unity-design team mailing list archive

[Allan Caeg <allancaeg@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

Button states (mouse hovered, clicked, active, and normal) communicate to
the user what responses are associated to buttons. The Unity Launcher is one
of the elements of the Unity desktop that will get the most mouse
interactions and very much deserves visual representation of button states.

This is especially relevant for the app icons and the Ubuntu button
(whatever their proper names are). The app icons show feedback when hovered
by showing a tooltip, which may or may not be a clear enough effect so
please assess this one. The other state that's currently covered is
"selected," which is shown by an
arrow<http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/oqt25qr0/Workspace1_011.png>
.

Keyboard-focus has a nice selection highlight, which can be used for other
purposes like mouse hover. They're very similar anyway. However,
keyboard-focus could also use the tooltip that tells the user the name of
the app he's currently focusing on. Maybe, both hover and keyboard-focus can
use the combination of highlight and tooltip.

There are also missing button states like when an app icon is clicked and
when doing "Scale" for one app. On OS X, clicking an app icon on the dock
will make the icon dark and "Scale" for one app will make all other app
icons dark. We don't have to do it the way OS X does it, but there should be
visual representations of these states.

It could be too late for Natty, but it would be nice if some button states
can have the right feedback in time for 11.04.

-- 
Regards,
Allan
User Experience Designer
http://www.google.com/profiles/AllanCaeg#about<http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about>
+63 918 948 2520