Re: [Usability] Removing GNOME splash screens?

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Thu, 2004-10-21 at 10:31, Spider (D.M.D. Lj.) wrote:

> The splashscreen is quite necessary in this case, and just the fact that
> OpenOffice takes almost as long to show its splashscreen as the time the
> splashscreen is visible shows that something is going wrong. Badly so,
> in how things are implemented there.

I'm sure the splashscreen isn't taking up that 20-odd seconds of
processing time though... I'd imagine it's either just triggered to
appear at a certain point in the startup process, or when the main
window just still hasn't appeared after a certain time (which would be a
better idea).

The trouble with startup feedback is that generally, applications don't
know how long they're going to take to start up-- as in your situation,
there's usually at least one step whose duration is completely
determined by whether some file lives locally or on an NFS server
somewhere, or something.  So at best, an application can usually only
give indeterminate, unbounded progress feedback.  

In that case, a splash screen isn't providing any more feedback than the
hourglass cursor.  It's just doing it in a more obvious way (and in many
cases, more obtrusive-- I wonder how many people click the OpenOffice
splash screen as soon as it appears in the vain hope that it might just
go away again so they can get on with some work...)

Having said that, I do think it would be a shame to replace the main
GNOME splash screen with an hourglass or a boring old progress bar...
while the current progress icons are of limited use, I have to admit to
always having a sense of anticipation when a new version of GNOME is
released, to see what the new splash screen will be.  If every app
provided its own new splash screen every release, new artwork just
wouldn't be as rare and exciting an event  :) Plus you'd probably end up
with a complete mish-mash of splash screen styles that did little to
promote the idea that GNOME was a harmonious, coherent desktop
environment.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            Java Desktop System Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems