unity-design team mailing list archive

[nick rundy <nrundy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's an interesting book: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

I think it's important to take into consideration that Mac and Windows are what people have known for a long time. It literally has shaped their unconscious expectations of what to expect from computer behavior. So testing has to be careful to not exclude scenarios where exposure to a new concept is not eliminated simply because it is not immediately understood by the user. Once exposure sets in, a new method may actually be a superior way of doing things but testing doesn't immediately prove it out because of long-ingrained habits and expectations formed by Windows and Mac.



From: gehringfelix@xxxxxx
To: unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 15:52:50 +0100
Subject: Re: [Unity-design] No more dodge windows in Unity?



It is an interesting point though. I never thought about it, but just like new users of Ubuntu may be confused by the seemingly "disappeared" menu bar they may not understand the dodge windows behavior of the launcher.

In 12.04 the menu bar is visible for a few seconds after an application has been launched, such that new users have a chance to spot it. This could also be a good idea for the launcher. After maximizing a window (or starting a full screen application) the launcher stays on the screen for a while and than moves out.

I don't have an Ubuntu machine here right now to check, so this may already be implemented. Never mind, if it is....


    
        Gesendet: Donnerstag, 08. März 2012 um 15:15 Uhr

        Von: "nick rundy" <nrundy@xxxxxxxxxxx>

        An: mark@xxxxxxxxxx, unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

        
        Betreff: Re: [Unity-design] No more dodge windows in Unity?
    
    
        


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.
 		 	   		  

    


  

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