Evaluation of Windows Paintbrush

Author : Alan C. Dube

Date: 8/19/95

Microsoft Windows Paintbrush

Introduction

This paper will evaluate Microsoft Windows Paintbrush 3.11, guided by the Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction (QUIS) 5.0-L document developed by Ben Shneiderman and refined by Dr. Kent Norman of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland (Shneiderman, 1992). Paintbrush is a drawing application included with the Microsoft Windows operating system as an accessory item, and is used to create and edit a variety of graphic image files (BMP, DIB, MSP, PCX). The application was evaluated on a Toshiba T1910, a 486/33SX notebook computer with 8 MB of RAM. Reactions to the application overall and its screen design, terminology and information, ease of learning, and capabilities based on the QUIS ratings (on a scale from 1 to 9, with 1 being negative satisfaction and 9 being positive satisfaction) will be discussed. The paper will close with recommendations for improving the Paintbrush application.

Overall User Reaction

The Paintbrush application received an average score of 7.0 in this category, indicating a positive impression. Paintbrush was easy to use and understand. Its use of icons to represent and enable drawing actions was intuitive and reinforced Microsoft's (1992) standard of consistency:

Applications should build on the user's real-world experience by exploiting concrete metaphors and natural mapping relationships. The use of familiar concepts and metaphors reduces the amount of new material that users must learn and thereby makes applications easier to use (p. 4).

As most of us learn to draw and doodle at an early age, any drawing application should build upon previously learned artistic concepts. Paintbrush exploits this concept well. Paintbrush groups its drawing icons and a color palette as separate command toolbars, allowing the user to quickly switch between drawing tools and colors with minimal searching and keyboard/mouse interaction.

Paintbrush, as with most Windows applications, is heavily dependent upon a mouse for input and direct manipulation. A variety of keyboard commands can be used as an alternative to mouse movement to evoke drawing, file, and menu functions, but their many combinations quickly become cumbersome to remember and use. Keyboard commands are nearly impossible to use for any type of detailed freehand drawing.

Paintbrush exhibited some rigidity in its use: The drawing tool and palette toolbars could not be moved to a different location, and image attributes (size) could not be changed without first saving, then reopening the current workfile. The application also lacked a "Print Preview" or "WYSIWYG" feature, causing concern that what was displayed on the screen is not what would be printed. Paintbrush also had some unclear or confusing functions: The "Text" menu option was always enabled, whether or not a text object was being manipulated at the time, and the "Omit Picture Format" selection from the "Image" menu option didn't appear to have any effect on the current work (help for this feature could not be found).

Screen Design

Paintbrush received an average rating of 7.33 in this category, indicating a positive review. Characters on the screen were easy to read and conformed to the Windows standard font typeface. Highlighting and reverse video effects were used when appropriate -- mainly for menu selection and drawing-tool activation feedback. The layout and arrangement of tools on the screen (to the left and bottom), as well as the "easel" or drawing area, conformed to what a logical creative environment should be. Screen sequencing was uniform and predictable. The "Zoom In" and "Zoom Out" selection under the "View" menu option was particularly helpful, allowing the user to paint pixels (picture elements) in a concentrated area and look at the entire picture respectively.

Paintbrush employs the Windows standard of using pull-down menus for displaying its options and follows Shneiderman's (1992) guidelines for affordance, highlighting, de-selection, and activation. Paintbrush menus, again as a Windows standard, use an ellipsis ("...") next to an option to indicate a further dialog box is needed to define the event -- thus avoiding menu and screen clutter (Microsoft, 1992).

An example of the Paintbrush screen (Microsoft, 1995) appears below (p. 135).

Terminology and System Information

Paintbrush averaged a positive 6.23 in this category. Task and computer terminology used was consistent throughout the application. The terminology related well to the work in progress, however there were times when the user had to seek out a definition in the help system as to what a term meant. This was especially evident in the "Image Attributes" selection under "Options," where a picture's color and height/width can be set in either inches, centimeters, or "pels." What exactly "pels" were took some investigation. "Pels" turned out to be the same as pixels, the smallest element that can be displayed on a screen, and refer to an image's resolution.

The system and error messages that appeared were informative, and usually took the form of a dialog box. Absent from Paintbrush was the use of a status or message line at the bottom of the screen. This feature is evident in other Microsoft applications (Word, Excel) and dialogues (Control Panel). Command instructions were not readily available and did not need to be due to Paintbrush's heavy reliance on intuitive drawing icons. Paintbrush kept the user informed during most operations, and changed the pointer depending on what function was active. For example, during file retrieval an hour glass would display; when filling in an object with color a paint roller appeared; a cross-hair pointer appeared when drawing geometric objects. It did not appear that the user could configure or control the amount of feedback received from the application.

Ease of Learning

Paintbrush had an average score of 7.10 in this area, indicating its strength as an application that is easy to learn and master in a short time. Remembering most of the commands was simple due to the icon-based toolset and the application's ease of feature exploration. Paintbrush, being an application that nurtures creativity, invites the user to immediately experiment with its drawing features and discover new techniques. Some of the drawing tools, especially the "Curve" and "Polygon," require practice beforehand in order to use them effectively within a drawing. Paintbrush has additional features, such as the ability to flip, invert, tilt, and shrink and grow a selected object, that also require practice to effectively apply and master them. Using these features is not intuitive, as the user must refer to the "Help" instructions on their use. However, retention of the commands thereafter is excellent due to the graphic nature of the command execution.

Drawing tasks in Paintbrush could generally be performed in a straight-forward manner: One simply clicks on the drawing object and draws with it. The tasks followed a logical sequence of steps, except for some of the advanced drawing tools that required specific mouse or keyboard action to implement them. Accessing the "Help" information was easy (a "Help" menu selection was available), and the content and amount of help available was sufficient for the application.

System Capabilities

Paintbrush received an average rating of 7.53 for its system capabilities, a positive score. On the platform for which Paintbrush was evaluated, response times and the rates of display were acceptable. Paintbrush understandably took longer to load and display images that were large and contained many pixels. A faster computer, with a video accelerator, would result in better response time and display rate for complex images. Paintbrush's operations were reliable, with no failures noted. Paintbrush supplied the user with the ability to correct mistakes by way of the "Undo" menu command. Paintbrush is a simple application designed for the novice computer artist. Paintbrush does not contain any apparent "expert" modes or features.

Recommendations for Improving Paintbrush

Paintbrush contains a powerful and simple metaphor for creating impressive graphic images. As it is included with Windows as a mere accessory, there is probably not much motivation present at Microsoft to improve the application. However, improvements can be made to make the application more efficient, powerful, flexible, and easier to use.

Livingston (1992) points out that Paintbrush's "File Open" dialog box always lists BMP (bit mapped) and DIB (device- independent bit mapped) files first. BMP files can require significantly more disk space than their PCX (a graphic file standard with compression) counterparts, and DIB files are rarely used. Therefore, Livingston suggests that Microsoft should distribute PCX files with Windows instead of BMPs, and that Paintbrush should be modified to open the BMP and PCX file formats first.

Keyes (1991) provides the following checklist of important features that a drawing product should contain:

• • Design accuracy. Graphic objects should be true-to-life and scaled properly, with smooth and perfect features.

  • Speed. Object repositions and redraws should occur rapidly.

  • WYSIWYG. It doesn't make sense to labor for hours over a drawing, only to have the output differ from what is on the screen.

  • Clip art library. Users shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.

While Paintbrush is accurate in its display and demonstrates adequate speed, it does lack a WYSIWYG feature and clip art library. A "Print Preview" function should be added to Paintbrush to ensure accurate print output. Sample clip art objects, in either PCX or BMP format, could be included with Windows to allow the user to invoke the "Paste From" function within Paintbrush with a wider selection of files than is currently available.

Other than the ability to manipulate the color palette, Paintbrush lacks any capacity for user customization. An important improvement to Paintbrush would be to allow the user to locate the drawing tool and color palette toolbars to a user- preferred location, rather than anchoring them to their current screen locations. Even better: Allow the toolbars to be resizeable and "floating," so that the user can move them about the screen as needed when working on different parts of a drawing.

Finally, the addition of context-sensitive help would make an easy application even easier to use. Microsoft could employ its standard of positional identification (which is used in other applications) to Paintbrush, describing (in a small comment box) a drawing tool's action when the mouse pointer is positioned over it. Paintbrush also lacks the ability, again present in other Windows applications, to get immediate help on a dialog box item by pressing the F1 key.

The incorporation of these recommendations would help Paintbrush to be a better application and foster the success of the product, and the Windows environment itself.

References

Keyes, J. (1991). Drawing tools add panache and pizzazz. Computerworld, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 87.

Livingston, B. (1992). Make your Paintbrush dialog box show the PCX files you want. InfoWorld, Vol. 14, No. 49, p. 28.

Microsoft Windows user's guide. (1993). Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press.

Shneiderman, B. (1992). Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

The windows interface: An application design guide. (1992). Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press.