Skrooge usability survey

Skrooge usability survey

Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:21 pm

Dear Skrooge users,

When we started Skrooge many moons ago, we decided that it would be

a personal finances manager for KDE4, aiming at being simple and intuitive

.
Now, time went by and many features have been added, and maybe the original statement has been a bit forgotten. We will spend time on refining the application usability, but for that we need your input.

I hope the choices proposed here are relevant for you, please tell me if they're not.

Please post here what you like or don't like. You may also make suggestions, either here or using the most excellent KDE Brainstorm

Thanks in advance to everyone participating !

Guillaume

Dear Skrooge users,

When we started [url=http://extragear.kde.org/apps/skrooge]Skrooge[/url] many moons ago, we decided that it would be
[quote]a personal finances manager for KDE4, aiming at being simple and intuitive[/quote].
Now, time went by and many features have been added, and maybe the original statement has been a bit forgotten. We will spend time on refining the application usability, but for that we need your input.

I hope the choices proposed here are relevant for you, please tell me if they're not.

Please post here what you like or don't like. You may also make suggestions, either here or using the most excellent [url=http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=83]KDE Brainstorm[/url]

Thanks in advance to everyone participating !

Guillaume

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Wed Oct 21, 2009 6:29 pm

One feature I would like is to have a column displaying the account balance after the operation.

This is especially useful as I input all my standing orders/direct debits at the beginning of every month so I know how much cash I have for myself after the bills.

One feature I would like is to have a column displaying the account balance after the operation.

This is especially useful as I input all my standing orders/direct debits at the beginning of every month so I know how much cash I have for myself after the bills.

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:14 pm

This is a very valid point... However we're facing some performances issues with that when we tried it. I know other applications handle this without performance issue, so we should probably investigate a bit further.

As a workaround, skrooge will display the account balance after an operation when hovering the amount.

This is a very valid point... However we're facing some performances issues with that when we tried it. I know other applications handle this without performance issue, so we should probably investigate a bit further.

As a workaround, skrooge will display the account balance after an operation when hovering the amount.

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:46 pm

In fact Skrooge seems too complex to me.

What I am doing:

• Have 2 accounts, one for cash money, one for my bank account
• Receive payments to my bank account
• Transfer money from bank to cash, very seldomly the other way round
• Make payments with my cash money
• Adjust the books to random "losses" / the current real amount of money in my pocket (there are some things I do not keep books on, which make the books diverge from reality over time)
• Make payments from my bank account
• View how my money gets less and more over time
• View what the money was spend on

Skrooge is not lacking features to do that, but it makes it rather complicated.

Details:

• When creating an account, I just want to give it a name.
• When inserting payments, I enter the account, the date, the amount and some description, nothing more.
• When doing the transfer bank->cash, I just enter the date, an amount and a description which is always the same. The "from" and "to" accounts are always the same.
• I often insert several payments or transfers in a row. I.e. bank->cash transfer on the 10th, on the 26th and on the 30th. They usually have different dates and amounts, but "from", "to" and the description are the same. I just change the necessary fields and press "Add" several times.
• When changing a transfer, I have to change both "ends" (for the bank and the cash account). That is annoying, since it could happen automatically.
• I would expect an edit possibility to pop up when double-clicking a payment. Instead I get a filter on the payment list showing just that one payment.
• It confuses me that I have to choose a different tab at the bottom of the page when creating a "transfer" instead of a payment ("standard").
• I am sometimes confused and click "modify" instead of "add" when I want to insert a new payment. Generally "add" and "modify", using the same fields, are confusing. (Even though it is a clever use of space, without using dialogues.)
• It is confusing that the text stays in the fields after inserting a payment using "add". (Yes, that makes it faster to insert multiple similar payments, but it adds to up with the add/modify confusion.)
• It is confusing that after adding a "transfer", the tab is reset to "standard". Also, the target account is reset when clicking "add". This is different from the feeling of standard payments.
• There is no obvious way to say "that is what is on this account right now, adjust everything accordingly". I.e. to insert the abovementioned adjustment operations, or when adding a new account to Skrooge that was not yet tracked, or not tracked for a long time.
• The report and monthly report pages are confusing me. I found it not easy to get a timeline of events / view my money over time. There also seems no way to show a graph "that's the money you had at time X".
• Here the papers I get from my bank every month are listing the dates, descriptions and amounts for each payment, have a "before" account-amount at the beginning and an "after" account-amount at the end. It would be nice if Skrooge could resemble that somehow. If the amount skrooge sees and the amount the user entered in that form are not matching it could warn them and offer to "insert adjustment operations aka. random losses / wins", or fix it up in some other way. Possibly it could also store these forms for later, so one could add missing payments to Skrooge and look afterwards whether that resolved the discrepancies.

In fact Skrooge seems too complex to me.

What I am doing:
[list]
[*]Have 2 accounts, one for cash money, one for my bank account
[*]Receive payments to my bank account
[*]Transfer money from bank to cash, very seldomly the other way round
[*]Make payments with my cash money
[*]Adjust the books to random "losses" / the current real amount of money in my pocket (there are some things I do not keep books on, which make the books diverge from reality over time)
[*]Make payments from my bank account
[*]View how my money gets less and more over time
[*]View what the money was spend on[/list]

Skrooge is not lacking features to do that, but it makes it rather complicated.

Details:
[list]
[*]When creating an account, I just want to give it a name.
[*]When inserting payments, I enter the account, the date, the amount and some description, nothing more.
[*]When doing the transfer bank->cash, I just enter the date, an amount and a description which is always the same. The "from" and "to" accounts are always the same.
[*]I often insert several payments or transfers in a row. I.e. bank->cash transfer on the 10th, on the 26th and on the 30th. They usually have different dates and amounts, but "from", "to" and the description are the same. I just change the necessary fields and press "Add" several times.
[*]When changing a transfer, I have to change both "ends" (for the bank and the cash account). That is annoying, since it could happen automatically.
[*]I would expect an edit possibility to pop up when double-clicking a payment. Instead I get a filter on the payment list showing just that one payment.
[*]It confuses me that I have to choose a different tab at the bottom of the page when creating a "transfer" instead of a payment ("standard").
[*]I am sometimes confused and click "modify" instead of "add" when I want to insert a new payment. Generally "add" and "modify", using the same fields, are confusing. (Even though it is a clever use of space, without using dialogues.)
[*]It is confusing that the text stays in the fields after inserting a payment using "add". (Yes, that makes it faster to insert multiple similar payments, but it adds to up with the add/modify confusion.)
[*]It is confusing that after adding a "transfer", the tab is reset to "standard". Also, the target account is reset when clicking "add". This is different from the feeling of standard payments.
[*]There is no obvious way to say "that is what is on this account right now, adjust everything accordingly". I.e. to insert the abovementioned adjustment operations, or when adding a new account to Skrooge that was not yet tracked, or not tracked for a long time.
[*]The report and monthly report pages are confusing me. I found it not easy to get a timeline of events / view my money over time. There also seems no way to show a graph "that's the money you had at time X".
[*]Here the papers I get from my bank every month are listing the dates, descriptions and amounts for each payment, have a "before" account-amount at the beginning and an "after" account-amount at the end. It would be nice if Skrooge could resemble that somehow. If the amount skrooge sees and the amount the user entered in that form are not matching it could warn them and offer to "insert adjustment operations aka. random losses / wins", or fix it up in some other way. Possibly it could also store these forms for later, so one could add missing payments to Skrooge and look afterwards whether that resolved the discrepancies.[/list]

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:45 pm

In fact Skrooge seems too complex to me.

What I am doing:

• Have 2 accounts, one for cash money, one for my bank account
• Receive payments to my bank account
• Transfer money from bank to cash, very seldomly the other way round
• Make payments with my cash money
• Adjust the books to random "losses" / the current real amount of money in my pocket (there are some things I do not keep books on, which make the books diverge from reality over time)
• Make payments from my bank account
• View how my money gets less and more over time
• View what the money was spend on

Skrooge is not lacking features to do that, but it makes it rather complicated.

Details:

• When creating an account, I just want to give it a name.
  

With skrooge, you only have to give bank name and account name.

When inserting payments, I enter the account, the date, the amount and some description, nothing more.

With skrooge, you only have to give account, date, amount and unit (set by default).

When doing the transfer bank->cash, I just enter the date, an amount and a description which is always the same. The "from" and "to" accounts are always the same.

With skrooge, you can do it in one double click on a template.

I often insert several payments or transfers in a row. I.e. bank->cash transfer on the 10th, on the 26th and on the 30th. They usually have different dates and amounts, but "from", "to" and the description are the same. I just change the necessary fields and press "Add" several times.

When changing a transfer, I have to change both "ends" (for the bank and the cash account). That is annoying, since it could happen automatically.

I take the point.

I would expect an edit possibility to pop up when double-clicking a payment. Instead I get a filter on the payment list showing just that one payment.

It confuses me that I have to choose a different tab at the bottom of the page when creating a "transfer" instead of a payment ("standard").

I am sometimes confused and click "modify" instead of "add" when I want to insert a new payment. Generally "add" and "modify", using the same fields, are confusing. (Even though it is a clever use of space, without using dialogues.)

It is confusing that the text stays in the fields after inserting a payment using "add". (Yes, that makes it faster to insert multiple similar payments, but it adds to up with the add/modify confusion.)

It is confusing that after adding a "transfer", the tab is reset to "standard". Also, the target account is reset when clicking "add". This is different from the feeling of standard payments.

I take the point.

There is no obvious way to say "that is what is on this account right now, adjust everything accordingly". I.e. to insert the abovementioned adjustment operations, or when adding a new account to Skrooge that was not yet tracked, or not tracked for a long time.

The report and monthly report pages are confusing me. I found it not easy to get a timeline of events / view my money over time. There also seems no way to show a graph "that's the money you had at time X".

You can do a history.

Here the papers I get from my bank every month are listing the dates, descriptions and amounts for each payment, have a "before" account-amount at the beginning and an "after" account-amount at the end. It would be nice if Skrooge could resemble that somehow. If the amount skrooge sees and the amount the user entered in that form are not matching it could warn them and offer to "insert adjustment operations aka. random losses / wins", or fix it up in some other way. Possibly it could also store these forms for later, so one could add missing payments to Skrooge and look afterwards whether that resolved the discrepancies.

[quote="devurandom"]In fact Skrooge seems too complex to me.

What I am doing:
[list]
[*]Have 2 accounts, one for cash money, one for my bank account
[*]Receive payments to my bank account
[*]Transfer money from bank to cash, very seldomly the other way round
[*]Make payments with my cash money
[*]Adjust the books to random "losses" / the current real amount of money in my pocket (there are some things I do not keep books on, which make the books diverge from reality over time)
[*]Make payments from my bank account
[*]View how my money gets less and more over time
[*]View what the money was spend on[/list]

Skrooge is not lacking features to do that, but it makes it rather complicated.

Details:
[list]
[*]When creating an account, I just want to give it a name.
[/quote]
With skrooge, you only have to give bank name and account name.
[quote="devurandom"]
[*]When inserting payments, I enter the account, the date, the amount and some description, nothing more.
[/quote]
With skrooge, you only have to give account, date, amount and unit (set by default).
[quote="devurandom"]
[*]When doing the transfer bank->cash, I just enter the date, an amount and a description which is always the same. The "from" and "to" accounts are always the same.
[/quote]
With skrooge, you can do it in one double click on a template.
[quote="devurandom"]
[*]I often insert several payments or transfers in a row. I.e. bank->cash transfer on the 10th, on the 26th and on the 30th. They usually have different dates and amounts, but "from", "to" and the description are the same. I just change the necessary fields and press "Add" several times.
[*]When changing a transfer, I have to change both "ends" (for the bank and the cash account). That is annoying, since it could happen automatically.
[/quote]
I take the point.
[quote="devurandom"]
[*]I would expect an edit possibility to pop up when double-clicking a payment. Instead I get a filter on the payment list showing just that one payment.
[*]It confuses me that I have to choose a different tab at the bottom of the page when creating a "transfer" instead of a payment ("standard").
[*]I am sometimes confused and click "modify" instead of "add" when I want to insert a new payment. Generally "add" and "modify", using the same fields, are confusing. (Even though it is a clever use of space, without using dialogues.)
[*]It is confusing that the text stays in the fields after inserting a payment using "add". (Yes, that makes it faster to insert multiple similar payments, but it adds to up with the add/modify confusion.)
[*]It is confusing that after adding a "transfer", the tab is reset to "standard". Also, the target account is reset when clicking "add". This is different from the feeling of standard payments.
[/quote]
I take the point.
[quote="devurandom"]
[*]There is no obvious way to say "that is what is on this account right now, adjust everything accordingly". I.e. to insert the abovementioned adjustment operations, or when adding a new account to Skrooge that was not yet tracked, or not tracked for a long time.
[*]The report and monthly report pages are confusing me. I found it not easy to get a timeline of events / view my money over time. There also seems no way to show a graph "that's the money you had at time X".
[/quote]
You can do a history.
[quote="devurandom"]
[*]Here the papers I get from my bank every month are listing the dates, descriptions and amounts for each payment, have a "before" account-amount at the beginning and an "after" account-amount at the end. It would be nice if Skrooge could resemble that somehow. If the amount skrooge sees and the amount the user entered in that form are not matching it could warn them and offer to "insert adjustment operations aka. random losses / wins", or fix it up in some other way. Possibly it could also store these forms for later, so one could add missing payments to Skrooge and look afterwards whether that resolved the discrepancies.[/list][/quote]

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:14 pm

When creating an account, I just want to give it a name.

With skrooge, you only have to give bank name and account name.

But it displays 2 fields, of which one seems confusing and redundant to a user who does not have several accounts at several banks.

When inserting payments, I enter the account, the date, the amount and some description, nothing more.

With skrooge, you only have to give account, date, amount and unit (set by default).

Skrooge will displays lots of fields of which the meaning of most is not clear to the uneducated user. Of course I do not have to fill in all of them, but that was not my point. My point was that the complexity of the form is bigger than what appears clear to a new user.

When doing the transfer bank->cash, I just enter the date, an amount and a description which is always the same. The "from" and "to" accounts are always the same.

With skrooge, you can do it in one double click on a template.

I have not used templates yet, as it seemed like an advanced feature and I could not immediately figure out what they were meant to accomplish or how I should use them.
I just wanted to mention what I did and that the process felt not straightforward to me and was in the hope that someone might have an idea how to streamline it.

I already imagined was some way to keep the contents of all the fields after pressing insert and easily jump to those which I need to change, press insert again, ...
Possibly accessible by keyboard in a quick way. I.e. tabbing through a small list of fields?
</brainstorm>

The report and monthly report pages are confusing me. I found it not easy to get a timeline of events / view my money over time. There also seems no way to show a graph "that's the money you had at time X".

You can do a history.

I saw that drop-down-field, but spoting it in the first place was not easy. As I said, it is not that Skrooge would be lacking the features, but more that it does not represent them in an intuitive way to new users. (Especially if they are not used to financial applications, but just think that visualising their accounts using a PC prog might be a clever idea.)

Also Skrooge was not easy to setup to show a history of the overall amount of my accounts.
It also lacks a graph with connected points (instead it shows several bars for each month, in every configuration I tried).
The issue here again is complexity of the form, if the user just wants to accomplish a "simple" task.

[quote="smankowski"][quote="devurandom"]When creating an account, I just want to give it a name.
[/quote]
With skrooge, you only have to give bank name and account name.
[/quote]
But it displays 2 fields, of which one seems confusing and redundant to a user who does not have several accounts at several banks.
[quote="smankowski"][quote="devurandom"]
When inserting payments, I enter the account, the date, the amount and some description, nothing more.
[/quote]
With skrooge, you only have to give account, date, amount and unit (set by default).
[/quote]
Skrooge will displays lots of fields of which the meaning of most is not clear to the uneducated user. Of course I do not have to fill in all of them, but that was not my point. My point was that the complexity of the form is bigger than what appears clear to a new user.
[quote="smankowski"][quote="devurandom"]
When doing the transfer bank->cash, I just enter the date, an amount and a description which is always the same. The "from" and "to" accounts are always the same.
[/quote]
With skrooge, you can do it in one double click on a template.
[/quote]
I have not used templates yet, as it seemed like an advanced feature and I could not immediately figure out what they were meant to accomplish or how I should use them.
I just wanted to mention what I did and that the process felt not straightforward to me and was in the hope that someone might have an idea how to streamline it.

I already imagined was some way to keep the contents of all the fields after pressing insert and easily jump to those which I need to change, press insert again, ...
Possibly accessible by keyboard in a quick way. I.e. tabbing through a small list of fields?
</brainstorm>

[quote="smankowski"][quote="devurandom"]
The report and monthly report pages are confusing me. I found it not easy to get a timeline of events / view my money over time. There also seems no way to show a graph "that's the money you had at time X".
[/quote]
You can do a history.
[/quote]
I saw that drop-down-field, but spoting it in the first place was not easy. As I said, it is not that Skrooge would be lacking the features, but more that it does not represent them in an intuitive way to new users. (Especially if they are not used to financial applications, but just think that visualising their accounts using a PC prog might be a clever idea.)

Also Skrooge was not easy to setup to show a history of the overall amount of my accounts.
It also lacks a graph with connected points (instead it shows several bars for each month, in every configuration I tried).
The issue here again is complexity of the form, if the user just wants to accomplish a "simple" task.

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:30 pm

@devurandom
First, thanks for taking the time to provide us with such a detailed feedback. This is exactly the kind of things I was looking for, things that users find confusing or that are not very discoverable.

@smankowski
devurandom does say that skrooge can do all he needs, just that sometimes things get overly complicated for simple tasks. We have to take that kind of experience into account to make a better UI

So I'm not saying we can find a solution for everything listed here, but there is certainly room for improvement, and we'll work on it !

@devurandom
First, thanks for taking the time to provide us with such a detailed feedback. This is exactly the kind of things I was looking for, things that users find confusing or that are not very discoverable.

@smankowski
devurandom does say that skrooge can do all he needs, just that sometimes things get overly complicated for simple tasks. We have to take that kind of experience into account to make a better UI 8)

So I'm not saying we can find a solution for everything listed here, but there is certainly room for improvement, and we'll work on it !

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:08 pm

@devurandom
First, thanks for taking the time to provide us with such a detailed feedback. This is exactly the kind of things I was looking for, things that users find confusing or that are not very discoverable.

It's been a pleasure.

@smankowski
devurandom does say that skrooge can do all he needs, just that sometimes things get overly complicated for simple tasks. We have to take that kind of experience into account to make a better UI

Maybe not "overly" complicated, but just a little bit too complicated to shy inexperienced users away. The bit of intuivity that makes the difference between "nice expert tool, I'll do it on paper" and "breathtaking".

[quote="gdebure"]@devurandom
First, thanks for taking the time to provide us with such a detailed feedback. This is exactly the kind of things I was looking for, things that users find confusing or that are not very discoverable.
[/quote]
It's been a pleasure.

[quote="gdebure"]
@smankowski
devurandom does say that skrooge can do all he needs, just that sometimes things get overly complicated for simple tasks. We have to take that kind of experience into account to make a better UI 8)
[/quote]
Maybe not "overly" complicated, but just a little bit too complicated to shy inexperienced users away. The bit of intuivity that makes the difference between "nice expert tool, I'll do it on paper" and "breathtaking".

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Wed Nov 18, 2009 2:45 am

If possible I'd like to see the "Operations" at the bottom of the ledger view simplified if possible. To me it seems a little confusing. When an account is opened in the ledger view it would be nice if the program would check to see what type of account it is, stock, bank, credit, etc, and then set the operations accordingly. If done this way you could eliminate the "units" area because this should always be the same for the account. This is something that Kmymoney does and to me it works much better this way. It's much easier to enter the information in Kmm.

One place where Skrooge excels in my opinion is with the reports. This feature is really one of its strong points.

If possible I'd like to see the "Operations" at the bottom of the ledger view simplified if possible. To me it seems a little confusing. When an account is opened in the ledger view it would be nice if the program would check to see what type of account it is, stock, bank, credit, etc, and then set the operations accordingly. If done this way you could eliminate the "units" area because this should always be the same for the account. This is something that Kmymoney does and to me it works much better this way. It's much easier to enter the information in Kmm.

One place where Skrooge excels in my opinion is with the reports. This feature is really one of its strong points.

Re: Skrooge usability survey

Sat Nov 21, 2009 6:40 pm

Aha - I just found this thread!

I myself wanted to do some _very_ simple finance management - just the ins and outs of cash from different locations and able to categorise these transactions. I installed Skrooge a while back and had a half hour free to start things up. I started Skrooge and was lost immediately.

It took me quite some time to figure out how to add a bank account (clicking the standard at the bottom). I don't know - what bank and account should I put for that little piggy bank I have in my room? (I like to record my daily spending)

Adding a bank account should not be done through that tab thing on the bottom.
Deleting bank accounts should not be through a checkbox, without a confirmation dialog, as part of a list of accounts
I didn't find the "bookmarks" or "history" section (there is an undo at the top!) at all useful - perhaps disabled by default? I still haven't figured out what the "properties" section is.
If this "search and process" tab is really what I think it is - that is, a search, it shouldn't deserve a tab of its own.
What are these "units", "simulations" and "trackers"? Am I doing forex or simply recording my own humble transactions? (What are "trackers", incidentally?)

Quite honestly this is the first KDE program I've ever felt the need to read the entire documentation before feeling confident enough to use it.


Just looking at this form to add an "operation", it's incredibly messy. Look's like somebody vomited a load of input fields. Why does the Unit field have to be so huge? What is the "Mode" and "Number" field meant to be? What's a "tracker" again? - and what gave this thing the idea that I might want to go start buying and selling shares?

In general most of the forms around the application give a very cluttered and disorganised feel.

Maybe not "overly" complicated, but just a little bit too complicated to shy inexperienced users away. The bit of intuivity that makes the difference between "nice expert tool, I'll do it on paper" and "breathtaking".

Very well said!

Aha - I just found this thread!

I myself wanted to do some _very_ simple finance management - just the ins and outs of cash from different locations and able to categorise these transactions. I installed Skrooge a while back and had a half hour free to start things up. I started Skrooge and was lost immediately.

It took me quite some time to figure out how to add a bank account (clicking the standard at the bottom). I don't know - what bank and account should I put for that little piggy bank I have in my room? ;) (I like to record my daily spending)

Adding a bank account should not be done through that tab thing on the bottom.
Deleting bank accounts should not be through a checkbox, without a confirmation dialog, as part of a list of accounts
I didn't find the "bookmarks" or "history" section (there is an undo at the top!) at all useful - perhaps disabled by default? I still haven't figured out what the "properties" section is.
If this "search and process" tab is really what I think it is - that is, a search, it shouldn't deserve a tab of its own.
What are these "units", "simulations" and "trackers"? Am I doing forex or simply recording my own humble transactions? (What are "trackers", incidentally?)

Quite honestly this is the first KDE program I've ever felt the need to read the entire documentation before feeling confident enough to use it.

[img]http://filebox.me/files/z34hnw1gr_snapshot7.png[/img]
Just looking at this form to add an "operation", it's incredibly messy. Look's like somebody vomited a load of input fields. Why does the Unit field have to be so huge? What is the "Mode" and "Number" field meant to be? What's a "tracker" again? - and what gave this thing the idea that I might want to go start buying and selling shares?

In general most of the forms around the application give a very cluttered and disorganised feel.

[quote]Maybe not "overly" complicated, but just a little bit too complicated to shy inexperienced users away. The bit of intuivity that makes the difference between "nice expert tool, I'll do it on paper" and "breathtaking".[/quote]

Very well said!