[Usability] Deep thoughts and proposal on the awful trashcan/eject issue (long)

[Jason Hoover <jasonhoover verizon net>]

I've been itching to complain about this one for a while now.

Granted, I've searched the list and have even seen and understood some
of the valid points presented.

Most of the arguments I see go like this:

"Macs are kewl. Trashcan should eject."
"No they're not. Trashcan is stoopid."

Granted, both sides usually have their points.

The most common is:

"Getting a CD out of something shouldn't involve throwing anything into
the trash."

This point usually wins the argument, and is quite valid. The trashcan
is a horrible metaphor.

My complaint however, runs a bit deeper than the lame metaphor. My
complaint is with how nautilus reacts to the user attempting this
action, more specifically, the error that appears.

Why is it, that when nautilus discovers, even knows, what the user is
trying to do, that it tells the user "You shouldn't do that. you should
do this instead"?

This generally leads me, and others, I'm sure, to the same question
almost every time; "Why the hell not?"

Take airport customs, or the DMV for example. Both the DMV and customs
have seemingly arbitrary rules and procedures. For example, at customs,
you must wait behind the line. This seems arbitrary, but it's for
privacy, and so no one sneaks by. At our DMV you can only pay with check
and money order. You can't pay in cash for security reasons, and you
can't pay in credit because most credit transactions cost the place of
business a fee, and would make accounting awkward for the city.

I have yet to find a reason WHY dragging a floppy, cdrom, or USB mass
storage device to the trash fails to unmount the volume other than
"Because we think it's a stupid metaphor". (Even worse, when doing this
from "Computer" it actually tries to assume a default and delete the
volume's contents and the icon!!!)

The nautilus team could (in theory at least) be said to think that
"Navigational interfaces are stupid" (since they switched to spacial).
However, because they knew people would want to do stupid things, they
left said interface mode as an option.

Samba, putty, and openssh all implement support for "stupid" bugs
because people will want to do "stupid" things such as access servers
which don't comply to the standard. Instead of dropping support for
"stupidly" broken servers, they implement "stupid" workarounds to suit
the users "stupid" needs and "stupid" expectations.

Granted, the trashcan metaphor is a "stupid" one, but outright insulting
there intelligence both directly and indirectly by not catering to their
"stupid" expectations is simply outrageous. Good design (and business,
for that matter) states that an interface should never tell a user "no"
without there being at least one valid reason behind it. (Imagine not
being able to send an e-mail until you get all your spelling right!)

Granted, we don't put the display options in the right click menu for
the desktop, but we do provide a standard location for such controls
(The desktop preferences menu). However, for this function no obvious
location exists.

Also, there have been many duplicate bugs filed about this issue, and
it's a problem that seems to keep arising. While yes, users will always
have to learn things, there are things we can do to make that transition
smoother.

There is another problem, it's impossible to know whether the user wants
to clear the volume, or simply unmount it. However, this is what the
floppy formatter and installation/distro utilities should be for.

Even worse, when doing this from "Computer" it actually tries to assume
a default and delete the volume's contents and the icon itself, then
complains when it's unsuccessful!!! (While this is an entirely different
problem, it just goes to show the depth of this consistency issue)

With all this in mind, it is clear that a better solution is necessary. 

I have the following proposal (these vary from my comments in the bug):

*Add an eject menu to the desktop action menu. This would allow a
quicker way to eject things without needing to right click or go to the
desktop or open "Computer" first.

*If the user uses the trash anyway, give them an informational box,
containing something like the following:

    "It may be easier to use the "Eject" sub menu of the "Desktop" menu
to eject instead."
    "If you want to erase the volume, go to the floppy formatter or
system settings."
    "[toggle] Do the following by default:"
    "[Eject anyway] [Cancel]"

*Add an option to gnome-volume-properties to change the default behavior
for this action.

This solution would have the following positive/negative points:
    -It would let the user determine what action they wanted to perform.
    -It wouldn't insult them by contradicting their commands.
    -It would add a nice shortcut for ejecting a volume in an obvious
location without much UI bloat.
    -It would allow the user to figure out where to go if they had no
clue otherwise.
    -It may annoy them until they pick a default.
    -It brings up the problem of "What if the user tries to do this to
more than one volume at a time".
        -This could be checked for, couldn't it?
    -It would make a standard behavior.
    -It would save an admin the trouble of having to answer his users
questions with "I don't know why"

If you don't understand what i mean by "insulting the user" see here
(not my mirror):

http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/errormsg.htm

The bug I refer to (which I've taken more time to see deeper into the
arguments since commenting on) is here:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115763

All Comments/Productive Criticism/Amusing Flames are welcome. 

-- 
Jason Hoover <jasonhoover verizon net>