Re: [Usability]Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Music player UI

[Jens Knutson <jensknutson yahoo com>]

On Sun, 2003-02-23 at 13:49, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

> Overall, I like the idea and it will require people to get used to 
> the status dock as the primary method interfacing with the application.
> 
> Jens mentioned that he's found people confused by using the tray.  I've
> seen that on windows as well.  But I generally find that as a failure on how
> it was implemented.  Microsoft hides most of the ioons in the system tray
> and it's the "out of sight out of mind mentality" at work here.  I think
> this solution is workable.

Why such a focus on the notification area ("tray")?  I mean, I love
saving screen real estate as much as anyone, but I really think that the
tray is a poor primary UI - it's a nice place to hide things that you
want out of the way, yet keep controllable, but I really think it's
going to get missed by the vast majority of users.  Just saying that
they'll "have to get used to it" is going to translate to users just
finding something else, like keeping XMMS... *gag*

It seems to me that the "cost", usability wise, of being very tray-icon
centric is quite high.  What is the cost of popping up a window instead?

 - jck

-- 
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man."

 - George Bernard Shaw