The User Experience within Google Chrome

By
Darryl Bayliss, John Das, Daniel Lee & Paul Malloy

Contents
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………….. Page 3

Key Words…………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 3

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 3

Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………. Page 4-5

Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………… Page 5-7

Results………………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 7

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….... Page 7-8

References………………………………………………………………………………………… Page 8

Appendices………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 9-17

Abstract

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The aim of this Project is to identify the quality of user experience within Google
Chrome OS Linux and to heighten awareness of the accessibility of the operating
system. The usability of the OS has been tested by conducting a series of tests
that are designed to challenge the usability of the OS. The participants were
mostly technical users. In order to log the raw data, the participants provided a
mixture of qualitative and quantitative data through the use of questionnaires.
The results show that 90% of participants agree that the GUI (Graphical User
Interface) is user-friendly and easier to use than traditional Operating Systems
(IE, windows & leopard)

Key Words

User Experience, Accessibility, Google Chrome, Windows, Operating System, HCI,

GUI

Introduction

This document researches the usability of Google Operating System, Chrome,

which is available to the public for beta testing purposes. The report identifies
how the usability compares to other corporate operating systems. In order to
show this research, a series of tests and questionnaires were conducted to
challenge the usability of the Operating System. The participants included a
mixture of technical users and non-technical users. The following research
includes a number of different methods and approaches to ascertain the usability
features of the Google operating system. The following document consists of a
literature review, which details the critical aspects of an Operating System, the
features of a high performance Operating System. The methodology section
explains the collection of the primary data and justifies the methods used, and
the results section highlights the benefits and drawbacks of the system.

The aims of this document are listed below: -

Aim Objectives Methods

Identify the quality of To identify positive and Conducting research via
user experience within negative responses from testing and questionnaires
GOOGLE chrome OS Linux users

To understand the Literature review of

functionality of the OS. Operating Systems

Literature review

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The Literature review is a breakdown of Operating Systems in general and what
crucial aspects need to be considered during construction to make a functional
piece of operating software. Various journals and Author’s will be consulted
during this review to give a more rounded view of the subject; the review will
focus on four main fields.

The first section will focus on what factors make a good operating system; this is
to ensure a fair understanding of the workings of operating systems has been
understood during testing. The second section will look back at the operating
software Google Chrome is based on and where it is today, this is to understand
the main underlying factors Google has decided to build their operating system
on. The third section will take a look at the argument between open source and
commercial software and the benefits to each, this is required because Google
Chrome is based upon open source software and a good understanding of the
benefits of this was deemed necessary by the author’s. The fourth section will
discuss the functions of Google Chrome and weigh up arguments for and against
the operating system’s success, this was required to gather a more balanced,
non-biased opinion regarding the functionality of the operating system.

Learning about what makes a good Operating System was considered key to
understanding why Google Chrome OS will provide a good user experience, Colin
Ritchie (2001, pg 23) begins by describing the barebones of an OS as “a provider
and manager of machine resources”, John English (2005, pg 17) continues the
description of a OS by saying Operating Systems should be “Efficient, The
Purpose of a computer is to perform tasks for you, the user. The more time and
space the operating system uses, the less there is left over for you to use
productively. Reliable, you want to be able to guarantee that the operating
system will not fail unexpectedly” In essence, this shows that an operating
system needs to be able to provide and manager machine resources in an
efficient, reliable and simple manner.

The authors then moved onto looking behind a brief history of Google Chrome by
looking at its predecessor, Linux. To this end, it was necessary to gain knowledge
of Linux’s history and how it became free source. The works of Author’s Jose M.
Garrido & Richard Schelesinger (2008, pg 15) were referred to and found
information regarding the history of Linux dating to its parent, Unix. “Unix was
originally introduced in 1974 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson while
working at AT&T Bell Labs. The operating system was developed on a small
computer and had two design goals: small size of the software system and
portability. By 1980, many of the users were universities and research labs… The
Unix family includes Linux, which was primarily designed and first implemented
by Linus Torvals and other collaborators in 1991. Torvals released the source
code on the internet and invited designers and programmers to contribute their
modifications and enhancements”

With Google Chrome being based upon a free source operating system, The
author’s delved briefly into the argument between commercial/free source
programs to gather a understanding of the benefits of each, Steve Qualline,

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(1997, pg 3) comments on free software versus commercial software and why
people consider commercial software as good software. “Consider Quality.
Commercial Software gives people the impression of quality. After all, if the
software wasn’t any good, how could they charge money for it”

I Moving specifically onto Google Chrome OS, the author’s looked at the
functionality Krishnan Subramanian at cloudave.com (July 7, 2009) highlights
the attributes Google Chrome will provide “First let us look at some facts about
this OS and then I will offer my first thoughts… Web, Web, Web, Web, Web
(Imagine someone from Google jumping up and down and shouting this similar
to what Steve Ballmer did about developers). Web is their mantra and this OS is
designed with that in mind. It will be open source.
It will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Speed, simplicity
and security are the key aspects of this OS. They are redesigning the underlying
security architecture based on the idea that the user experience will be purely on
the web.”

Gary Marshall from Techradar.co.uk provides more information about the

functionality of Google Chrome OS (10th December, 2010) “There's no underlying
operating system to Chrome: unlike, say, Apple's iOS you don't have a choice
between native applications and web applications. Every Chrome application is a
web application; think browser-based apps rather than desktop ones. As a result,
apps in the Chrome Web Store will run "all [desktop] browsers that support this
technology." One observer has already drawn attention to why Google Chrome
will be a failure. Farhad Manjoo from slate.com (July, 2009) says “Linux is hard to
love. Chrome OS will be based on Linux, the open-source operating system that
many techies have long held up as the white knight that will one day slay
Microsoft. Scores of engineers and eager entrepreneurs have tried to turn Linux
into an operating system that appeals not just to server ninjas but to regular
people. They've had limited success”

From the review above, it is suitable to conclude the following:-

 Google Chrome OS is designed for users of the web

 Google Chrome is based upon a open source Operating System that can be
technical to use in some versions
 There is both optimism and scepticism for Google Chrome OS in the future

Methodology

In order to acquire the information required, methods of data collation were

used to gather the information and layout in a meaningful manner. The author’s
considered various means of data collation but decided to use just two,
Laboratory experimentation and Survey research. These two chosen methods
provided the author’s with a suitable amount of qualitative and quantitative data
to use. Ethical considerations will be taken into account during the collation of

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data; this includes the University and BCS (British Computing Society) Ethical
Code, which can be found in the appendices.

Experimental Design

Due to Google Chrome OS being a fairly new operating system, there were very
few people who would have had exposure to the system. This fact alone made it
clear the author’s had to expose people to Google Chrome OS before they could
gather any meaningful data. Laboratory Experiments focus on keeping all
variables the same except the one being measured, the unchanging variables are
known are dependent variables.. In the case of this situation, the changing
(independent) variable will be the individual being exposed to Google Chrome
OS. The individuals were specifically chosen to ensure that there was less chance
of biased during the experiment and to increase the variety of backgrounds that
could be obtained from random screenings.

During the Laboratory Experiment, the individual was asked to perform various
activities using Google Chrome OS from a sheet of tasks. Their ability to complete
the tasks was recorded and was compiled into graph’s to show who could
complete the tasks and who couldn’t.

The benefits of this method are that the author’s can acquire a small sample of
thoughts and opinions on the functionality of the OS, which can be used to gain a
verdict on the functionality of Google Chrome. A copy of the experimental design
can be found in the appendix

Sample Questionnaire

Apart from obtaining data from the individual during testing, it felt necessary to
obtain data prior and after testing. This was to gather opinion about Google
Chrome OS before exposing the individual to the OS and allowing them to
perform the tasks set out by the author’s. Once the individual has performed
completed/failed the tasks, they will once again be asked questions regarding
the OS now that they have had a chance to use it.

The questions designed allows the individual to give both qualitative and
quantitative data (open ended/closed ended answers), the qualitative data will
be looked through for key phrases which will be matched upto codes decided
upon by the author’s that are considered key to the functionality of the operating
system. The quantitative questions will be arranged into graph’s to show how
the individuals exposed to the OS perceive the system; this ties in with what
Catherine Dawson says in her book (2009, pg 31)

“Many researchers tend to use a combination of both open and closed questions.
That way, it is possible to find out how many people use a service and what they
think about that services on the same form.”

The benefits of this method is that the author’s can acquire data about those who
have not used Google Chrome OS and compare the data they gave against the

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data the individual gave after they had used Google Chrome. This allows the
author’s to compare opinions and to gauge how easy people think it is to pick up
using Google Chrome OS.

Rejected Methods

Although two methods were used, others methods were discussed although not
used. These were: -

 Case Studies
 Focus Groups

Case Studies required sufficient information about a situation which could be

studied, unfortunately Google Chrome has only been about for the last few
month’s which means there is not enough information to build a case study
about Google Chrome.

Focus Groups are used to gather information quickly from samples of people
chosen by yourself, these groups are asked questions about the topic studied and
their opinion on it. Once again due to Google Chrome being new, it was deemed
not worth using a focus group, as the likelihood of gaining useful information
from it was low. Catherine Dawson also backs up the decision within her book
(pg 30)

“Disadvantages of Focus Groups include… Other people may contaminate an

individuals views.. Difficult to extract individual views during the analysis.”

Results

The results gained from the questionnaires show that the majority of people that
took part in the study were highly optimistic about the operating system before
having a chance to use it, the main reasons were they believed Google had
established its reputation as a trustable company to produce such software and
that it was believed they had the resources to do so.

The majority of people classed themselves as technical users, the literature

review showed that non-technical people may struggle using Google Chrome OS,
unfortunately the results could not confirm this but they do show that technical
users do not have a problem with using Google Chrome.

The general consensus regarding performance and functionality was that Google
Chrome booted from startup quicker than their preferred operating system, one
individual estimating as much as a thirty second gap. None of the participant’s
reports having any issues with using the OS.

Lastly, the majority of people actually considered using Google Chrome OS when
it is publically released, which the author’s believe is a major contribution to the
conclusion of this project.

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Conclusion

The author’s of this project set out to achieve the following: -

 Identify the quality of user experience within Google Chrome OS Linux

 To heighten awareness of the accessibility of the operating system.

Following the data collection and analysis conducted, the author’s of this project
believe they have succeeded in both points and can now say that the quality of
user experience within Google Chrome, even within its early stages of
development is very high. The majority of participants believed Google Chrome
easy to use and quicker in performance than their preferred OS.

The majority of participants also said they would consider using the OS in the
future, this means that the author’s second point to heighten awareness has
succeeded and hope it will flourish in the future. After coding the collected data,
the majority of words gathered from the open-ended questions suggested a
positive and high-quality experience before and after using Google Chrome.
These codes included
 Loaded Quickly
 None (In response to any problems encountered)
 Yes due to trust put in company/ Amount of resources company has (In
response to faith in Google being able to construct a OS)

The adherence to the project plan that was constructed at the beginning of the
study was extremely good; the author’s believe that it was the adherence to this
plan that allowed them to gather the information promptly. The plan can be
found in the appendices below.

References

Colin, R.,2001. Operating Systems: Incorporating UNIX and Windows, 4 th Edition.

Thomson Learning

English, J., 2004. Introduction to Operating Systems. Palgrave Macmillian

Garrido,J.M, Schlesinger, R., 2007. Principles of Modern Operating Systems. Jones

& Bartlett Publishers

Qualline, S., 1997.Discover Linux. Wiley Publishing

Dawson, C., 2009. Introduction to Research Methods 4th Edition. How To Books
Ltd

Google Chrome Information, 2009 [Online] Available at:

http://www.cloudave.com/1893/google-chrome-os-why-why-why/ [Accessed
5th March 2011]

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Google Chrome Information , 2010 [Online] Available at:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/google-chrome-
os-what-you-need-to-know-914070 [Accessed 5th March 2011]

Five Reasons Why Google Chrome is a Bad Idea, 2009 [Online] Availablt at:
http://www.slate.com/id/2222564/ [Accessed 5th March 2011]

Appendices

Ethical Code of Conduct

The following work will adhere to all ethical practices that are part of Edge Hill
University and the BCS (British Computing Society)

Links to the ethical Code of Conduct of the BCS can be found below: -

http://www.bcs.org/category/6030

The following Edge Hill Ethical considerations will be particularly taken into
account: -

1 The primary responsibility for the conduct of ethical research lies with the
researcher. It is a fundamental principle that students engaged in research
adopt a continuing personal commitment to act ethically, to encourage ethical
behaviour in those with whom they collaborate, and to consult where
appropriate concerning ethical issues. 

2 General Responsibilities 

2.1 Towards research participants: Researchers have a responsibility

to ensure as far as possible that the physical, social and psychological
well-being of their research participants is not detrimentally affected by
the research. Research relationships should be characterised,
whenever possible, by mutual respect and trust.   

3 Informed Consent 

3.1 Research should be based, as far as possible and practicable, on

the freely given first person consent of those under study.  

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 3.2 It is the responsibility of the researcher to explain as fully as is
reasonable and appropriate, and in terms meaningful to the
participants: the aims and nature of the research, who is undertaking it,
who is funding it, its likely duration, why it is being undertaken, the
possible consequences of the research, and how the results are to be
disseminated.

3.4 The researcher should explain how far research participants will be

afforded anonymity and confidentiality and participants should have the
option of rejecting the use of data-gathering devices such as tape-
recorders and video cameras

4 Confidentiality and Anonymity 

4.1 The anonymity and privacy of research participants should be

respected and personal information relating to participants should be
kept confidential and secure. Researchers must comply with the
provisions of the Data Protection Act. 

4.2 Where possible, threats to the confidentiality and anonymity of

research data should be anticipated by researchers and normally the
identities and research records of participants should be kept
confidential, whether or not an explicit pledge of confidentiality has
been given. 

5 Procedures for Approval .

Course Leaders in undergraduate programmes are responsible for

ensuring that all undergraduate students are aware of, and agree to
abide by, the principles expressed in this Code of Conduct, through
their respective Course Handbooks. All students are required to signal
their adherence to the principles expressed in this Code of Conduct by
filling in the appropriate form and including it with their assignment
cover sheet.

Questionnaires

Collected Questionnaires

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Questionnaire 1

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Questionnaire 2

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Coded Phrases/ Collated Graphs

Before Testing

Question Two

Do you feel sceptical of the fact that Google can successfully design an Operating
System similar to other corporate operating systems, such as Microsoft? If so,
why do you think this?

Question 2

Yes/ Trusted Company

2 Yes/ Has Resources
3 No/ Mostly Web Based
No
1

Question Three

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Would you describe yourself as a technical or non-technical computer user? (For
instance, are you knowledgeable with things such as computer programming?)

Question 3

1 Technical
Non-Technical

After Testing

Question Seven

You should have observed how well the Operating system started up. Did it
successfully load? If so, did it load quickly or slowly? (If the OS doesn’t load the
first time, try again.)

Question 7

1 Loaded
Loaded/Quickly
Loaded/Slowly
4th Qtr

Question Eight

On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being “Very Difficult” and 5 being “Very Simple”), how

easily could you navigate the user interface?

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 Question 8
1 Lowest
1 2
1 3
4
1 5 Best
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Question Ten

Google Chrome OS is currently in its beta testing phase, and not scheduled for
release until mid-2011. Despite this, and after testing it for yourself, could you
see Google Chrome OS being successful when officially released to the general
public?

Question 10

Yes
3 No

Project Plan

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