-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Evan Huus wrote on 03/12/11 15:43: > ... > > Currently when an event occurs (for example, someone says something > in a minimized empathy chat), a notification pops up and the > messaging indicator turns blue. They happen at the same time, but > the events don't appear related. Technically they are two > components of the same event, but they appear on two different, not > visibly related UI elements as two separate events. This is made > even worse if the notification is delayed because it is queued > behind other notifications. In that case the indicator turns blue > well before the notification appears, so the user has no idea which > notification the blue indicator is associated with. > > Additionally, the change of colour in the indicator is not > particularly noticeable. Anecdotally I have found that people > either don't notice it at all, or ignore it because they don't know > what it means (was there a usability study on this? I remember one, > but couldn't find it any more...)
Yes. From <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2011-April/032988.html>: "Only 2/6 noticed an XChat Gnome notification, despite (1) a notification bubble appearing, (2) the Ubuntu button going blue, (3) the messaging menu envelope going blue, and (4) an emblem appearing on XChat Gnome's launcher." (In 11.10, fewer things change: the Ubuntu button no longer goes blue.) > That's the problem. There are a couple of possible solutions, but > here's one that makes the most sense to me: > > - Link notifications to indicators via a speech-bubble-like tail. > Volume change notifications get linked to the sound indicator, > empathy notifications get linked to the messaging indicator, etc. > > I believe that just this change on its own will help > significantly. Notifications are transient, so people can't > interact with them, but with this change the notifications are at > least *pointing* to something interactive. They still don't require > interaction (which was one of the original design goals I agree > with) but they make it obvious how. This should reduce the > frustration felt by users who are used to interacting with > notifications directly on other operating systems. Three problems there. Most importantly, in the 11.04 test, people didn't see the bubble either. Would a bubble with a tail be much more noticable than one without a tail? Second, giving Ubuntu notification bubbles tails would make them look more like Windows notification balloons ... which are clickable. :-) Third, what would happen when there were two or more bubbles on screen at once? Would the tail of the second obscure the first? > ... > > I personally think the above change would be sufficient, but we > have other options as well: > > - Add a glow effect and a *very* gentle pulse to active (blue) > indicators. This will make them slightly more obvious and > interactive-looking than currently. We'll have to be careful not > to make them too distracting, though. > > - Change the notification animation to be a magic-lamp like expand > and collapse into the appropriate indicator. Could be used instead > of or in addition to the speech-bubble-tail. I expect this would > end up being too active/busy, but you never know. > > ... Perhaps when battery is critically low, the battery icon should blink constantly even once you've dismissed the warning alert. - -- mpt -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk7mPMwACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecrKiACgkc5ylUSxk1xguFT2qQAm+7xF 4JIAoL9aD7fJki9WoaL+akYFM+7+N7Ju =kPOQ -----END PGP 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
