unity-design team mailing list archive

[Steve Dodier <sidnioulz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I think Mike said what i wanted to say.

My worry is that you get a notification as soon as you stop typing. Usually,
when i'm typing a document (i'm not speaking about forms, which indeed
require me to watch the label of the fields i'm filling), the only moments
when i stop are when i need to think about what i wrote, which happens a
lot. I think an user using a word processor or writing an email would likely
stop typing to think too, and thus triggering the notifications at this
exact time would be counter productive.

The current notifications are not that intrusive (except in specific cases :
firefox's search field / fullscreen apps), and i think users can easily
ignore me when they're busy typing a document or browsing the web, as long
as they dont pop up in the middle of the screen (when i watch my family
using Ubuntu, i notice they dont react to the notifications, and i didn't
hear any complaint about them).

I dont think we'd gain much by trying to guess the behaviour of the user,
because it requires being able to imagine absolutely any activity /
behaviour (s)he can have. My HMI courses were poor but i've been warned that
it wasnt an feasible task, back then. We would always forget an usecase and
disturb someone who's focusing on his work.

That's why i think it would be wise to only delay notifications when it is
obvious that the user needs his(her) eyes somewhere else. The best approach
for me consists of making notifications that are easy to spot on the screen
but that someone focusing on something else can easily not notice. I think
notify-osd is approaching this state now, and we should focus on improving
its last bugs, this will likely receive more praise from users ;)

Cordially, SD.