unity-design team mailing list archive

[cmaglothin <cmaglothin@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 5:26 PM, David Callé <davidc@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> As a non native english speaker, this mail won't be long. I will just
> share some assertions that I believe being true for a vast majority of
> users.
>
> 1) When I see my mouse cursor on my desktop, it means my computer is
> ready for action.
>
> 2) When the mouse cursor is acting strange (like disappearing or slowly
> moving), it means that there is something wrong with my computer.
>
> 3) My mouse cursor is my virtual hand. When I don't use my real hands, I
> move them away and I wouldn't want them to "disappear" whenever I don't
> use them.
>
> 4) Interacting with my computer include relying on several states of my
> mouse cursor (busy, active, ready to grab or to interact). Make it
> disappear and I have lost an indicator of an essential state of my
> computer : its ability or not, to do things.
>
> 5) When I don't see my cursor before moving it, it's like not seeing my
> taskbar and having to alt-tab.
>
> And the last two, maybe the most important ones :
>
> 6) When I see my mouse cursor, I instinctively know the amount of
> movement my hand or finger will need to take it to another place of the
> screen.
>
> 7) It's easier to define the future trajectory of an immobile object,
> than having to catch a moving object with my eye first, then redefining
> it's trajectory.
>
> That's why I think having unclutter by default is not such a good idea
> (even if the omnipresence of the mouse cursor is a challenging usability
> and design problem). We should try to think about redesigning it (the
> hard way), before deciding to give it an invisible state when idle (the
> easy way).
>
> Thanks for reading!
> Davidc
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> Post to     : ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>