unity-design team mailing list archive

[Michael Jonker <citizen.jonker@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here is a quick idea that struck me after I hit send on the last post:

1)The bubble notification makes it's appearance @ bottom right of the
screen (unfaded)

2)It moves along a path to the top of the screen (fading away as it
goes)

3)It lands in the 'Me menu'. At this point is is completely off screen,
not visible.

4)The 'Me menu' changes colour subtly, alerting the user
non-obtrusively, that the system has something to say.

5)in the 'Me Menu' is a new call out entry called 'notifications', with
a history of maybe the last 10 events. Clicking on any notification
takes you to the relevant email, message, app etc.

This has the advantage of:

If the user is at the screen, they are immediately notified that
something has happened. It is no longer NB that they take time out to
read exactly what that is.

If the user was away for a cup of tea, they can immediately see there
were events while they were away and can access them unobtrusively.

The visual disturbance of the moving notification bubble is minimal
(maybe 2 seconds) and not concentrated on 1 area of the screen where the
user may be working.

Touchscreen compatible.



Heading away for Hols, but if you guys think this idea is worth
investigating I can make a video mock up when I am back.



On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 13:58 +0100, Michael Jonker wrote:

> It seems that, under the subject of 1)Unity  2)and notifications, the
> most discussion is concerning the 'Notification Bubble' (Thanks
> Matthew for pointing to the spec)
> 
> 2) Yes - the current implementation of the bubble is functional. It
> notifies the user, it does fade when the mouse cursor is over it and
> you can work below it. Many people feel though that it hangs around
> too long and is visually invasive. How do we make it get out of the
> way intuatively and quickly without being accidentally dismissed?
> Suggestions so far:
> 
> -A heuristic approach
> -It does not reappear after a 'fade'
> -It stays in panel (against design guidelines)
> -It briefly goes to panel as a fading button after dismissal
> -A combination of above
> -Apologies if I missed any suggestions
> 
> 1) The topic of the original post - how does this work in Unity. More
> trickily - how does it work on touchscreen?
> In my opinion, if we can solve this elegantly the rest will follow.
> 
> The starting point i feel is: You touch it and it goes away.
> 
> Michael
> 
> On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 13:18 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: 
> 
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> > 
> > Diego Moya wrote on 17/09/10 07:10:
> > >...
> > > I though we already established that notifications are even less
> > > important than the least important of the user tasks? That's the only
> > > possible justification for them being ethereal.
> > > 
> > > I think it was Jef Raskin who said that you should treat user input as
> > > sacred. I concur, and that can be extended to the user focus of
> > > attention. 
> > 
> > Well, Jef had some odd ideas about user input and focus of attention. He
> > thought, for example, that error messages should behave rather like
> > Notify OSD bubbles, undismissable and gradually fading, but that there
> > should be a keyboard command to adjust their transparency ("The humane
> > interface", pp116-117 <http://ur1.ca/1nklv>). And he thought it would
> > make sense to insert incoming e-mail messages into whatever document you
> > were editing at the time (p176 <http://ur1.ca/1nkq9>).
> > 
> > > If the notification is important enough to interrupt the user flow then
> > > a transient bubble notification is not the place for it, it should
> > > create a persistent warning in the panel.
> > >...
> > 
> > Persistent warning, yes. In the panel, usually not. :-)
> > <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines>
> > 
> > - -- 
> > Matthew Paul Thomas
> > http://mpt.net.nz/
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