Re: [Usability] Deja Dup UI Review

[Diego Moya <turingt gmail com>]

>
> - With a UI consisting just of two big buttons, the main window should
> not be resizable, since huge buttons look odd. In the same vein, the
> assistant windows should probably not be resizable.
...
> - The button labels should probably have ellipses to indicate that
> there is a dialog coming up. Otherwise, people might be scared to
> click the Restore button, thinking that it might directly start a
> possibly destructive action.

The problem with those two buttons is, they don't explain what's going
to happen when pressed. Paraphrasing Einstein, they've been made
simpler than they should. A good interface for casual usage is not
better because it has less elements, its good because it burdens users
the least. Having the user wonder what will happen is not 'easy'.

Complement those buttons with two labels, one explaining: "Backup
(Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos) folders into
(260Gb HDD Waxton) device" and the other saying "Restore backup in
(260Gb HDD Waxton) to (Desktop/Backup-restored-2010-04-21)". Plus a
third button saying "Configure backup folders" that opens the
"advanced" (i.e. not needed by most users) configuration dialog.



> - Could have a better first-time screen than just two big buttons.
> Maybe just ask the user what he wants to backup if no locations have
> been configured yet... The entire question of initial setup and
> assisting the user with setting up a reasonable backup configuration
> is an interesting one that seems to be left out so far.

If you require a first-time setup more complex that an 'Accept' you've
already failed. I know I don't automatically backup content because I
wouldn't miss most of it. The upfront decision of where to put the
target backup folder is too much hurdle for this low gain. Yeah I'm
that lazy when it comes to GUIs, and I believe they should be designed
to support automating those trivial tasks and letting me concentrate
on the juicy bits.

IMO the best place to configure automatic backup for this target user
is the "mounted volume" dialog. Together with "Play music" and "Import
photos", one of the default actions should be "Backup/sync with
desktop" (you're also contemplating the friendlier use case of syncing
instead of backing up, right?).

The second-best option (ruling out integration with the volume dialog)
that Deja Dup can support is prompting the user to plug-in an external
hard drive, and setting a good default based on that single action. A
sensible default configuration would be backing up the primary Gnome
folders (Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos) and
placing them on a 'Backup' folder in the external USB root.