[Usability]Re: Notification area (was: Music player UI)

[Per Cederberg <per percederberg net>]

Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> 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.

Another problem with the Windows system tray is that there is
no structure as to which programs reside in there. On most
systems it is just crowded with junk, half of which is of no
importance whatsoever to the user (I used to go through great
pains attempting to remove or hide most of those things).

If a Gnome notification area is going to be used more
extensively, it might be a good idea to establish some policy
for it. For instance, I personally don't like to see icons
such as "multimedia keys daemon active" in there...

Another thing. I'm not sure if most users are going to
understand the difference between the notification area and
the other applets. In the end, they are both icons that you
can click, and that change appearence from time to time. Are
there some ideas out there on how to unify this?

Is this "notification area" thing a topic for a future HIG?
I couldn't find it in there, but I might not have been
searching enough.

/Per

----
Per Cederberg
http://www.percederberg.net/