unity-design team mailing list archive

[nick rundy <nrundy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I feel more & more that App Lens should display all apps by default and have no other headings.

Users will use it to browse the apps on their computer and perform searches for specific apps. Windows 8 nailed the Search Apps presentation. It is very nice. this is how they do it.

Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 17:25:49 -0600
From: hansheintze1@xxxxxxxxx
To: unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Unity-design] Applications Dash should display all apps (or be configurable)


  


    
  
  
    On 03/01/2012 11:57 AM, nick rundy wrote:
    
      
      
        Is there a good reason to require the user to have to click "See
        more results" when opening the Applications Dash? Especially
        when users use dconf to disable the display of "recent" and/or
        "available" apps, why not display all apps by default? 
        

        
        I was taking a look at the Windows 8 Consumer Preview to
          see how they handle application display and they have a
          similar setup where user taps a shortcut and the "Applications
          Lens" shows up. Except Windows 8 displays all apps by default
          with functional scrolling via PageUp & PageDown.
        

        
        It is great that adding PageUp & PageDown functionality
          to the Dash has been green-lit by Mark. But what is gained
          from limiting display of installed applications when a user
          goes to the Applications Lens (especially when the "available
          apps" section is hidden)? 
      
      

      
      

    
    

    This is a good question to ask, and one that I don't think design
    has an answer to after the introduction of the new dash home.

    Now that the dash displays recently used apps/files from initiation
    the presence of the recent section in the apps lense becomes
    pointless redundancy. The only part that isn't functional overlap is
    the ability to expand this section to take up 3 rows. Due to the
    fact that the apps in the section change frequently finding the app
    you are looking for here depends on little more than sheer luck. It
    is my understanding that this is not how Human computer interaction
    is supposed to go. 

    

    Assuming that apps for download is kept in future versions of unity
    despite usability testing, the section would not be an interference
    if all apps were displayed. I can only imagine it being used after
    some text refinement has taken place, bringing it to the top of the
    page (I cannot imagine a user wanting to search for an installable
    app using a query that would return more than two rows of results). 
    Perhaps my imagination is limited here because the few times I have
    attempted to use this part of the apps lense to search for an app no
    results are returned, even when searching for an application name
    directly.

    

    I hope Canonical design or at least Shuttleworth notices this
    redundancy, so we can have a simpler unity for 6.0 and beyond.

  


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