Re: [Usability] Splash screens and startup notification

[karderio <karderio gmail com>]

On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 08:36 +0000, Phil Bull wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 10:07 +0100, karderio wrote:
> > Would it not be hard (impossible) to calculate the percentage of time
> > until the end of startup for the progressbar ? Would you not have to add
> > specific code to each application ? If you wanted some sort of
> > indicator, would a throbber not be more appropriate ? I would think
> > textual output could be interesting, such as "Starting Bluetooth Client
> > - Connecting to remote device" or "Starting OpenOffice - Initializing
> > Java", the user would know what he is waiting for, and it would help
> > with troubleshooting...
> 
> Yes, and think of all the jargon you're inflicting on the poor user
> every time they open up their office suite, who wouldn't know how to use
> that information anyway...
> 
> If it's for troubleshooting purposes, I'd rather the programs just
> output loading times to stdout. At least then you can copy and paste
> from a terminal; with window-title status messages, there'd be no way of
> copying down what the messages were quickly enough to use them for
> troubleshooting!

I agree, it is not necessarily very useful information. Some slow
starting applications seem to insist on showing this sort of information
on splash screens though, or at least have a progress bar there.

I personally do not like splash screens, and I don't necessarily see the
point to giving status information about application startup. I know a
few people who think differently though, and I would like to try to find
the best way to do things, mainly to be able to explain to these people
why they should avoid splash screens etc. and if need be propose better
solutions to them.

I wasn't suggesting adding status feedback for just any or all
applications, simply for those whose developers thought it wise to show
certain information to the user during startup. (Maybe a far fetched
example could be "Connecting to remote device" to suggest that the
application may be taking time to start up as a user has not switched
his handheld on.) It was just a suggestion anyway...

I gather you are against any detailed form of feedback during
application startup, but are you are against splash screens also ?