unity-design team mailing list archive

[Niklas Rosenqvist <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx>]

"I highly encourage the Ubuntu Tour proponents to look at the Help
already shipped in Ubuntu 11.04 (which unfortunately is a bit hidden
in the Dash but that should be better in 11.10). A decent amount of
what is wanted may already be possible with that framework. Please
 talk to the Ubuntu Documentation Team to reduce duplicating effort."

I believe that this can be a great addition to the documentation if it has a
nice and intuitive UI that can give users a good first impression of the
system and it would be nice if it were built upon the help application. But
this is beyond me since this is something the two projects have to work out
themselves.

"The Ubuntu Extras or whatever you call it already exists as the
Featured Apps section on the front page of the Ubuntu Software Center.
The problem with making this a one-click metapackage is that there
 are a lot of different opinions on what should go there."

If you study the mockup you will see that the button says "*select* and
install packages from Ubuntu Extended" (this was just a random name I made
up to be able to explain the intended use). This means that the user should
be presented with a list of applications which are well integrated into the
Unity desktop and/or applications which the Ubuntu developers wish they
could put on the installation image but can't due to the size limit, e.g.
the complete LibreOffice suite. I understand that the featured apps section
is a similar feature and this list I'm talking about could simply be a view
in the Ubuntu Software Center which lists all the featured apps.

The two problems I'm trying to solve is that new users don't know what to do
next after a fresh install and the second one is the possibility to further
extend the Ubuntu desktop environment (maybe with Unity 2D). Now when a user
who just migrated from Windows (a very likely situation) he has no idea of
how Ubuntu is used. Windows users are used to find an executable to download
on the web and then install it by an installation wizard and in Ubuntu you
simply search the Ubuntu Software Center. It's not okay to expect a user to
read on the web just to learn how he/she should install a program since
these things aren't apparent from the view that greets a user on a newly
installed system.

This will be solved with a "Welcome"-screen that can contain what would ease
the learning curve of a new operating system. The Ubuntu Tour would be a
great option to have here and since there are plenty of reasons why the
ubuntu-restriced-extras package shouldn't be encouraged to install there
must at least be something that explains to the user how he should enable
flash since this is today almost a necessity for surfing the web for many.

What we want is an easy transition for newly migrated users and the welcome
screen can provide just that.

2011/5/14 Jeremy Bicha <jeremy@xxxxxxxxx>

> >>> 2011/5/14 Niklas Rosenqvist <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx>
> >>>> I haven't heard about the Ubuntu Tour project earlier and I think it's
> >>>> great initiative! It will be very helpful for new users and people
> migrating
> >>>> from other operating systems. But this still doesn't solve the problem
> with
> >>>> more default applications and how people should learn about the
> >>>> ubuntu-restricted-extras package.
> >>>>
> >>>> How about a simple application that shows some useful information and
> >>>> also provides the user with a launcher for the Ubuntu Tour
> application? I
> >>>> made a mockup of how this could look like:
> >>>> http://i.imgur.com/pQkYj.jpg
>
> The restricted extras cannot be shipped with Ubuntu nor should they be
> overtly encourage to install during install or first boot.
>
> The Ubuntu Extras or whatever you call it already exists as the
> Featured Apps section on the front page of the Ubuntu Software Center.
> The problem  with making this a one-click metapackage is that there
> are a lot of different opinions on what should go there. Should
> Evolution/Thunderbird (whichever won't be default in 11.10) be there?
> Should Gimp? How about additional games? But which ones?
>
> I highly encourage the Ubuntu Tour proponents to look at the Help
> already shipped in Ubuntu 11.04 (which unfortunately is a bit hidden
> in the Dash but that should be better in 11.10). A decent amount of
> what is wanted may already be possible with that framework. Please
> talk to the Ubuntu Documentation Team to reduce duplicating effort.
>
> As an example, the Help tells how to install Flash or play commercial
> DVDs, but telling users to blindly install a bunch of non-free codecs
> doesn't reflect our values nor our legal responsibilities.
>
> Jeremy Bicha
>
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