unity-design team mailing list archive

[Frederik Nnaji <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 23:50, Matt Wheeler <m@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 2 September 2010 18:30, Frederik Nnaji <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > Hi Matt,
> >
> > the current situation is, that both warning and NOT warning the user are
> > being practised.
> > This sends the user a mixed message:
> > first, upgrades / updates are afforded to the user, no warning
> whatsoever..
>
> What would be the advantage of warning users before an upgrade begins
> that the upgrade will require a restart to be completed? That's the
> point of what I'm saying.
>

Good point! The next couple of lines might contain redundant ideas, do you
want to continue? [Y/N]


> > ..shortly before the updating/upgrading is complete, the user is warned,
> > that a restart is required.
>
> Yes, the user needs to be warned that a restart is required at some
> point to actually start using the new versions of whatever has been
> updated.


Really, this should be a positive notification, not a warning. If we get
this right, the problem we are discussing here will dissolve imo.
I'd say WARNING is the wrong term, RED the wrong color and "REQUIRED" a
totally misleading word in this context.
Affordance, better than irritatation.
As long as there is no absolutely crucial security fix among the updates
that would *require* a restart, a restart is factually not required -
warnings obsolete.

I see no advantage to doing this before the updates are
> installed though, and some disadvantages (mainly that users may be
> unnecessarily put off performing the updates).
>

correct. If i inform about so and so many kilobytes of diskspace will be
used, perhaps it is equally fair to inform that a restart will be required
to commit the upgrade finally. How to formulate that information usefully at
this point is another problem, but omitting this info entirely is an option
i would prefer, so perhaps we should simply consider advertising instead of
warning.


>
> > The problem with naming an action that is a menu item "Restart Required"
> is,
> > that it is an informative phrase and not an action. The menu item should
> > carry the wording that describes the action it invokes, not a description
> of
> > its use case.
> >
> > The red coloring of the power icon on top of the Session Menu represents
> the
> > warning, where previously in the process the software was designed NOT to
> > issue any warning about the state "Restart Required".
> > Mixed messages confuse the user and wrong labels on menu items or buttons
> > make it difficult to control the system altogether.
>
> I agree that the presentation in the session menu could be improved to
> inform users better why a restart is needed. I also find it somewhat
> inaccurate that the restart option is highlighted, but shut down
> isn't, again I feel this could lead some users to believe they have to
> restart their computer before they can shut it down, when really
> either option would be as good as the other.
>
> None of this, in my mind, gives any reason to warn users before
> running updates that a restart will be required after the update.
>

+1