unity-design team mailing list archive

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 17:13 -0400, Martin Owens wrote:
> Hello Designers,
> 
> I have just got back from an Ubuntu user's office where their Ubuntu
> computer 'didn't work at all'. It turns out that the networking checkbox
> was unchecked and the computer was simply offline.
> 
> Before I fixed it though I wanted to see how the user assessed the
> problem and tried to fix it:
> 
>  . Loaded Firefox using the quick link on the top pannel
>  . Got the yahoo search page (looks like we're online)
>  . Tried to navigate to mail.yahoo.com
>  . Got a message warning that firefox was in offline mode.
>  . Reads instructions to turn off 'offline mode'
>  . Goes to File > Work Offline and unchecks the box.
>  . Attempts to refresh page, getting a server not found error.
>  . Concludes computer doesn't work.
> 
> Desktop computer connected via Ethernet (so not aware of network manager
> via connecting to wifi networks). Fixing the problem was as simple as
> turning the networking back on and waiting for the computer to get a new
> ip address via dhcp.
> 
> Martin Owens,
> 


Funny! I helped a similar user recently, too. Somehow, after an update,
NetworkManager decided to disconnect from his wired network and stopped
connecting automatically. The fix involved clicking the NetworkManager
applet and telling it to connect (and it again remembered that
permanently). It took him a phone call longer than it should have :(


A few things spring to mind in recalling this incident:

The wireless icon is awesome, but the wired icon (two arrows) isn't
communicating the right thing. It doesn't say “click me if you need
networking!”
As I do, I'm looking jealously at cell phones. They seem to communicate
that stuff perfectly. (Even the cheap ones!). It's either because the
network status is always at the top left, or because the immediately
relevant information is shown Right There. That is, at a glance you can
see the name of the network you're connected to or “Disconnected.”

The user I helped was rather frustrated by NetworkManager's connection
menu. I didn't get around to asking him why that was, but I stared at it
for a bit. Open that thing up with both wired and wireless networks
available and observe the spacing between groups of content. That, and
the _amount_ of content. It doesn't say “pick one of these to connect.”
It says “here are 50 foreign sounding labels, one of which is hopefully
familiar.”

Upon clicking a network name, the connection menu disappears. Visual
feedback is now contained in a 16px icon and the occasional notification
bubble. A brand new user still has no idea what is going on.



Firefox is communicating much more loudly and much more clearly that the
user is disconnected, even if it's through a crufty feature that should
stay out of the way unless people ask for it. It says, front and centre,
“You are offline, and here's how you connect.” It isn't actually right,
but that's besides the point.



Dylan