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Re: [Ayatana] GSoC '10 Idea : NotifyOSD improvements



On 04/20/2010 10:42 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
A few design features that I have in mind (possibly conflicting from
the specs in the wiki) :

1.) Stacking, that'd make the bubbles dock downwards as they are
initiated and start to stack up as the bubble times finish away.
The idea is that a bubble should stay on screen long enough for you to
read it. If two or more bubbles were on screen at once, you'd have only
half the time to read each. We could compensate for that by making them
both stick around twice as long -- but that would mean the more bubbles
arrived at once, the more annoying each of them would be.

as in the thread on sound-themes, here's still the option of making duration and color dynamic: i.e. a (complex) function of mode, type, urgency and progress of the phenomenon i'm being notified about.

on another note:
what's most disturbing to anybody i discussed our bubbles with, is the absence of a simple way to suppress or dismiss them. what's with that? i don't necessarily need a configuration utility or a seperate section within the appearance settings.. an ON/OFF button would suffice for my desktop usage..

let me also point out, that interaction with bubbles is so often mentioned, because the users have no other way of entering the conversation they are being alarmed about. with about 30% - 50% netbook users around me in our monthly meetings, a great number of us is faced with the same problems: small displays of usually 10" size, trackpad (uncomfortable for the little messaging menu), panels on autohide, messaging menu unreachable and out of sight / reach, only way to know there's a new message waiting is by the window list, that is, if THAT panel is not also already on autohide.

now thanks a lot for informative bubbles, but how will they address these issues, if i have no way of using e.g. incoming-chat-message notifications interactively?

i was reminded of the importance of seperating information and interaction in the design of a UI. might this thumb-law of UI design deserve more attention in respect to our bubbles?

last but not least, i can imagine 3 levels of bubble-annoyance ;) :
*heavy - available, chatty, typing and moving the mouse
longest period reasonable, maximum obtrusiveness, maximum interactivity e.g. dismiss on click, open chat bubbles on gesture, high opacity and/or alerting bgcolor

*medium - away, extended away, afk etc..
medium display period of bubbles, dismissal on gesture, medium opacity and/or less alerting bgcolor

*heavy - busy, N/A, do not disturb
shortest tolerable display period, minimal intrusion, dismiss on heavy keyboard/mouse activity, low opacity and/or grey background

is this absolute nonesense, or could one consider it a direction to think about?