Re: [Usability] Usable workspaces for everyone (was: Desktops View in Taskbar)

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 7 Sep 2006, Daniel Borgmann wrote:

> Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 02:55:48 +0200
> From: Daniel Borgmann <daniel borgmann gmail com>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: Usable workspaces for everyone (was: Desktops View in
>     Taskbar)
>
> On 9/7/06, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> > Please read this again as it is really important to understand how users
> > can be confused:
> >
> > > > I can all too easily see beginners accidentally switching to another
> > > > workspace and wondering where all their programs went and not realise
> > > > how to get them back.
>
> That's why I mentioned XGL. In six months rotating cubes or sliding
> workspaces will be commonplace in all major distributions and that's
> the earliest time when this topic becomes relevant again.

Now that you put it in context it starts to make some sense.  Although i
was aware of the obtuse acronym the possibilties implied by a technology
are not always obvious or in the case of other technologies like XML the
implications never turn out quite so big as predicted.  I am still left
wondering what animation might be suitable since the number of workspaces
can vary from the usual 4 to many more or just the one a cube doesn't
quite cut it.  The possibilities of new eye candy will certainly help but
it will be one of those things you will not be able to count on for sure,
I doubt I'd be using it when my use of Gnome is as a thin client (it was
for many years but not currently).

> > I also mentioned how frequently users get trapped by Insert/Overwrite as a
> > clear example of how easily users can be confused and not necessarily
> > notice the implications of their actions.  Accidentally clicking on the
> > workspace switcher and changing to another workspace is not something
> > users will necessarily know how to reverse back out of without needing
> > help.
>
> Neither do they necessarily know how to reverse back out of minimising
> or even maximising a window (I once had such a case, no kidding). The

My friend Mark Finley (sisob) made efforts to improve that animation many
years back.  I believe a different approach was taken than the patch he
provided but that little affordance the animation provides does make quite
a difference.

> same goes for accidentally hitting the show desktop button. All of
> this is not good enough reason to disable all of those functions by
> default, because sooner or later they will figure out how to undo
> these actions.
>
> Insert/Overwrite is hardly comparable. On the one side you press some
> obscure button on your keyboard and the only visual feedback you get
> is a tiny string in a corner of a window (if you're lucky), on the
> other side you click on a widget and get very noticable visual
> feedback of what's happening including a visual change of _the widget
> you clicked on_.
>
> > Perhaps some kind of suitable animation/decoration could make a future
> > version much clearer, sure but I wasn't talking about future versions of
> > workspaces which haven't been written yet.
>
> Compiz certainly has been written yet. :-)
>
> > > We should think for our users, not take the easy way out and take
> > > possibilities away from them,
> >
> > We should provide sensible defaults.  Allowing users to "add to panel"
> > does give plenty of possibilities irrespective of what is included on
> > the panel by default.
>
> Only that it isn't very logical that you "add to panel" to "increase
> your working space". I'm not worried about my personal convenience,
> I'm worried that your answer to a discoverability problems seems to be
> to make it even less discoverable. To me, this is taking the easy way
> out, not tackling the problem.

You see a discoverability problem, I see an affordance problem if a user
accidentaly clicks on the workspace switcher and doesn't grasp the cause
and effect.

> > I'm just stating my opinion.  Gnome has a feature enabled by default which
> > Microsoft have chosen not to enable and it seems like neither will Apple.
>
> I know that you are and I'm just discussing with you hoping that
> something useful might come out of it. Do you even know if Apple will
> disable the feature by default yet?

I await the comments and hopefully more information on the subject of
Apple and workspaces.

> point is that the dock will show items from all workspaces. Maybe a
> more sensible "foolproof" default would be to set the window list to
> show windows from all workspaces by default.

Good suggestions, that would actually be enough to address my concerns.
I still will not be using workspaces myself though.  Your earlier comments
did get me thinking about the connection between the workspace switcher
and the tasklist and how the relation between the two might be made
clearer.

> This way switching
> workspaces wouldn't be worse than to accidentally minimise a window or
> hit show desktop, since in all cases the user can use the window list
> to get his windows back.

Good point.

> > I long ago accepted that enough people like workspaces that it is good to
> > have them but I do not accept it is a wise default for the reasons already
> > outlined.  It isn't like I am even pushing to have workspaces turned off
> > by default, yet.  If I were an admin deploying Gnome or otherwise
> > providing technical support to Gnome users it would be high on my list of
> > things to lockdown to prevent accidents.
>
> Bad enough, I hope you'll never be my admin. ;-)

Most days I think Lockdown is an evil concept which wont work and will in
fact make people hate Gnome in some of the ways I hated windows.
Lockdown on windows was a half-assed solution to the wrong problem which
further undermined usability and anyone with a copy of regedit could get
around it with varying degrees of difficulty. Lockdown is less important
if you have undo and rollback in the right places or things dont get
broken in the first place.  But that is a whole other story.
Next time I upgrade I must Lock down everything and see if Gnome is still
usable.


Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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