unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Diego Moya wrote on 17/09/10 13:59:
> 
> On 17 September 2010 14:18, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
>...
>> 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>).
> 
> Yes, those bubbles are actually quite similar to what NotifyOSD tries
> to do. But look how Jef required a way for the user to take control of
> how bubbles are presented.

Which was unrealistic. By the time you had remembered, and then typed,
the command to reduce the opacity, the error would have faded away by
itself anyway.

> He also thought that "a document that stores all messages for later
> retrieval is essential".

That was for error messages, and it was also unrealistic -- because it
didn't address the problem of how, when returning to the computer, you
would tell that the task had failed in the first place.

>                          The Ayatana notification design took the
> original idea and then changed it to its opposite by removing every
> safeguard feature to put user in control and keep it humane.

That is not true. I had read the book years ago, and seen that idea, and
thought it was crack (mainly because the mockup was obviously rigged to
ensure the error text didn't overlap the background text). But by 2008
I'd forgotten about it.

> The current design for OSD notifications is heavily modal - it blocks
> access to the visible area until the bubble disappears, and it doesn't
> give the user a way to claim that blocked area. The provided workaround
> to reach the blocked screen area requires a complex interaction (the
> repeated fading out and in as the mouse moves away) that can be quite
> distracting and doesn't work if the user needs the cursor elsewhere.
>...

We could do better with the fading, but I find myself unable to imagine
a situation where someone simultaneously (a) needs to see what's under a
notification bubble and (b) "needs the cursor elsewhere". Can you give
an example?

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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