Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: Are you saying that you really NEVER experienced an upgrade that creates a problem? I use my computer to work. Sometimes I just can't afford the risk that the thing breaks, even in minor aspects. E.g. when I am preparing a presentation or I am under a deadline. For this reasons the popup cannot be that frequent, it'd be annoying to people like me. But this creates a time-window for worms. If any. The -security updates trigger the Update Manager to appear immediately. There is no delay. Non-security updates don't do that, they get queued and presented every week by default, unless you manually go into the update manager or package manager, in which case the Update manager is deferred for another week. So the effect is: - security updates are presented immediately - others are presented occasionally, on a cadence that's judged reasonable Mark signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: Mark Shuttleworth ha scritto: Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: Are you saying that you really NEVER experienced an upgrade that creates a problem? I use my computer to work. Sometimes I just can't afford the risk that the thing breaks, even in minor aspects. E.g. when I am preparing a presentation or I am under a deadline. For this reasons the popup cannot be that frequent, it'd be annoying to people like me. But this creates a time-window for worms. If any. The -security updates trigger the Update Manager to appear immediately. There is no delay. Non-security updates don't do that, they get queued and presented every week by default, unless you manually go into the update manager or package manager, in which case the Update manager is deferred for another week. So the effect is: - security updates are presented immediately - others are presented occasionally, on a cadence that's judged reasonable Mark Ok but if I close the pop-up, when will I be adviced to upgrade again? In a week, unless there is a new *security* update before then. In any case, what about the system indicator? May it be used for upgrades? I did not see any details passing by. Interesting idea, let's discuss it in that thread. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Scott Kitterman ubu...@kitterman.comwrote: On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:40:12 +0530 mac_v drkv...@yahoo.com wrote: ... It is accepted that the icon is NOT very useful and also ignored ... I have to disagree. This has been repeatedly asserted, but I don't recall any actual studies that support this. This change has been overwhelmingly negatively received by all classes of user. My own view is that the old method was quite reasonably discoverable for users that cared about updates and that being more obvious isn't going to cause signficant numbers of users that don't care to suddenly start doing so. I think mostly this change is annoying both groups. I believe the current efforts try to solve the wrong problem. I think it would be a better use of this mental energy trying to figure out how to get more users to care about updates. I've been stunned to be talking to people who said they didn't care if their computers were part of a botnet because they didn't keep any private information on their computers. Trying to find a way to be sufficiently obtrusive to make users care about something they don't really care about isn't, in my opinion, a recipe for success. What about trying to educate people about other reasons to install updates. For example, it's worth pointing out that updates often contain bug fixes. Natan ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
Il giorno mar, 16/06/2009 alle 17.17 +0200, Martín Soto ha scritto: Would you mind showing us some evidence of said overwhelmingly negatively reaction? From what I've seen on the mailing lists so far, those complaining about the update pop-under mostly belong to a small, yet very vocal group of power users. Please, let's keep the this is something that only power user like/dislike old argument out of this discussion. I see this is not your intention, but as we are all power users this is an effective dialectic technique to lower the value of our observations. Also, I already said this elsewhere. Either design a poll, or don't say that a group of persons is small. You don't have a scale for comparison. The whole launchpad can be considered a small group of users. Ubuntu developers are a small group of users. If you think you didn't see the numbers yet and want people to start an advertising campaign to send angry users that may not have the will to report the bug here, I can do that (yes it's a joke). Let me also remark that the bug had some 20 duplicates. These are persons that _did not know_ the problem before and went to report. Hence they don't belong to a small group as you said. I am one of these. Now let's get to the point of which evidence we have that people do not like popups in general. For update-notification, if you want evidence, again, create a poll and find a way to gather the opinion of users. I won't do that because I already have good experience. The typical computer user I saw in my life tend to close immediately any popup without reading it. Especially if it's not a good moment to do what is requested. This is my experience, I teached ubuntu to many, and I taught courses at university to non-computer scientists, (I was forced at the time to use windows, and here I could have a good sample of behaviours w.r.t. popups) but I am not an usability expert. If you accept my past experience as an example, my impression is that if a non-power-user sees a popup requesting to do an action and it's not the right moment, she closes the popup. After a while, closing the popup becomes an habit. And it's never used again, it's just considered an annoyance. If doing upgrades was a do it in 5 seconds, and be sure not to have consequences kind of thing, probably users would learn to just click ok instead of closing the window. But it's not the case. Power users are often adamant about having absolute control over their computers, This is NOT the case in the problem we are talking about. We want a cleaner, less disturbing system. We are not asking for esotheric feature or millimetric customization. I even reject the solution of editing the appropriate gconf key quite because, even if I know how to customize my system down to the bare hardware, I _prefer_ to use the standard settings of ubuntu. Sometimes I don't even change my background for a long time after a new installation. so it is no surprise that some of them find it very irritating when their computers open windows without their explicit consent. I'm not sure, however, that this is the case for most users (myself included, and I'm a power user, for sure) So you are a power user too, you don't feel irritated by the pop-up, and this proves what? . I would expect most people to just confirm the updates and keep going with their lives Are you saying that you really NEVER experienced an upgrade that creates a problem? I use my computer to work. Sometimes I just can't afford the risk that the thing breaks, even in minor aspects. E.g. when I am preparing a presentation or I am under a deadline. For this reasons the popup cannot be that frequent, it'd be annoying to people like me. But this creates a time-window for worms. If any. , but, as I said, if you have clear evidence that contradicts my expectation, I'll be glad to see it. Clear evidence will be obtained only when studies will be published. All of this is based on a study which has not been published. I do not work in usability and do not have the resources to do a test, but if you find any, and you need some cooperation, I'll be glad to help designing some experiments. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
Would you mind showing us some evidence of said overwhelmingly negatively reaction? From what I've seen on the mailing lists so far, those complaining about the update pop-under mostly belong to a small, yet very vocal group of power users. Are you joking ? Count the unique users on this https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/332945?comments=all and the number of duplicated bug. Then compare with what an average a bug gets. Stefano ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
2009/6/16 Vincenzo Ciancia cian...@di.unipi.it Please, let's keep the this is something that only power user like/dislike old argument out of this discussion. I see this is not your intention, but as we are all power users this is an effective dialectic technique to lower the value of our observations. I wouldn't want to lower the value of any observations you've made, as long as these are observations about other people's behavior and not about your own behavior, tastes or preferences. This is the reason why I was asking Scott to produce some explicit evidence, because, so far, I have the impression he's mostly speaking based on his own feelings. I may be wrong about this, of course. Also, I already said this elsewhere. Either design a poll, or don't say that a group of persons is small. You don't have a scale for comparison. The whole launchpad can be considered a small group of users. Ubuntu developers are a small group of users. If you think you didn't see the numbers yet and want people to start an advertising campaign to send angry users that may not have the will to report the bug here, I can do that (yes it's a joke). Let me also remark that the bug had some 20 duplicates. These are persons that _did not know_ the problem before and went to report. Hence they don't belong to a small group as you said. I am one of these. I believe you that you and Scott are not the only guys who hate this feature. Still, the problem with saying there are 20 people in Launchpad who hate it too is that all of you conform a self-selected sample. If you hate the feature, you report it as a bug in Launchpad or get noisy about it in the mailing lists. If, on the other hand, you like the feature, or, at least, don't have a problem with it, you normally don't write to the mailing list just to praise it. Do you write to the mailing list every time you like something about Ubuntu? Now let's get to the point of which evidence we have that people do not like popups in general. For update-notification, if you want evidence, again, create a poll and find a way to gather the opinion of users. I won't do that because I already have good experience. The risk of such a poll is the same: Self selection. Obviously, people are much more likely to participate if the are bothered by the feature, which will immediately introduce a strong bias. Although I'm a scientist, I'm not an expert in this kind of research, so I guess I'll ask my poll-designing colleagues here at work what they would do in such a situation and see if they have a better answer. The typical computer user I saw in my life tend to close immediately any popup without reading it. Especially if it's not a good moment to do what is requested. This is my experience, I teached ubuntu to many, and I taught courses at university to non-computer scientists, (I was forced at the time to use windows, and here I could have a good sample of behaviours w.r.t. popups) but I am not an usability expert. If you accept my past experience as an example, my impression is that if a non-power-user sees a popup requesting to do an action and it's not the right moment, she closes the popup. After a while, closing the popup becomes an habit. And it's never used again, it's just considered an annoyance. If doing upgrades was a do it in 5 seconds, and be sure not to have consequences kind of thing, probably users would learn to just click ok instead of closing the window. But it's not the case. You are speaking about pop-ups here, but the update notifier is rather a pop-under. It remains discretely behind other windows until you select it. The only way it can be intrusive, as you already pointed out, is by getting in your way when you're trying to switch windows with Alt+Tab. In any case, I agree with you that we don't know if the new solution is any more or less effective than the previous solution. Power users are often adamant about having absolute control over their computers, This is NOT the case in the problem we are talking about. We want a cleaner, less disturbing system. We are not asking for esotheric feature or millimetric customization. I even reject the solution of editing the appropriate gconf key quite because, even if I know how to customize my system down to the bare hardware, I _prefer_ to use the standard settings of ubuntu. Sometimes I don't even change my background for a long time after a new installation. Achieving a less disturbing system is, of course, a valuable goal. The problem here is that if your system is, for example, running an insecure network stack or a file system module that may destroy all of your data, you'd rather be disturbed about it. My hunch is that the pop-under will be more effective at calling most people's attention in such a case, but, of course, I don't have hard data to prove it. so it is no surprise that some of them find it very irritating when their computers open windows without
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:31:54 +0200 Martín Soto dons...@gmail.com wrote: This is the reason why I was asking Scott to produce some explicit evidence, because, so far, I have the impression he's mostly speaking based on his own feelings. I may be wrong about this, of course. You are. I have tried to monitor all the public feedback about this change the I could reasonably track. My impression is that outside the group of people that designed and implemented this change it has received virtually no positive feedback. This change does not directly affect me since I use Kubuntu. I was actually reporting almost entirely about my impression of feedback from people who experience this change and virtually not at all about my own experience with it. Scott K ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
