unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Anthony Scire <aaaantoine@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> 2. The menu bar should, in some way, still be built into its window.
>> The way I propose is to have a button appear on the title bar, a-la
>> Firefox 4.  Hovering the mouse over this button will reveal the menu.
>> Mouse actions on the "button" should be the same as any other part of
>> the title bar, just that the mouse-over event will reveal the
>> drop-down menus stacked vertically.  The label on the button should be
>> the same as currently appears in the global menu bar, i.e. "Firefox
>> Web Browser".  Then next to that, if the text is any different, the
>> regular window title will appear.
>>
>> Hitting Alt should drop down this menu, as well.
>
> I'm not convinced about this. I know several people who aren't happy
> with the FF4-style menus because it requires an extra click to access
> anything (confused about the hover you mention - would the user have
> to hover, wait, then move sideways without leaving the window to
> access menus? seems finicky). Also, this would presumably face the
> same discovery issues as the global menu does now, as documented in
> the usability study.
>
> The current system is definitely a problem though.
>
Ah, the menubar again.

Let me quickly outline the problem:

There are very different kinds of users:

#1 -the keyboard junkie:
Never uses the mouse unless he has to, menubar must be accessible via
keyboard. Most important function: It severs as a lookup table for all
available combinations. After having used a particular application for
a while and having memorized all relevant functions he'll prefer to
keep the menubar hidden entirely. The placement of the menubar doesn't
much matter that much to him. Making it optionally hidden and only
showing it when pressing the alt key would be the perfect solution for
this kind of user.

#2-the eternal noob
He loves nothing more than simple, predictable, repeatable and
consistent. He doesn't care about speed and probably less about
maximising screen estate. He'll use the menubar to cut and paste even
though friends and family repeatedly explain how ctrl+x/v and even
toolbar icons or the right-click context menu is so much faster. No,
edit->paste is what he learned in his Windows Office 97 or earlier
days and that's what he'll keep using till they rip the mouse from his
cold, dead hands.
The clear, simple, textual hierarchy gives him confidence and safety.
So, don't mess with it! This includes replacing the menubar with a
single menu button as proposed above.

These are the two extremes I guess, there are many shades in between:

#3-the hip
he wants nice, flashy and modern. Usability comes second as longs the
look is right He'll long for modern interfaces like he's used to from
his smartphone and the modern browser he uses for facebook and youtube
(there isn't much else he uses the computer for). He won't even notice
if the menubar moves or is gone entirely as longs as the remaining
interface is fun to use and exposes all required controls via nice
buttons and icons.

#4-the workaholic
The OS and it's GUI are just another thing in the way of getting
things done. Don't nag him while he's working! He'll work with a very
few selected applications, email, word and a browser. On his portable
device he wants to use all the screen estate for his work, not for
fancy interface controls. Menubar or other interface elements, it
doesn't really matter as longs as it gets the job done in the most
efficient way. He'll complain loudly about any change but if it's for
the better he'll soon calm down again and actually be very grateful.
Give him a maximised Writer and Browser, no unnecessary bar and titles
and he's happy.
In his case the Firefox style menu button is a bad idea. It adds a
whole additional hierarchy thereby increasing complexity and time to
access typically by about one third, example: Edit->Paste would become
Menu->Edit->Paste.

Now let's see how we stack up.
Unity improved things for the "hip" and the "workaholic". A new
interface with Compiz effects and a certain Mac/iOS inspired look and
feel is a win for the hipster. Compared to GNOME 2 Unity gets rid of
three panels (60 pixels or so?) vertical space which results in more
text/content visible for our workaholic.
The keyboard junkie will appreciate the new keyboard friendly launcher
and furthermore stay out of the menubar discussion that largely
focuses on Fitts's Law and counting mouse clicks. Nothing he ever
cared about. But why is it so prominently on the top of the screen if
he never intends to make much use of it, why can't it be hidden as an
option to maximise the rows visible in vim/emacs?
As for our second guy: Doesn't look so good. Where is the menu gone? I
can't find it! Up there you say? I still don't see anything.
Also, if he uses a larger monitor he will no appreciate the longer
traveling distance.
Let me add here, the concept of a global menubar isn't only 20 odd
years old and from a time where there was no multi-tasking! Back then
monitors had less pixel than the average smartphone today!  Sorry, but
that's how I feel about the global menubar.

I believe with a menubar-in-windows we can make happy every one of our
four friends here. Let's see:

#1: If it's in the window it can be hidden on a per application basis.
The average cli user likely doesn't need a graphical menu in his
terminals, but he'll probably want on in GIMP which he fires up every
other month. A global menubar doesn't give him that flexibility. Well,
he could ignore it's there but then it takes up screen estate and
takes up a valuable screen edge as pointed out here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/749335
Such "power user" also is a likely candidate for using multiple
high-res monitors, virtual desktops and multiple windows on each of
them. As it's been pointed out repeatedly the global menubar together
with the app-centric launcher slows multi-tasking at that level down.

#2: If the global menubar was an exact copy of OS X he'd be happy.
After a year relearning where to look for the menu :P
Sure, it's even more consistent and predictable to have the menu
visible at the same spot all the time. But such users (going by my
field tests on OS X) are typical examples of clicking the menubar
while having the wrong window in focus. If you take this into account
the advantage becomes less. First you alienate these creatures of
habit and then the advantage is tarnished by introducing new
"instability" and dynamic into the interface and thereby a source of
error and frustration.

#3: Frankly, this is 2011 and people don't care so much about what OS
everyone is running anymore, they want to get on the internet as fast
as possible and use their favorite web services. Having fluid
animations, nice color schemes, good support for web standards and
social media they already use and finally well designed applications
for frequent multimedia and work related tasks is much more important
than such changes in the OS design.

The global menu is only going to be a hindrance when going further and
getting Unity onto touch devices or at least further merging tablet
and computer interface design and more importantly what applications
are going to run on them. Having no menubar dictated from the OS means
each app developer has full freedom over how his app will behave. It
can be "hybrid", suited for both touch and keyboard/mouse, it can make
use of all screen edges in full screen mode and no unnecessary legacy
menus need to be coded specifically for Unity (the only Linux DE with
a global menubar).

#4: There is no reason why having the menu in the windows needs to
take up more screen estate. A good example, less known, is WebPositive
in Haiku (give it a try, it's a small download and runs nicely in
Virtualbox - just change the NIC to Intel 82540EM). Haiku is based on
BeOS and I think BeOS in parts was inspired by Mac may also have
inspired some parts of OS X.
The Haiku desktop on a high level is very similar to Unity in several
aspects: the main menu is in an upper corner, the launcher is on a
side, and application-centric, windows can hide (in the case of Haiku:
overlap) the launcher to maximize the available screen estate and the
close botton is on the left side.

But each window has it's own menu and titlebar (which is only as large
as it needs to be, a bit like a tab). If you click on maximize in
WebPositive, the browser, it will maximize the main window, overlap
the launcher and remove the the titlebar. Window controls are moved
into the same bar as the menubar and the menu itself obeys Fitts's law
(or could, I didn't check that).
Basically it's exactly the same as Firefox maximized in Unity without
the title in the panel which is redundant in a tabbed browser.

To sum it up:
Menubar hover is bad, without it no screen estate is saved (in usual
window arrangements) leaving only Fitts's Law as an argument for it
(which you can only bring into play once made the targets visible all
the time). I counter with a range of four distinct user cases that
should squarely cover the whole Ubuntu userbase where each of them
ultimately benefits more from moving the menu back into the window.
Additionally this fixes the awkward case of having a non-maximized
window on top of a maximized one, resolves the mouse hover discussion,
reduces Unity specific patches for 3rd party software, eases the
transition from GNOME to Unity (still relevant for the next LTS
upgrade, those guys care about stable in terms of GUI and interface
changes too, especially when it comes to enterprise workstations) and
a host of other complaints and issues that I missed, forgot or that
are yet to be discovered.

Please let me know what you think. I hope you are still open to
discussions about such a pervasive changes to Unity.

Regards,
Ed Lin