--- Begin Message ---
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To:
Ryan Prior <ryanprior@xxxxxxxxx>
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From:
"Paulo J. S. Silva" <pjssilva@xxxxxxxxxx>
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Date:
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:30:09 -0300
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In-reply-to:
<1172c9070906141910o2dbd8acey9437848559c9ac5f@mail.gmail.com>
Ryan,
Why did you answer directly to me? Shouldn't the discussion take place
in the list?
Do you have some hard data to back up your assertions on the fact that
repeated notifications + a well designed icon on the panel versus a
pop-under window will generate fewer updates? Do you know about any real
experiment in this area? I would certainly like to see such data. Or is
it just a hint, or "common-sense" (which is the most rare sense of all,
I certainly don't have much :-)?
What I would expect with the flashing pop-under (it still flashes, or
did it change?), is that the user that wants to ignore it would close
the update-manager application to get rid of it. I was doing just that
whenever I didn't want to stop my work at the moment the pop-under
appeared. Many of my friends are doing the same. The bug report has also
many people talking about non-technical users that were trained to close
pop-up/unders as a possible sign of virus or something. I can certainly
see my mother doing the same. The problem with this behavior is that it
does not leave any "visible" trace behind. Hence, I forget to upgrade
the machine before "leaving to lunch" and in the end I upgrade less, not
more.
I believe that the best behavior to ensure upgrade for those "human"
users you talk about (we are all human, aren't we?), is the following:
1) At install ask the user what is the typical connection to the net
(modem, adsl/cable, fast adsl/cable, etc.).
2) Configure update-manager to download updates using only a fraction of
the available bandwith (I am not sure if to do 2 we need to get the
information in 1).
Obs: A possible problem here is that some users have data plans that
limit the amount of downloads per periods (like a month). Hence if the
download is big, the user may prefer to postpone it. Maybe ask about
this in (1) and turn off (2) in this case would be preferable.
3) Automatically install upgrades after a logout or a request to
shutdown or restart.
obs: Of course (2) and (3) should be only a default option, that more
technical users could turn-off easily. Such behavior should be also well
documented.
4) If the user does not logout, present upgrade notifications bubbles
after each time the user unlocks the screen or start some desktop
activity after a long period of inactivity (in similar fashion that some
IM clients change automatically the user status to away and back to
available).
Finally, and interesting idea that just occurred me, would be to use a
different background color for critical system notifications, for
example red instead of the current black.
Best,
Paulo
Obs: The small icon that would get unnoticed would be the same icon that
currently alerts the user that he has email and chat messages pending.
In this case, it is better to think about a better and maybe larger
icon. Emails and IM are a major use of computer even for my mom, humans
usually don't let such things unnoticed. They'll look at that icon and
they will know it looks rather different than the usual shape.
Obs2: Most of the people that are complaining about the new behavior, me
included, would be just fine with having a *supported* option to turn on
the old behavior. If you read my original email carefully, I state the
we were warned that that options is unsupported and that it can go away
in the future. So your suggestion that we "need to submit to either
adjust it to the old way or get accustomed to the new way" is not a real
option that Ubuntu is giving us. We can always try to fork
update-notifier to keep the old behavior (or to use the behavior I
proposed), but I would really prefer such a critical piece of my
operating system coming from original sources and not from a PPA.
Obs3: Writing that "need to submit to either adjust it to the old way or
get accustomed to the new way", is certainly not a very positive or
humanistic way of defending a point of view...
Em Dom, 2009-06-14 às 22:10 -0400, Ryan Prior escreveu:
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Paulo J. S. Silva<pjssilva@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > The purpose of this message is to present an alternative that I believe
> > is in line with the spirit of osd-notifier and that would avoid the
> > users of obtrusive pop-unders.
>
> You say that the pop-under windows are obtrusive, which implies being
> so noticeable as to be undesirable.
>
> I can understand that for folks who pay close attention to computer
> screens, an indicator icon is fine and a pop-under window seems like
> overkill. I am guessing that if we've got 300-odd upset users in the
> bug tracker or brainstorm, these are the people who can watch small
> icons just fine and have a low tolerance for the operating system
> opening windows when you didn't ask it to.
>
> However, I think that you and all of the folks upset by the change
> need to submit to either adjust it to the old way or get accustomed to
> the new way. For the vast majority of computer users I know, small
> icons go unnoticed. On Windows, clicking a small icon in the task bar
> can do any number of frightening things and many Windows users who
> have come to Ubuntu are shy about clicking icons that aren't tied to
> an application they've installed. These are the "human" users for whom
> we're designing.
>
> Pop-under windows should rarely be seen, and should only be used for
> mission-critical cases. Getting users to update their computers is
> mission-critical. Ubuntu users are a lot more secure when updates are
> downloaded speedily. The fact is that pop-under windows get the job
> done in a way that little icons don't. It is a relatively drastic
> measure, but getting updates out there is the most critical part of
> the security pipeline and so to do less is, in my opinion, neglecting
> the user.
>
>
> Thank you for your input. I hope that you can understand my point of
> view and I also hope that, when you take a longer view of the
> situation for computer updates, you'll agree that the benefits
> outweigh the drawbacks.
>
> Cheers,
> Ryan Prior
>
--
Paulo José da Silva e Silva
Professor Associado, Dep. de Ciência da Computação
(Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept.)
Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil
e-mail: pjssilva@xxxxxxxxxx Web: http://www.ime.usp.br/~pjssilva
Teoria é o que não entendemos o (Theory is something we don't)
suficiente para chamar de prática. (understand well enough to call
practice)
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