unity-design team mailing list archive

[nick rundy <nrundy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 11:37:58 +0000
From: mark@xxxxxxxxxx
To: eapache@xxxxxxxxx
CC: unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Unity-design] No more dodge windows in Unity?


  


    
  
  
    >>>Here's the problem. Most users don't discover the dodging by moving
    a window till it touches the launcher. They first encounter it when
    they maximise a window. So, they login to the desktop. >>>Good. They
    start an app. Good. Then they maximise a window, and the launcher
    "disappears". To these users, the behaviour is deeply uncomfortable,
    random. And these are in fact the majority >>>of users.

    

    Of course "new" users find this behavior "deeply uncomfortable" and "random." It is a new concept never used by Windows and Mac--the only operating systems that the vast majority of computer users have ever seen or been exposed to. 

How long has Dodge Windows existed as a feature that users could see and use? 6, 7 months? 8 months at most. And on an operating system that only a very small percentage of users throughout the world use. 

For over a decade all users have known is the taskbar hides or it doesn't hide. Nobody in today's world is truly isolated from computers. People pick stuff up unconsciously. And the Dodge behavior is unlike any taskbar action they've ever seen on Windows or Mac. So of course it seems random.

But if the concept was allowed to actually diffuse into the population of computer users, I suspect people would absorb the concept unconsciously. Obviously, once this happens, even non-computer users would understand the behavior because they absorbed it unconsciously from the wider culture.

If Dodge Windows actually stuck around long enough, I suspect the testing results would have been very different.

It's a shame that it was never given a chance. Testing can make mistakes. My concern is that this is just such an event. Food for thought.