unity-design team mailing list archive

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2009-12-09 at 14:27 -0300, Martin Albisetti wrote:

> My understanding is that the countdown is there to:
> - Prevent mistakes and allow you to bail out
> - In case you hit shutdown and left without reading, it would shutdown 
> automatically eventually
> 
> I'm tempted to jump into a wireframe, but I'm interested in getting some more 
> eyes and brains on the problem before.


Noticed the same observing my mother.


To recall, the dialog has the title "Shut Down",
the text "The computer will shut down in 60 seconds"
and the buttons [Cancel] and [Shut Down].

== Approaches to fix this are: ==
- improve the dialog or
- do away with the countdown entirely (too risky) or
- shorten the countdown to maybe 10 seconds or
- have a mechanism in the menu to guard against accidental activation
- go back to something resembling the previous design, one way to
trigger a dialog with all the "dangerous" commands as large buttons (I'm
sure you won't do that).


= Dialog =

"Shut Down Immediately" would maybe be a better button label, as the
menu item was already "Shut Down..".

The dialog could be designed to make it look like the Shut_Down button
will be pressed automatically after the countdown. Perhaps a bar on the
left side of the button, running down to it. Or a dot traveling on a
line towards the button.


= Menu =

The menu item could require a click-hold of 1 second or so for
activation, to then proceed with no further delay. Or a click-drag, but
this would have to communicated somehow.

There could be a 1 item sub-menu for the real command, but this could be
a bit hard on motor skill.

Or all the account/power commands could be in a radial menu :)


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/