unity-design team mailing list archive

[Diego Moya <turingt@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 22 September 2010 12:16, frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 19:00, Diego Moya wrote:
>
>> The last option (current approach) makes it an all-or-nothing proposition
>> i.e. users that don't find the default design will not benefit at all from
>> notifications, being forced to disable them. Being a bit more flexible
>> should make notifications useful to more people and a smoother experience to
>> those who can use them.
>>
>
> The need for flexibility in such a straightforward application would be a
> clear trait of poor design or poor implementation.
>

There seems to be this idea that allowing user control is poor design.

*Requiring* flexibility (i.e. forcing users to configure the tool for common
cases) would be bad design. But enabling users to harness the software tool
for usages not predicted by the designer, can only be advantageous for both
the user and the tool.

Concerning the matter at hand, the need for flexibility to reposition
notifications follows from bubbles obscuring user content, which is a
potential problem and a flaw in the design. The current "make translucent on
mouse over" is at best an awkward workaround for the initial problem, as
well as a distracting interaction.

Apoorva Sharma proposed in this trhead a mockup that wouldn't need
configuration as it only obscures system information, which IMHO is a better
design because it avoids the basic flaw of bubbles.