unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Luke Benstead wrote on 13/04/11 12:11:
>...
> If you guys haven't watched this (well, listened mainly)  you really
> should.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaLDMz_e2jQ&feature=player_embedded
> 
> I have to say though, I agree with him on pretty much every single
> point, especially his point about removing the top bar completely.
>...

Here is a summary of the video.

He calls the launcher auto-hide behavior "weird" and "really confusing":
- -   The behavior is different depending on whether there is a window in
    the left part of the screen.
- -   The behavior is different depending on whether any window is
    maximized (because a maximized window is in the left part of the
    screen).
- -   The launcher partly appears when you hover over the Ubuntu button,
    but doesn't actually work unless you go right into the corner.
- -   Hovering over the Ubuntu button reveals the launcher, but clicking
    the Ubuntu button hides the launcher.
He recommends showing the launcher all the time by default, with an
option to auto-hide it.

Other launcher details:
- -   He calls the icon stacking "pretty" clever", but is annoyed that it
    expands downwards rather than upwards, which means that you have to
    scroll the launcher by clicking and dragging.
- -   The drag-scrolling is uselessly possible even when the launcher has
    empty space. "For a long time I was wondering, what the hell was
    that for?"
- -   This in turn means that you can't rearrange items in the launcher
    merely by dragging vertically.
- -   At least the scrolling is better than the paging through icons in
    Windows 7's taskbar, which "is no good because it's modal".
- -   He suggests that instead of scrolling, it would be better for the
    launcher to have a second row.
- -   Failing that, he suggests putting up a little overlay message when
    you scroll the launcher, explaining what's going on.
- -   "I think that trash can is kind of silly, I just don't think people
    need to look at their trash can that frequently."
- -   He's also annoyed that "Applications", "Files & Folders", and
    "Workspace Switcher" are stuck in the launcher permanently. "Special
    cases always require a great deal of justification", and "having
    workspaces visible by default is a really terrible idea". (He goes
    into detail about people who barely even understand the distinction
    between Web pages and browsers, let alone workspaces.)

Dash:
- -   He likes the Dash, especially that the search field is at the top
    rather than at the bottom as it is in Windows.
- -   He thinks the default contents are good for novice users, but
    wonders why there are four applications here, and guesses that they
    might have been chosen by user testing.
- -   The "Shortcuts" button is weird and has a confusing Home icon --
    "it has nothing to do with" your home folder.
- -   The resize button is "weird", because clicking it rearranges the
    icons, and it seems unnecessary.

Applications screen:
- -   "I generally like this ... nice and readable, very well-spaced."
- -   He criticizes showing "Apps Available for Download" by default, for
    two reasons:
    -   "For most computer users ... they're overwhelmed by all the
        options that already exist on their systems ... Trying to throw
        more stuff at them just makes them less happy."
    -   The list is "a whole bunch of apps, where people have no idea
        what the hell they're for." No descriptions, and crappy names.
- -   You need to click a tiny "See 74 more results" control to see the
    full list of installed applications. Why not just expand the screen
    and show them with a scrollbar straight away?
- -   It's not obvious that "All Applications" is clickable, and the items
    in it are too small.

Menu bar:
- -   As someone who fidgets with his mouse, he dislikes how this makes
    the menus show and hide distractingly.
- -   When a background window is maximized:
    -   You can't close, minimize, or unmaximize it.
    -   The title for the active window looks like it's the title for
        the background window.
    -   The menus for the active window look like they're the menus for
        the maximized window.
- -   He assumes that the "weird overlay" of the menu titles on the left
    part of the application title is "a bug that will be fixed before
    release".
- -   He'd like to get rid of the global menu entirely.
- -   Ideally, he'd prefer to get rid of the top bar entirely, moving the
    icons at the top right of the screen to the bottom of the launcher.
- -   "What they need, at the very least, to do is just ditch this whole
    concept of merging the title bar into the top bar. You can't have
    the global application menu, and this integrated title bar business,
    going on at the same time."
- -   Alternatively, have a button in the top bar that opens the menus in
    a second row.
- -   He likes the application icon shown in the top bar in Gnome 3.

Miscellaneous:
- -   He doesn't like that mounted volumes appear in the launcher.
- -   He calls the Desktop folder "the long-standing dumbest idea in
    interface design for twenty years". Goes into detail about how it's
    bad for expert users, beginners, and intermediate users for
    different reasons.
- -   He wants Unity to get rid of minimization, like Gnome 3, and in his
    ideal design all windows would be maximized.

- -- 
mpt
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