unity-design team mailing list archive

[James Jenner <james.g.jenner@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 1 November 2011 09:43, Jo-Erlend Schinstad
<joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Den 31. okt. 2011 19:25, skrev James Jenner:
>
>
>> I only say this because often I will see a notification from an
>> application that is on a different workspace and the effort to open said
>> application would be simplified if I could just click the notification
>> (which currently just makes the notification go fuzzy, not sure on the
>> logic for this). Again, maybe it's just the notifications I'm dealing with
>> and maybe other notifications support this.
>>
>
> The logic is that it should be possible to notify a user without requiring
> any action from that user that will be annoying and cause loss of focus. It
> would be inconsistent if some notifications would require an action and
> other not. Also, suddenly displaying a clickable notification above your
> application can have some very unexpected consequences. For instance, say I
> have Thunderbird maximized and I want to search my emails. I click the
> search field to give it focus, but at the moment I click, there is a
> notification. Because I clicked so quickly, I could not see what the
> notification was about. With your suggestion, it would also open another
> application and give it focus.
>
> Notifications are transient. They do not usually require an action, though
> I think it's possible for applications to present actionable notifications
> though they are discouraged. Indicators, on the other hand, is well suited
> for things that require an action. You also have status information on
> launcher entries, with quicklists that can make it easy to react to them.
>
> In addition to notifications, indicators and launcher entry status, you
> also have application urgency, which makes the entry shake and the "window
> open" arrow turn blue. Because this is urgent, I think it would make sense
> to have a keyboard shortcut to focus it. The question is what keyboard
> shortcut to use. Ctrl+BAT might be useful. (BAT == Button Above Tab -- and
> Tab backwards :))
>
>
I wasn't saying that they should require interaction, just saying that
interaction could be optional. I don't mind only a keyboard shortcut but to
have a mouse option would be nice. In my mind the application should use
the framework to provide interaction via the notification, it's up to the
framework to decide how the interaction occurs, irrespective of what
interaction the framework allows.

The reason I though of it is because under my XP environment at work I get
notified when an email is received, including the title and possibly the
first line of the email. The same thing for various chat clients, I can set
them to show me a notification that I have received a message and I can
ignore the notification or I can click on it to automatically open it. It's
something I find quite useful and use a lot, especially at work when I
often have 10+ windows open. If I couldn't click on it, then for the email
I would have to open the email application and double click the first email
(or single click if I have a preview pane). It's nice to be able to click
on the notification.

I hadn't thought about the issue of an accidental click on an actionable
notification. I can see this is a potential issue, however I cannot
remember a time in the last six years of using my current environment at
work where I can accidentally clicked on a notification. I should say that
for XP, the notification is the bottom left corner of the screen which
doesn't get much mouse activity generally speaking.

Hmm notifications and indicators. I wouldn't use an indicator to tell you
that you have a new message in a chat panel, or to tell you that someone
pm'd you in a lobby for a game, however a notification would seem
appropriate (specially for games where you may be running full screen). It
seems to me that a notification affords clicking to open information about
the notification or to activate the application related to the
notification. While I don't mind the 'vibrating' icon in the launchers,
it's disconnected with the notification in that the notification is on the
right and the vibrating icon is on the other side of the sceen and most
prob. at a different hight. The focus of the user has to change and if you
have an application that intrudes on the launchers then you won't even see
the launcher. You would have to move the mouse over, wait for the launcher
to appear, scan the launcher to find the appropriate application and then
select the app (more complicated if you have more than one instance open?).

I cannot test right now (as I'm at work) but does a notification stop you
from clicking on something behind it?

I should note that accessibility should be considered as well (I'm thinking
of quadriplegics and paraplegics who have dexterity issues).

Cheers,

James