unity-design team mailing list archive

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 02/14/2012 09:52 PM, Josh Strawbridge wrote:

> does autohide even offer any real benefit over always visible? i doubt
> it but i'm sure there are plenty of people who would rather not have
> their launcher *always* visible.

More space, less distraction, obviously.


> if someone is going to change from the
> default it's all about user preference not user benefit.  it's because
> they like it more rather than because it's so much more beneficial.

It is very much possible that changing a setting does lead to an 
objective, measurable benefit for the particular user.


> we're obviously not getting dodge windows back in it's old form so how
> about mixing in some of it's functionality with the remaining two options?
> have that functionality turned on and off by one setting that affects
> both options.

Such "mixing" would change the nature of the 2 options into variants of 
the current dodge.

> have it make always visible hide when a window is maximized and for
> autohide have it either visible when there isn't any window open or have
> it dodge windows.

The first would reintroduce the exact problem found in user testing, 
that to new users, it seems like the Launcher suddenly disappeared for 
no obvious reason.


> i don't see how "this is bad for new users" directly means "this is just
> bad and we should get rid of it completely."

A good point that directly leads to the question of weighting. If 
Canonical puts so much weight on the initial experience, we may argue 
that they should not, as most users are beginners only for a short time 
and the majority will reach and stay at some intermediate level. Of 
course, only if the first time wasn't too frustrating.

But this needs to be argued about only once, the rest is noise.

If bombarding Canonical with complaints would "help", the window 
close/min/max buttons wouldn't be on the left anymore ;)


--
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/