Re: [Ayatana] Gradual-awareness notifications (was Re: GSoC '10 Idea : NotifyOSD improvements)

[Celeste Lyn Paul <celeste@xxxxxxx>]

While an interesting approach, the researchers only tested 7 subjects
and the paper was never published (that I could find). It is a source
of ideas, but not evidence of a particular solution. I'm not sure I
agree with his interpretation of some of his citations either.

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Diego Moya <turingt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi. I'm new to the list, but have been a Gnome user for more than 10 years
> and Ubuntu user since 5.04. I did my part of usability work back at College,
> and would like to contribute my humble knowledge and options to this
> project.
>
> I'd like to bring to your consideration an article that addresses the
> problem of intrusive asynchronous notifications an provides an effective
> solution: Growing Pop-ups.
>
> "Reducing the Cost of Interruption Using Gradual Awareness Notifications"
> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/lapis/projects/slowgrowth/slow-growth-technote.pdf
> (short version)
> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/projects/slowgrowth/gradual-awareness.pdf
>        (longer article)
>
>
> You might want to explore this approach as part of your ongoing effort to
> redesign the notification system.
>
> The rational for gradual growing notifications is that it will only
> interrupt the user's conscious flow at natural task breaks, when the user is
> ready to process the notification. The article shows that this technique
> produces a less intrusive  than pop-ups: in the experiment, users tended to
> be interrupted by the notification mainly when finished typing words,
> instead of while typing (as pop-up notifications did).
>
> It has some advantages over other techniques for notification typically used
> in the system tray:
> - it doesn't depend on color, so it works for accessibility
> - it is not a flashy but a subtle effect
> - the growing speed can be used to signal the relative importance of the
> notification (fast growing alerts take less time to be noticed).
> - semantic zooming provides progressively more information: just icons when
> the notification is small, more text as the panel grows.
>
> I think this technique would combine well with the current approach of
> ethereal notifications in NotifyOSD and for status changes in the panel
> indicators. Maybe it could be used as well for interactive alerts and
> dialogs raised by applications without focus. Might be worth exploring.
>
> Diego
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 6:48 AM, Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>On 19/03/10 02:22, Dylan McCall wrote:
>>> This begs the question: Why on Earth was the coloured wants-attention
>> > icon dropped? Could indicator-messages differentiate the importance of
>> > events and use a different icon accordingly? (For example, coloured
>> > icon for actual messages, just lit up for when contacts log in).
>>
>>The spectrum of attention-grabbiness, if you want to think of it that
>>way, is:
>>
>> - outline
>> - dimmed
>> - full mono
>> - green
>> - orange
>> - red
>>
>>We don't flash :-)
>>
>>
>>It's also true that we don't know exactly how it will work out. Elements
>>of the panel, like the session menu, me menu, and the messaging menu,
>>share subtle but interlinked relationships. Are you online? That's in
>>the me menu. Has someone sent you a message because you're online?
>>That's in the messaging menu. I can't pretend we are totally sure we
>>know how the pieces will fit best, so we have to iterate and experiment.
>>Perhaps someone knows where the tablets are that define the perfect
>>solution, but I don't, so we are making a start, and evaluating as we go.
>
>
>
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-- 
Celeste Lyn Paul
KDE Usability Project
KDE e.V. Board of Directors
www.kde.org