unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jason DeRose <jderose@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 2:49 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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> Jason DeRose wrote on 02/12/10 12:15:
>>...
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AyatanaDmediaLovefest
>>
>> If you wish to give me feedback, I have a giant favor to ask: if you
>> find yourself critical of this design and don't yourself have
>> experience with a high-volume pro use-case like this, please first ask
>> yourself whether you're truly empathizing with the pro user in this
>> scenario.
>
> That might be why you've received no feedback here so far. The
> intersection of Ubuntu design enthusiasts and professional photographers
> is rather small.
>
>>            A misunderstanding here is a totally innocent mistake, but
>> it happens often and unfortunately never leads to the feedback I need
>> to improve this design for the pro user in question.
>>...

Thanks for taking the time to respond, both here and on #ayatana.

> To reiterate what I said on IRC, I think using either notification
> bubbles or a status menu for this is inappropriate. A notification
> bubble is inappropriate because the moment at which you want to know how
> many photos you've imported so far is not necessarily during the brief
> period that the bubble is visible. And a menu is inappropriate because
> you can't do anything else while you're viewing the things inside it.

It's not so much that the user needs to know, it's that they need to
be reassured... which will help them relax, reduce mental workload.
Which might sound silly, but pro users are truly paranoid and delicate
creatures.  I've experienced it myself and you don't need that high of
a workload before you start to get "the data crazies".

I didn't make it clear, but in my scenario there will very likely be a
person editing at the workstation.  Several takes are made of a shot,
then cards are imported and someone will do a rough edit as subsequent
takes are in progress.  The director and DP can then watch the rough
edits... if there are problems and they want to make adjustments, they
can do so while the scene is still setup, while it's as cost effective
as possible.  There might be dozens of these iterations in a single
day of shooting.

When someone is there editing, I think NotifyOSD strikes a wonderful
balance between reliably capturing the user's attention yet not
distracting them.  It's all because the notifications are
non-interactive.  They're strangely soothing, IHMO.  (Mad props to
those who designed them so well.)

The notification is only displayed when the final card in the parallel
batch completes, when all, say, 4 cards can be removed and 4 new onces
inserted.

Granted the details of what's inside the RenderMenu are a bit half
baked at this stage, but I feel setting the RenderMenu to
STATUS_ATTENTION when there are active imports is very important...
importing is critical operation that the user must not physically
interrupt till complete.  When in doubt, a quick glance at the
top-left corner is all it takes to check if there is an active import.

I also think it's very important that there *not* be progress bars
visible.  There's a  "tug" to them that is just too distracting, IHMO.
 We want the user to get work done, not watch files be imported.  And
we don't want the user jumping the gun at 99.9%.  I think there is
serious advantage to not giving the user any warning that an import is
about to complete

Anyway...

> I suggest instead investigating layouts for a window that lists import
> sessions, with columns for time, number of photos imported, size, and
> number of duplicates found.

My problem with this is that assuming the user is using a maximized
application, they wont see this window.  I also think the window is a
bit invasive, captures too attention.  I feel the sweet spot is
capturing *just* enough attention to accomplish what is needed.  And
to me NotifyOSD and and application indicator seem a good fit.

All the same, it would be a small effort to try both approaches, get
feedback from the users.  If you ever have a mockup of what you had in
mind for said window, I'd love to see it.

I know this is a very specialized use case and it might seem like I'm
splitting hairs, but it's also a use case where small improvements can
make a big difference to the user.

Thanks again for your input!  I'll add your suggestion to the wiki page.

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