[Ayatana] Use cases for volume control

[Martín Soto <donsoto@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone:

I just tried to collect some use cases (user stories) based on our recent discussion about volume control. Here they are:

* Mary often listens to music from the computer in her room, while
  she's chatting with friends and browsing the web. She needs
  a quick way to set the volume to adapt it to her mood and to the
  recording level of the current song.

* Betty frequently uses an Internet telephone application to
  communicate with her daughter, who lives overseas. She needs an
  expedite way to set the playback volume of the phone program to
  adapt it to the amount of noise in the surrounding environment as
  well as to variations in communication quality.

* Javier works at home and uses Internet chat intensively to
  communicate with colleagues and clients. Since this is part of his
  job, it is very important for him to hear the audible signals when
  chat messages arrive. He's often worried about playing music from
  the computer because he fears that the music may prevent him from
  noticing an important message.

* Gerhardt listens to music from his office computer all day while
  he's working. If the telephone rings (Gerhard uses both the
  telephone in his desk and an Internet phone application) or someone
  knocks on the door, he's glad to have a quick way to mute the music
  for a while until the conversation is over.

* Axel spends hours every evening talking with his girlfriend on the
  Internet phone. Sometimes, he wants to play music while he's
  talking, and would appreciate to have an easy way to set up the
  volume so that he can listen to the music without missing parts of
  the conversation.

* Karolina loves playing games from the Internet, but often finds
  their music abhorrent. She would like to be able to mute the music
  (and eventually listen to her own music) while still being able to
  play the game.

IMO, the first four cases must absolutely be well served by the default design in Ubuntu (they aren't right now!). It would be nice to accommodate the last two cases also, but given that they are probably relevant to a small number of users, I'd wouldn't find it bad if an additional application/extension is necessary to support them properly.

Constructive criticism is of course welcome. I'd especially like to know if people find important cases that are still missing.

Cheers,

Martín