unity-design team mailing list archive

[Spike Burch <spikeb@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you for the summary! As a deaf person, I really appreciate it.

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 6:57 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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> 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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