unity-design team mailing list archive

[Luke Benstead <kazade@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 27 October 2010 21:35, Caio Alonso <caioalons@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Recently, I've noticed several usability issues in Ubuntu that really are
>> big annoyances that I think are being overlooked. After watching Mark's
>> keynote the other day I thought I'd pen them down to see if perhaps we can
>> fix some of them this cycle. I'm never sure if the Ayatana list is for
>> general usability issues, or just specifically for usability features (e.g.
>> indicators) so if this is OT I apologise.
>>
>> The first one is the following use-case: A user wants Empathy to start on
>> login.
>>
>> Now, right now, stop what you are doing and go and make Empathy start on
>> login without Googling for help or using the terminal.
>>
>> Some of you will search Empathy's preferences; you guys are wrong.
>> Some of you will head for Startup Applications, you won't find it in the
>> list, you will click add and then stare at a horrible dialog that leaves you
>> no clue what to do next.
>>
>> This is a common use case, not just for Empathy but also for email
>> clients, or browsers. Why is it so hard? Why when I click browse on the
>> dialog am I sent to a file browser rather than a list of applications? Why
>> isn't Empathy in the list by default if it's installed? (BUG:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/empathy/+bug/322314)
>>
>> My dream would be that we'd have a decent task scheduler so that we could
>> set applications to start on login, at certain times, or when the network is
>> connected.
>>
>
> I've made a mockup of my opinion of how the dialog after you click the Add
> button should look like. Two things still concern me with this interface:
> how to make the user know that he either selects a program OR enters a
> custom command and also the size of the dialog for low resolution systems.
>
> [image: Startup_Program_Page_1.png]
>
> One thing I noticed is that on the menu entry it is called Startup
> Applications, but inside the window all the labels are "startup programs".
> Is that an inconsistency?
>

Thanks for the mockup! That's pretty much what I was considering. Regarding
the naming, judging from the names of the items in the list, this should be
"Startup Services" rather than "Startup Applications/Programs". The fact
that you can add startup applications seems to be an after thought.

This makes me wonder, should we be differentiating between "Applications"
(e.g. programs a user would launch) and "Services" (background programs). If
I was redesigning this, I'd probably totally remove the add button from that
dialog, rename it "Startup Services" and come up with a better system for
making applications launch on login. I'd probably add a "Task Scheduler" GUI
which works with cron, and dbus to trigger applications at certain times and
after certain events (e.g. login, network connected).

Luke.