Re: [Usability] Splash screens and startup notification

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006, karderio wrote:

> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 09:10:30 +0100
> From: karderio <karderio gmail com>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Splash screens and startup notification
>
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if there was any sort of dogma concerning splash screens
> for GNOME applications.

The HIG doesn't mention them as far as I recall (updates to the HIG
notwithstanding).  Some Gtk applications do but I'd be surprised if any
Gnome applications still do.  Perhaps the HIG could recommend startup
notification (there is already a section about using the notification area
but a quick check did reveal anything about startup notification) and
discourage the use of splash screens.

(There are a few Gnome applications like Gnome Meeting (or whatever it is
called now) which do have a Wizard/Assistant and ask a lot of questions
the first time you start it but that is another startup issue.)

Before we had startup notification they were considered a necessary evil
to help show there was some progress being made.  Now I think they serve
little purpose other than advertising how slow an application is to start
(and advertising their brand/logo etc.).

> Seeing as there are virtually no GNOME apps that use splash screens, I
> would guess that they are not necessarily recommended.

I think that is a fairly safe assertion.  The important idea is to give
users a feeling a progress and let them know something really is
happening.  Obviously everyone would like it better if applications loaded
instantly but that isn't always practical or possible.  Having the main
application window come up as soon as possible really helps the user
perception of the application speed even if it might take another second
or two for the application to be fully loaded and ready for input (a
little sneaky but it works).

> The only purpose I can see them serving is showing feedback for
> application startup, for applications that take some time to start (I'm
> thinking openoffice).

The old startup dialog in OpenOffice was particularly obnoxious because it
stayed permanently on top.  It should be blindingly obvious no one want
that.

Abiword has a splash screen and I think it is an interesting example worth
taking a closer look at.  Abiword is so fast to start up you probably
wouldn't see the splash screen at all on a modern machine.  The orginal
AbiSource developer wanted to make sure the branding was shown, so the
splash runs seperately and is shown for ~5 seconds even though the program
is already ready to go.  Clicking on the splash at any time will dismiss
it early, which is a lot easier than trying to hit a close button.

(I think some of the solutions proposed address the symptoms rather than
the disease and are too complicated.  The splash dialog which will only be
shown briefly and hitting a checkbox could be quite difficult.  Many
people would prefer if the splash screen was not shown at all.  Also since
there is no standard splash widget, there isn't much we could to encourage
people to use such a layout anyway.)

There are some applications which are preloading all their resources at
startup.  It would be better for them to load that data only when needed
(because it might never be needed).   Granted this may be more difficult
to implement.

It is argued that preloading all kinds of plugins and data files provides
some modest benefits to professional users who keep a single application
open all the time and use it regularly but even then they cannot use all
the features all the time.  The benefit of having things preloaded is
questionable.  For casual users who only use a program occasionally
and just want to make quick edits a long startup time is a severe penalty.
By all means have a command line option to preload everything for the
professional heavy users (who are best able to discover these kinds of
features) but keep things fast by default, and show off your
application in the best light.

Spreading out the load penalty to when it is actually necessary should
leave users with small digestable chunks and unless you take it to the
other extreme of constantly forcing the user to wait while the program is
'loading...' or 'buffering...' (like a game loading levels) taking lots of
small hits for the wait time should be hardly noticable (and there may
also be opportunities to preload things in the background).

> Is there any way that startup feedback could be presented to the user
> other than with a splash screen ? For example, when you have an
> applicationX starting, instead of the "Starting applicationX" in the
> window list, could you not have "Starting applicationX - Step Y" and
> change this as the startup progresses ?

Perhaps there is something which could be done with startup notification
and the notification area if a developer felt it was absolutely necessary
to provide more infromation but I think the extra detail provided in some
splash screens is unncessary and only an excuse to justify the splash
being there at all.

What would you like to happen?  If you think the guidelines should
recommend against splash screens please do file a request in bugzilla.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/