ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Michael Zanetti <michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi there

On 21.09.2016 17:15, Guillaume F wrote:
> 
> 1) The small part
> In the new notification panel there is a setting in "Vibration"
> regarding whether the device should vibrate when in Silent mode. The
> choice is presented in the form of a list, and I found it strange. If
> the choice is "do" or "don't", shouldn't a switch or a checkbox be more
> appropriate?

fair enough... As it say "no vibration" or "normal vibration" as opposed
to "Vibrate" or "don't vibrate" it kinda suggests there might be more in
the future, like "short vibration", "long vibration"... In which case
the list would make sense again. If not, I tend to agree with you that a
switch would've been better.

> 
> 2) The slightly less small part
> The new network indicator now displays an empty SIM card for the second
> slot in the phone (if you don't have a second SIM card of course).
> What's the point of this change? Most people have only one SIM card,
> right, so why waste space in the indicator panel for something like
> that? The previous behaviour was much better. Because if we go down that
> path, why not always display the keyboard, rotation or file indicators
> (I'm not saying we should!)? Or maybe this is just a bug?

This, apparently, turns out to be a operator requirement... I reported a
bug about this when it first appeared in rc-proposed but it seems to be
required by network operators to indicate if a SIM card is not present
(it might be damaged and the system not recognizing it any more or
something).

> 
> 3) The bigger but not-so-new part
> Finally, I wanted to talk about the launcher a bit. Nothing new here! I
> understand the idea behind the fact that it's inverted in staged mode,
> but I still have doubts about it. Maybe someone could shed some light on
> this :).
> 
> On the phone, the Dash button is at the bottom so you can access it more
> easily. But after one and a half year with my Ubuntu phone, I found that
> I very rarely use this button, since a long swipe has the same result
> and is faster (same conclusion from my other testing subject, but she
> never opens the Dash on the desktop either, so…). And on the tablet, it
> actually is less accessible than if it were at the top, since your thumb
> is most likely to be somewhere near the top. So is it really a good
> reason to invert the launcher? I think a user does not mind changes in
> the UI as long as they understand their purpose (like window
> decoration), but this one seems more confusing than important.
> 
> Personnally, I feel that things get problematic with a device capable of
> "dual modes", like the tablet. It's OK if your phone doesn't have the
> same launcher as your desktop, they are two separate entities. Not so
> with the tablet. When I reach for the launcher to open some app, I'm not
> looking for the right icon. I'm looking for the icon at the right
> position (is that standard human behaviour or are we a minority to think
> like that?). When you use your tablet as a PC and then as a tablet,
> there's always a moment of hesitation and you have to sift through the
> icons to find the good one – which breaks the whole "rapid launch"
> concept – because your app is not where you expect it to be.

I think you definitely have a fair point about it being inverted on a
tablet... It does not help there. On phone-sized devices though, it's
not only about the dash button. all the other launcher icons are aligned
at the bottom too, and I certainly use them a lot and would struggle
more if they were on the top.

Nevertheless, I'll bring this up again with designers, at least for the
tablet use case I agree with you.


> 
> Actually, I think that's quite similar to the "back" button story in
> Ubuntu. Originally it was in the Bottom edge, exactly in the same part
> of the screen than the Dash button, for the same reason. And it made
> sense (and you use the "back" button far more often than the Dash
> button). But it has been decided to move it in the header, which is
> quite harder to access, but is where people expect it to be. Two design
> principles clash: having the most important part of the UI always very
> accessible, or conforming to the users' habits, however "wrong" they
> might be.
> 
> If we don't want to confuse the user, we should not invert the launcher.
> So the next question is: which orientation is best fit for all? Is the
> classic top-down launcher currently used on the desktop the best one?
> Should we consider having the Dash at the bottom of the screen? Many
> people are accustomed to that because of the Windows Start menu, and it
> might also be easier to have a consistent design for the new Dash for
> users who want the whole launcher at the bottom (like in Kylin) since
> the Dash button would be exactly at the same place. And anyway, since
> there's not a bit of orange left in the UI, this big orange square is
> bound to draw people's attention wherever it might be!
> 
> tl;dr, if what I've written makes sense, the launcher inversion
> introduces confusion, and this outweights the potential advantages. So
> why do it?
> 
> What am I missing? I know the Design team does user testing, was this
> issue ever mentionned during the process?
> 
> I'd be interested to know what other Ubuntu users think on that matter!
> 
> Again, thank you all for your great work!

Cheers,
Michael

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