Re: Main Menu mockup

["natan yellin" <aantny gmail com>]

On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Matthew McGowan
<matthew joseph mcgowan gmail com> wrote:

>
>
> > If the five different menus are already cluttered, then you're not going to make something less cluttered by just munging them all together. On the other hand, if it's possible to simplify each of them enough that munging them together works, then it should also be possible to usefully simplify them without munging them together at all, saving the user a click or two every time.
> >
>
> You are right.  But at the moment in the Gnome shell a user could potentially have deskbar running as an applet, pidgin with its own list and status listings, and the 'Applications', 'Places', 'System' menus, and then there are the sub-menus for each category of apps etc.  So in this situation we have a large distance between applets and allot of screen real estate used up. Is there much lost usability-wise if these were merged.  I think it makes some sense to consolidate certain core functions into one location (search/places/apps/settings)?

Considering that search _already_ overlaps with places, apps, and
settings, it certainly makes sense to some degree.

More importantly, however, we have a tradition of using menus for
everything possible and _that's_ the biggest issue that needs to be
fixed in the next generation desktop shell. (If you can find me a
usability study that likes menus then I'll eat my hat.)

On the topic of menus, has anyone thought about using Gnome
Journal/Online Desktop style tabs on the side of the screen instead of
menus?
>
> Also some things are used with lower frequency, so the fact they are lumped with a menu would have less impact.  IMHO it makes sense for the 'System' menu to be merged into some other menu.  Ideally a user should not be having to go to the Systems menu all that often.
>
>
> Regards,
> Matt
>
>
>
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-Natan