unity-design team mailing list archive

[Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 29/02/12 19:30, Jamu Kakar wrote:
>  - If the number is quite large, like 1000, there won't be enough 
> horizontal space for the spinner.

We already map to *** for numbers over 999. There's room.

Going deeper: what matters with these numbers is not the number itself, 
but the *change* in the number. Think of any example, like the number of 
updates to an app. What matters is that you've gone from zero to 3 or 
from 2 to 6. Going from 13226 to 14323 isn't at all interesting.

So, we shape the system not for "mathematical accuracy" but for "eyeball 
relevance". If you've got big numbers dancing around, this mechanism is 
not the mechanism you want to be using. That knowledge allows us to do 
better design for the cases where it *is* the right mechanism.

> - It's small and hard to see, especially when you shrink launcher 
> icons down to 32px. What about some kind of throbbing effect on the 
> launcher icon itself, not unlike the one that's used when the 
> application is starting?

The launcher holds many apps, only one is your focus at any given time.

If the thing-which-is-happening is critical to your focus, then it 
should be front and center in the focused window, somehow.

If it isn't, then you don't WANT it to intrude on your consciousness. 
It's there if you want to peek for it, it's unobtrusive if you are 
trying to focus on something else while that happens.

The original name of this list was "ayatana" which is a zen term about 
peripheral awareness while focused. There is always a tension between 
those two, and always a tendency when designing something new (it is 
your current focus) to overstate it's visibility (intruding on the focus 
of the end-user).

So let's start with this low-key design, and take it from there.

Would someone care to file a bug, with the mockup attached?

Mark