After performing a search, highlight the first result

[David Prieto]

Binary package hint: software-center

I just did a search for a program: it only returned one result, but it was not immediately evident what I had to do since there was no "install" button anywhere. I had to click the result to get the "install" button to appear.

I think when you perform a search the first item in the results lists should be highlighted right away, to save a click and make it more obvious what options you have with the results you get.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Thanks for the report.

USC used to pre-select the first search result, but this was changed because it was against the spec (bug 524289).

The reason I had specified no rows should be selected by default is that I thought selecting the first row would distract people into choosing it when it wasn't actually the row they wanted.

We have now done two sets of user testing covering Ubuntu Software Center, and no-one that I've seen in the videos has been confused by none of the items being selected by default. We will do more testing this week, and I will ask specifically for a task that should result in a search, so that we get a bigger sample. In the meantime, though, I'd rather not change this based on one self-report.

A reasonable objection would be that pre-selecting would still save a click, and I don't know whether pre-selecting actually is confusing. If someone could make a PPA in which the only change is that USC pre-selects the first search result, we could run a user test of that too.

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

What version of software-center do you use? I tried to reproduce it here locally for example finding "amule" package and first result is highlighted actually, by the way, I am using software-center 3.0.7 from Ubuntu Maverick.

[Gary Lasker (gary-lasker)]

If we would like to try some usability testing for this per mpt's comment #1, I made a version of Software Center that will highlight the first result in a search. It is version software-center 3.1.10~lp661664testbuild1 and can be installed from my PPA at ppa:gary-lasker/ppa (code can be seen in the linked branch).

[Gary Lasker (gary-lasker)]

Direct link to the test deb:

  https://launchpad.net/~gary-lasker/+archive/ppa/+files/software-center_3.1.10%7Elp661664testbuild1_all.deb

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for software-center (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]