SILC, and SIMPLE all at once.

    Some extra packages are recommended to use the core functionality present
    in most pidgin installations: * gstreamer0.10-plugins-base, gstreamer0.10-plugins-good  - Sound support.

    More extra packages are suggested to use increased functionality:
    * gnome-panel | kicker | docker:
     - To use the system tray icon functionality (minimizing to an icon, having
    the icon blink when there are new messages, etc.) * evolution-data-server:
     - For interfacing with an Evolution address book
    * libsqlite3-0:
     - To use Contact Availability Prediction plugin

    Homepage: http://www.pidgin.im

Setup

How easy is it to:

  • set up my existing Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM, and Jabber accounts?
  • create a new Jabber account?
  • connect to Freenode IRC with automatic NickServ identification?

  • connect to Canonical IRC with SSL and authentication?

Empathy

On first launching Empathy, nothing appeared to happen: a non-expert might easily think that the program doesn’t work at all (). A small grey square appeared in the notification area, but it took me a while to notice.


I’m not feeling much empathy here

Clicking the grey square opened an empty “Contact List” window, with an “Accounts” window over top of it. The window said: “To add a new account, you can click on the 'Add' button and a new entry will be created for you to start configuring.” This made it unclear how to set up an existing account (), why the “Add” button hadn’t clicked itself (), or what sort of person would be interested in “configuring” an “entry” instead of setting up an account. The “Add” button required further interaction to complete its goal, but did not end with an ellipsis ().

Clicking “Add” changed the right side of the “Accounts” window into a form for setting up a “New Account”, despite having an “I already have an account I want to use” checkbox (). The “Undo” button didn’t actually undo anything; it just returned to the “No Accounts Configured” display (). If the “I already have an account I want to use” checkbox was checked, the “Create” button didn’t actually create an account either.

empathy-new-account.jpg

Expanding the “Advanced” section enlarged the window, but collapsing it again did not shrink it ().

Empathy repeatedly asked to create a “default keyring”. If I chose not to create a default keyring (by clicking “Deny”), Empathy falsely reported that all accounts had an “authentication failure”, and it wasn’t obvious why this had happened ().

Whenever an account was created, by default it was not “Enabled”; this is likely to make people wonder why it isn’t working. And even after enabling it, Empathy remained “Offline” by default, when the reason I set up an account in the first place was almost certainly that I wanted to use it (). The status menu did not extend to the full width of the menu’s button, making choosing a status needlessly difficult ().

Failed authentication was cleverly shown in the contact list with an “Edit account” button, but this panel was not scrollable, so in a small window it subtracted from the space available to show contacts in other accounts (). And the notification persisted even after the account had been removed; clicking the “Edit account” button in this case produced a malfunctioning Accounts window ().

Clicking “Remove” produced an obnoxious alert telling me that “Any associated conversations and chat rooms will NOT be removed if you decide to proceed”, despite Empathy knowing that there were no associated conversations or chat rooms ().

Yahoo

With “Yahoo” selected, clicking “Create” created a weirdly-named “yahoo0” account in the list (). Empathy then asked for “Login ID” and “Password” which, because it was in a single “Settings” group, looked wonky (). The “Login ID” field should have been focused by default, but was not (). Having previously used my Yahoo account with Yahoo Messenger and other chat programs, I was familiar with the term “Yahoo ID”, but not “Login ID”, so it wasn’t clear whether I was supposed to enter my Yahoo ID or my entire Yahoo address. Yahoo Mail accepts both forms, but Empathy accepted neither, producing an authentication failure each time.

I was unable to connect to my Yahoo account with Empathy.

Google Talk

...

AIM

Again the account was given a weird default name, “aim1”. The first field was correctly labelled “Screen Name”, but again was not focused by default.

The “Advanced” section of the account setup was not lined up with the rest of the form ().

I succeeded in setting up my AIM account.

Existing Jabber

The Advanced section was oddly indented and poorly aligned (), and contained a “Use old SSL” checkbox for which the meaning of the off state was not obvious ().

New Jabber

...

Freenode IRC

...

Canonical IRC

...

Pidgin

On first launch, Pidgin helpfully noticed that I had no accounts set up, and presented an “Accounts” window with a welcome message inviting me to “press the Add button below and configure your first account”. Since this was the only useful thing I could do, it wasn’t clear why the button didn’t click itself (). The “Add” button required further interaction to complete its goal, but was missing an ellipsis ().

pidgin-first-launch.jpg

On clicking “Add”, a fairly straightforward “Add Account” window appeared, with the only slightly confusing details being “Protocol” () and “Local alias” ().

The “Add Account” window was not a dialog, so it was possible to return the “Accounts” window to the front, click “Add” again, and open any number of “Add Account” windows. It seems likely that the only reason people will ever do this is by mistake ().

pidgin-add-add-add.jpg

The “Add Account” window should have focused the first text field by default, but instead uselessly focused the “Basic” tab (). It was strange for the contents of the “Advanced” tab to be almost completely different depending on the “Protocol” selection in the “Basic” tab.

Choosing a different account type caused the window to resize in both directions, causing even the account type menu to jump around ().

The button for completing the account setup was labelled “Save” for no apparent reason ().

Yahoo

On choosing “Yahoo” I was invited to enter my “Username” and password. Yahoo accounts have Yahoo IDs, not “Usernames” ().

On clicking “Save”, the (now very different) “Accounts” window showed that I was online with Yahoo, and my Yahoo buddies appeared in the “Buddy List” window.

Google Talk

On choosing “Google Talk” I was invited to enter my “Username”, “Domain” (defaulting to “gmail.com”), “Resource” (defaulting to “Home”), and password. In contrast, Google’s own Google Talk client asks only for “Email” and password. I had no idea what a “resource” was in this context, and there was no help available ().

Ignoring that field, I successfully connected to my Google Talk account.

AIM

“AIM” was the default “Protocol” choice, and invited me to enter my “Username” and password. AIM accounts have Screen Names, not “usernames” ().

On entering my password, pressing Enter did not add the account; I needed to click the “Save” button with the mouse instead ().

I successfully connected to my AIM account.

Existing Jabber

...

New Jabber

...

Freenode IRC

...

Canonical IRC

...

Accounts

  • Can I easily tell which accounts are online, and toggle accounts online and offline?
  • Can I easily change my picture, choosing from a set of default pictures or taking a photo with a built-in camera?

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Contacts

  • How attractive and compact is the contact list?
  • How well-integrated is the contact list with my address book?
  • How easy is it to find someone and tell whether they’re online?
  • If someone has multiple accounts, how easy is it to group them?
  • Are animated pictures distracting? If someone has a garish or unrecognizable picture, how easily can I override it with a photo of the person?

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Notification of new conversations

  • What happens if someone starts a chat with me?
  • What happens if someone mentions my name on IRC?

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Text chat

  • How easy is sending a message?
  • Are conversations attractive and easy to read?
  • How well are long messages handled?
  • How well are URLs handled?
  • How well are emoticons handled?

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Voice chat

  • How easily can I see which people accept voice chat?
  • What’s the sound quality like?
  • Is it easy to mute the input? or the output?

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Video chat

...

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Sending and receiving files

...

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Chat logs

...

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Other cool stuff

...

Empathy

...

Pidgin

...

Conclusion

...

Comments

EmpathyVsPidginUsability (last edited 2009-05-02 18:23:01 by 74)