[Usability]Re: Notification Area guidelines

[Lars Weber <lars brokenbits de>]

Olivier Crete <tester tester ca> wrote:
> The balloon should go away after a while, but we should be able to 
> continue blinking until a user action is taken when required. Everyone 
> else does that and it seems to only reasonable way to go.

        Can you give an example of where you think continuous blinking is
preferable to simply showing a special `Important message' (or whatever)
icon and doing the usual n seconds balloon/blink notification?

        Personally I believe that a user should always have the option of
ignoring requests made through the notification area because there *will*
be situations where he simply doesn't care (just imagine yourself sitting
in front of another person's computer and then the icon of his instant
messenger to start flashing without end[1]).  Continuous blinking is like
saying "Hey user, if you don't take care of me immediately, I'll make
noise until you do!"

        Another thing is that I feel that having too many different ways
of notifying users (i.e. balloon messages / blinking / continuous blinking
/ special icons) will in the end just help to create confusion about what
the proper behavior of status icons is.

Regards,
Lars

[1] Something that *does* happen to me quite reqularly when I sit at my
brother's computer!