ulc-devs team mailing list archive

[Frederik Elwert <frederik.elwert@xxxxxx>]

Am Donnerstag, den 01.12.2011, 15:35 +0100 schrieb Thibaut Brandscheid:

>  
>         > An other idea I had last week was to display the user-and-I
>         activity
>         > by a colored bar at the bottom of the user icon (green,
>         orange, gray).
>         > This feature would allow to get a quick overview on the sea
>         of Dash
>         > icons (negative: it would reduce the overall image size of
>         the icon).
>         > green = active, a lot of communication
>         > orange = medium
>         > gray = no communication for at last e.g. 6 months
>         >
>         > If we are able to receive user activity data, it would be
>         consistent
>         > to include it as Dash filter, too. Like the file size
>         feature in the
>         > files & folder lens, it would be possible to display only
>         contacts
>         > that match a specific activity like: don't show inactive
>         (grey)
>         > contacts or show only active contacts.
>         
>         
>         In your proposed categories, you dropped the “recent” category
>         I
>         proposed. If I understand correctly, this filter would replace
>         this.
> No, that was not the idea. On my mock-up, all contacts have a colored
> bar at the bottom. This bar indicates the affinity between the user
> and the displayed contact. This way it is possible to get a better
> overview when scanning with the eyes through a bigger amount of
> contacts in the Dash. I think everybody has 'dead contacts' in his
> address book. When searching all matching contacts, they are also
> displayed, and the colored bar at the bottom would make it easier to
> decide - in a blink of an eye - which entries are relevant.
> That's the idea.

Yes, I see. So the colored bar is the main indicator for affinity. It
would be complemented by a filter that allows to display only
high-affinity contacts.

I like the idea, that is not the problem. But I still see some kind of
redundancy of this implementation with a distinct “recent/regular”
category. Both serve the same goal: Find your most relevant contacts
fast and easy. The open question is, which method works better?

I think having contacts ordered by affinity and thus display the most
affine contacts first in this category, makes it even easier to find
them, compared to finding them by color in a list of alphabetically
sorted contacts.
>         
>         So this is why I think these categories make sense:
>         
>              * Online: I can start chatting immediately.
>              * Recent/regular: With these people, I communicate
>         regularly, so
>                it is probable I want to access their contact data now.
>              * Files: There was this funny slideshow my mom just sent
>         me
>                yesterday …
>         
>         The “All contacts” category is not strictly necessary, I
>         think. It is
>         just nice to be able to browse all contacts in an alphabetical
>         order.
>         But except for the ordering, its content would be identical to
>         the
>         recent/regular category. And one does find all information by
>         searching.
> This topic is a difficult one.
> First of all, I think we can't take away the 'All Contacts' category,
> every casual user will ask for that one. They want to be able to
> browse all their contacts in an alphabetic order. That might sound
> strange for a power user but this is the concession we have to make to
> accommodate normal users.
> 
> Two categories left.
> The files category, if technically feasible, would be super handy and
> therefore I would like to keep it.
> 
> For the last category the question I ask myself is, what weights more,
> online accounts or recent/regular. On the one side, there are a lot of
> people who don't use IM and microblogging at all (or aren't allowed to
> use it e.g. at work) - so that, for them, all the online indicator
> stuff is just lost screen space. With that in mind, I still think that
> online accounts should be the first category, simply because there is
> a growing group of connected people out there, and being connected in
> all kinds of ways is just the future :)

If you have no online contacts, that category will not even show, so I
think this is not a problem. That said, I agree having this category
availabe for those who use it.

> In a sentence (my point of view):
> 'All Contacts' category should stay, the rest is up for negotiation.

Okay, I understand your reasoning, so I would also be in favor of
keeping the “All contacts” category.

>         So, I see these questions need to be discussed:
>         ...
>             2. If we decide for a category, is having a fourth
>         category
>                acceptable?
> If yes, that could be 'All Contacts' or the file category. The fourth
> category wouldn't be visible without scrolling - I guess - when using
> the default Dash size and therefore would often go unnoticed, which is
> nearly equal to non-existence from a user point of view.

We don’t have the problem as long as we don’t implement the files
category, so I think we can just show the “All Contacts” category last
and still have it visible. We can re-arrange them when space becomes an
issue.

Regards
Frederik