unity-design team mailing list archive

[Scott Kitterman <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:40:12 +0530 mac_v <drkvi-a@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
>It is accepted that the icon is NOT very useful and also ignored
...

I have to disagree.  This has been repeatedly asserted, but I don't recall 
any actual studies that support this.  

This change has been overwhelmingly negatively received by all classes of 
user.

My own view is that the old method was quite reasonably discoverable for 
users that cared about updates and that being more obvious isn't going to 
cause signficant numbers of users that don't care to suddenly start doing 
so.  I think mostly this change is annoying both groups.

I believe the current efforts try to solve the wrong problem.  I think it 
would be a better use of this mental energy trying to figure out how to get 
more users to care about updates.  

I've been stunned to be talking to people who said they didn't care if 
their computers were part of a botnet because they didn't keep any private 
information on their computers.  Trying to find a way to be sufficiently 
obtrusive to make users care about something they don't really care about 
isn't, in my opinion, a recipe for success.

Scott K