unity-design team mailing list archive

[Daniel Hollocher <danielhollocher@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 5:53 AM, supernova <supernova.it@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I got this idea: let's start automatically the icons on the launcher
> at login, or at least the most used (I know preload and so on...) as
> nautilus, firefox, libreoffice. This will give the perception of fast
> start at the first click.
> So as you log in nautilus will be opened and reduced to icon on the
> launcher. When a user clicks on nautilus icon, it will open as fast as
> it was reduced to icon, and not as if we had to open it for the first
> time.
> What do you all think?
>
> Well, it won't make Ubuntu run faster, but will give perception of it,
> but in some sense, world is perception and appearance...


 I think a better idea would be a message the first time an app loads,
telling the user that it will take longer because "extra libraries are
being loaded: such as a, b, c" or whatever.  I think people are willing to
put up with the perception of slowness as long as they know what's going
on, and they know that things aren't broken  (at least that's how I feel).
 One could also use different loading graphics for the first time startups,
since I think that would communicate the same thing in a non-verbal way.

There is some design history with elevators that is relevant here.  I first
heard it as a proverb from someone about the difference between a social
and construction engineer, but this is the only link I could find:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1005081200005

So applying that material here, the problem with the longer initial loading
times is not that it is slow, it is of what the user is thinking during
those initial loading times.  As I said above, I personally will worry that
something is wrong, or that I did something wrong, if loading times are
longer than I expect.  But those are just my thoughts.  There are probably
other negative thoughts that people think that could be taken into account.

Dan