Recently, I've noticed several usability issues in Ubuntu that really are big annoyances that I think are being overlooked. After watching Mark's keynote the other day I thought I'd pen them down to see if perhaps we can fix some of them this cycle. I'm never sure if the Ayatana list is for general usability issues, or just specifically for usability features (e.g. indicators) so if this is OT I apologise.
The first one is the following use-case: A user wants Empathy to start on login.
Now, right now, stop what you are doing and go and make Empathy start on login without Googling for help or using the terminal.
Some of you will search Empathy's preferences; you guys are wrong.
Some of you will head for Startup Applications, you won't find it in the list, you will click add and then stare at a horrible dialog that leaves you no clue what to do next.
This is a common use case, not just for Empathy but also for email clients, or browsers. Why is it so hard? Why when I click browse on the dialog am I sent to a file browser rather than a list of applications? Why isn't Empathy in the list by default if it's installed? (BUG: https://bugs.launchpad.net/empathy/+bug/322314)
My dream would be that we'd have a decent task scheduler so that we could set applications to start on login, at certain times, or when the network is connected.
I've made a mockup of my opinion of how the dialog after you click the Add button should look like. Two things still concern me with this interface: how to make the user know that he either selects a program OR enters a custom command and also the size of the dialog for low resolution systems.
One thing I noticed is that on the menu entry it is called Startup Applications, but inside the window all the labels are "startup programs". Is that an inconsistency?
Thanks for the mockup! That's pretty much what I was considering. Regarding the naming, judging from the names of the items in the list, this should be "Startup Services" rather than "Startup Applications/Programs". The fact that you can add startup applications seems to be an after thought.
This makes me wonder, should we be differentiating between "Applications" (e.g. programs a user would launch) and "Services" (background programs). If I was redesigning this, I'd probably totally remove the add button from that dialog, rename it "Startup Services" and come up with a better system for making applications launch on login. I'd probably add a "Task Scheduler" GUI which works with cron, and dbus to trigger applications at certain times and after certain events (e.g. login, network connected).
Luke.