unity-design team mailing list archive

["frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:01, Oscar RdG <oscarrdg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 12:42 AM, frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx <
> frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I thought of Tabs, and i still do, i guess i just wanted to prove to
>> myself that all this stuff fints vertically into one single unified menu.
>> Making it pretty to reduce clutter and confusion is the next step.
>> Tabs would appear as a block of Icons In the panel.
>>
>
> Tabs inside a menu don't look nice, imo.
>

true.


> Tabs on the panel: then, which are the difference between having different
> indicators/menus in the panel?
>

true, too. I attempted a layout like that.. it meant no improvement at all.

 I don't think it would be a good idea to unit Me and Messaging Menu on a
> single Menu, it looks too cluttered.
>

Somehow i think you're right.
Suggesting to merge the two is another way of saying that the currently
implemented solution is illogical.
Whether merging the two as is would result in anything more useful is
another problem now ;)

In order to improve the situation, we need to figure out the logic of the
existing system, and where it is flawed.

Let's start with the "envelope" icon. Does it represent all of the Messaging
Menu's content sufficiently?

* instant messages
* VoIP calls
* broadcast feed updates
* news feed updates
* as a matter of fact, all feed updates
* filetransfer requests
* contact requests aka "friend requests" (true?)
* emails

The way i understand it, the envelope metaphor symbolizes only one of these:
email.

I prefer to properly separate the functions (not services) on each of the
> Menus:
> * Messaging Menu: inbox (get new mail, get new IM, get social messages,
> etc..)
>
* Me Menu: outbox (set presence status, write new mail, write new IM
> messages, broadcast new "social message", etc...)
>

That's not how i understand the two menus to function, and the discrepancy
between how you see it and how others see it shows, that the semantics of
these two menus are ambiguous and not at all straightforward.

Me Menu is not an outbox. Messaging Menu is not an inbox.
What is the Me Menu?
"There should be a “Me menu” representing you in Ubuntu." (
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeMenu )
..further down on the same page:
"The Me menu is the first port of call for the user to express their status
and their identities to the world."

My own rephrasing of this: "About Me" with some social juice in it.

and what about the Messaging Menu?
"The messaging menu provides quick access to messages concerning you that
you may not have seen." says its Wiki on Ubuntu.com.
This would include system messages? Update notifications? Error messages?
Success messages?
If that sentence by itself alone is correct, then i'd suggest merging the
messaging menu with a notify OSD log, since that would make more sense to
me.
Then we would have all types of notification or indication worthy messages
in one place, until they are acknowledged.

And maybe it could be a good idea to put them two together on the
> panel, without the Time/Date Menu between them as it is now.
>

i do that everytime ;)
In Unity i can't so i had to start working on mockups to improve the default
situation!