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Shuttleworth Proposes Overhaul of Desktop Notifications
Thelasko writes "Mark Shuttleworth is considering a controversial overhaul to the way Ubuntu manages notifications." I'm not thrilled with all of the changes proposed, which would mostly value simplicity over confusion at the expense of flexibility and permanence. But anything that would make more people read over and specifically approve the wording of error messages and other notifications is a good thing.
This looks to me almost exactly the same way KDE 4 notifications work. Just a slight change in the bubble look.
a little off topic, but some configuration tools would be nice. You know for the general public. until ubuntu can do that it's going to be no where near desktop ready for most people.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
So the entire summary is Thelasko's opinion , with a one sentence description that links to shuttleworth's blog? Perhaps a true summary of proposed changes in Ubuntu desktop notifications would have been more informative.
I like it. Maybe I'm alone here, but note in the article that Shuttleworth says that some notifications are important and should be treated differently (as "persistent panel indicators") - but there's no reason why you should have to click on "Wifi stopped working" and "Wifi started working", hence distracting you from what you're doing. Exploring new ideas is more important than whether they're good or bad, especially four months ahead of release.
xterm -n 8
Our hypothesis is that the existence of ANY action creates a weighty obligation to act, or to THINK ABOUT ACTING. That make notifications turn from play into work. That makes them heavy responsibilities. That makes them an interruption, not a notification. And interruptions are a bag of hurt when you have things to do.
Then what, exactly, is the purpose of the notifications? If not to invoke immediate action, then just send an email summary at the end of the day of all the "notifications" that happened in the last 24 hours. Short of showing changes in a network state, what would be urgent enough to show immediately, on top of all other windows, but not important enough to want to address at the same time?
"Your download is complete." I'll want to open the file.
"You have new email." I'll want to read the email.
"Your mom cried when she read your heartwarming birthday card." I'll want to pick up the phone.
What are these mysterious notifications that won't invoke a desire to perform some sort of action from the user?
<cluebat>
Other humans do what's important to them, not what's important to you.
</cluebat>
<description type="job">
You don't control people, you control machines.
You do your job so others can do theirs.
</description>
If it's that important to perform a remote restart, drop a widget on the machine that enables remote control.
So you wanted people to leave their computers on all weekend? You must hate the environment.
OK, where to start... I'll leave aside the wording of your email, seeing as most people will glaze over as soon as they see it's from IT in the first place.
1. Your email is more than 5 lines long. IME, most people don't read beyond the first few lines so there's no point in bothering with any more than that.
2. You expect your end users to jump through hoops for nobody's benefit but your own. Wake on LAN should deal with PCs that are turned off, if they're not turned off I leave setting up a remote reboot script to your imagination.
3. Rewritten email:
"We will be applying updates to your PC, part of which will involve remotely rebooting your system at 20:00 tonight. Please notify us if this is inconvenient".
In Windows land, it seems just about dang near every application you install has notification annoyances when you start the PC.
1. Java Virtual machine seems to get an update every other day. This is just great, since I don't have enough java VM versions on my add/remove programs. Thanks!
2. Windows Media Player will irritate you with a media update every day, it seems.
3. Can't forget Itunes! What minor revision do you have now that doesn't seem to do much for me? Hey, what's all these extra applications you think I should install as well?
4. Macromedia Flash, ahh, can't forget that one.
5. HP Printer drivers. Just screams "me too".
6. Probably Steam has an update too.
And that's not even the usual update patches from Windows Update.
Don't turn your computer on in over a week, and you'll be going through 20 minutes of updating stuff. There are times I wish software WASN'T updated so frequently.
That's hilarious :).
One of the reasons you make them restart is because the notification system just isn't good enough.
BTW, I know I've seen Windows force restarts before.
Because Fedora almost always does what they do, only a release before them?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I love this remark from the article about notifications -
They are gone like a mystery girl on the bus you didnâ(TM)t get on, and they enrich your life in exactly the same way!
The first thing I thought of was, "So...they don't."
So Mac users recently got what GNU/Linux users have had for over a decade?
Revolutionary! :-)
(let's face it: software development is an iterative process, where it often makes sense to take inspiration from other people doing similar things. As everyone does this, it's not a bad thing, in fact it helps spur innovation.)
It is exactly this notion that Shuttleworth is challenging. You see notifications as a sort of transient dialog box that implies action. He sees them as, well, notifications. I am inclined to agree with him. If you might want to read your new email, why only give yourself a 3-second window in which to click the notification? Does your interest in reading the email (or opening the file, etc.) disappear after a few seconds? What if you're busy now, but want to read the email later? Transient notifications are the wrong tool for the job. Put a clickable mail icon on your panel to signal that there is unread mail. Use the pop-up notification only to provide a heads-up about there being new mail. If the user is busy (or away from the computer) they will still want to read their email once they have the attention to spare.
And don't you dare suggest that notifications should be permanent until the user dismisses them! That's intrusive and obnoxious.
Because the GNOME guys didn't come up with, and may not want, it.
Because this is not "linux UI development", it is Ubuntu specific UI development.
Remember boys (and girls, if the three of you are reading this) Linux doesn't have a GUI, it has various flavors of X Windows. X Windows doesn't have a window manager, it has 15. X Windows doesn't have a desk top environment, it has at least two that I know of and possibly more.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Amen! I would lead with:
"Restart every night to protect your computer."
Put your request/demand/question at the top of the email, then followup with details about what you want and why you want it. Make it terse, so people can read it fast (in Outlook AutoPreview, even). Bake an even terser version into the subject line ("Restart Every Night"). This lets you get your point across before the reader can hit the delete key.
Incidentally, most readers aren't interested in why you want something or the idiot's guide to doing it (if it's a known operation like "restart"). You need these details (for a big audience), but your message penetration will be lower if you lead off with them. Just tell people what you need of them. Other low priority information includes: how the decision was reached, what policy enforces it, and what vague alternatives might be hand-wavingly considered in the future. Never include grovelling and never lord it over your users: you are speaking professional to professional.
Pro tip: if there's an intrinsic motivation for your reader, mention it second (after your request but before the details). Saying "to protect your computer" speaks to the typical office worker's needs waaaaaaay faster than "Microsoft has issued a critical security patch that corrects a vulnerability problem with Internet Explorer." I can live for a few hours without IE, but I can't do anything if my workstation isn't running. On the other hand, if there's no motivation for the reader (or if it's trivial, or if it's hard to understand, or if it's a threat of punishment), you're better off burying these details in your verbiage.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Hah! I have the same problem. I actually have a Splunk search saved that I check every morning telling me if anyone's operating with an expired password. I call them up and usually ask "Have you noticed that you haven't been able to print anything for 24 hours? That you haven't been able to access any of the shares? No? Well, anyways, please logoff and log on again, Thanks!" People really would go for weeks without logging off, not being able to print or access network data and just not tell anyone about it.
More like "other humans assume that the IT department enjoys creating work for the hell of it and that smoothly running systems which can be maintained by following simple written instructions are somehow not in their interests". How is patronizing the GP like this supposed to remedy that? You can look at an undesirable or less-than-ideal situation (i.e. the apathy of users) and accept it as the reality of the situation and work with it without ever needing to make excuses for it or justify it. Personally I find that quite a bit more appealing than saying "know your role" or "you're just the help" as though this attitude is the only way to serve others. I'm not necessarily even saying that these things aren't true; I am merely questioning the need to place so much emphasis on them.
This part is good constructive criticism. When I mentioned "accept the reality of the situation and work with it" above, this is more like what I was talking about. Why create avoidable problems by asking users to manually follow instructions (however simple) that can be automated? I think the actions we would take to deal with this situation would be quite similar; it's really your point of view (and yours is a common one) that I'm addressing. I would handle this in a remotely administered, automated fashion because it's a better solution, it's more reliable, and it doesn't create unnecessary friction, not because I'm worried about whether it's sufficiently humble for my station. In my opinion, that attitude is one of the more regrettable products of corporate culture.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I think this is just a side effect of the relatively fragmented nature of closed source software. Vendors don't work together or allow anyone to modify their products because of IP issues, which is why you don't see distro-like entities re-packaging existing apps so they'll work together nicely and upgrade nicely, as happens with open source.
Also once something's installed, it's in the vendor's interests to be as in-your-face as possible to make sure you remember it's there. Hence all the loading-at-startup splash screens that you'll often see on a Windows PC, and update notifications... because every vendor wants to individually make sure that all users know about their latest offerings.
Maybe their job doesn't require them to print or use shares. Besides, forcing frequent password changes just uses up lots of yellow stickies.
Gnome has had notifications forever, too. People donÂt really understand what this proposal is about.
Seriously. I rarely use windows at all but the few times I do one thing really pisses me off completely
You're typing text and all of the sudden some crap application (windows or 3rd party) decides it wants
to popup either a splash screen or some alert dialog box.. and immediately the focus is taken away from
the text window and given to the dialog box...
Tell you what Windows assholes: Nothing you can popup is more important than what I'm typing. I don't
give a fuck whether Outlook wants to compact my inbox. Don't pop up when I'm typing. It's like slapping
the keyboard out of my hand.
Here's how notification and popups need to be solved. Have a short queue of icons representing popups
on the right upper corner of the screen. There can be a configurable message beep for each item (or one
beep for multiple items should a lot of them popup at once). The icons can't blink or otherwise try to
distract. If I click them the dialog box folds down Mac OSX style. I can configure it to expire dialog boxes
if I chose to ignore them. In that case the application gets told the dialog has been cancelled. Optionally
I can tell the application that I'm ignoring its popup and it is also then blacklisted for that dialog or for
any dialog for that matter.
The only time I can actually envision an exception to the icons not blinking or being distracting is if
the OS or an app is reporting a catastrophic event (about to lose power, disk errors etc.).
So I've been bitching about Windows but this is something I'd like anybody designing a desktop to
think about.
... and I'm going to tell you about things that already exist, that other people are working on and make it sound like it's exclusive to Ubuntu.
Thank you for your time.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.