Re: [Usability] Some interesting user feedback

[Dan Winship <danw ximian com>]

> The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. If you submit a report on this
> crash, you can help us improve our software. 

> The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. If you tell us about this crash,
> you will be helping us improve our software."

> The "$APPNAME" application has crashed.  Tell us what happened and you
> could help improve our software.

"I just ate your data. Please be my friend."

After an application crashes is not a good time to be asking the user to
help us. We want to emphasize how filing a bug report will help *them*.

        The application "$APPNAME" has crashed.
        
        If you would like to send a bug report to the developers of this
        application, click "Send Bug Report" below to open the Bug
        Reporting Assistant, which will generate a detailed crash report
        and help you send it to the right place.

(OK, that doesn't really emphasize how it will help them, but isn't it
kind of obvious?) The bit at the end tries to address the original "but
I don't know how to send a bug report" issue. The "help you send it" is
to avoid implying that clicking the button will make it automatically
violate your privacy / corporate security policy.

Another thing that could be cool would be a "check for a new version"
button (with associated explanatory text) that would run red-carpet /
apt-get / rhn / whatever for you to see if there was a new version of
the package. (libgnomeui would just have stubs, which the various
packagers could then plug their systems into.)


Oh, and the current crash dialog includes the PID of the crashed
application, which is useful for developers (so you can go to a terminal
and attach gdb to the right process easily). Keeping that information
somewhere would be nice, even if it was somewhere less prominent, like
the titlebar, or in a "Details" pane a la gconf errors.

-- Dan