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On September 22, 2009, David Nolden wrote:
> For sure, the user feels less confused when he's disturbed by a dialog,
>  then when he's disturbed by the shutdown of his computer.

again, where's the evidence that this is even happening?

what i've been hearing from users and seeing while observing usage:

* the power notifications happen too often already ("Critical" power level =
is=20
a bit too arbitrary on many systems right now)

* that the powering down notification doesn't last long enough (easy to sol=
ve)

* the the buttons are too small to hit in a short period of time (also easy=
 to=20
solve)

where is the "my computer turns off and i didn't know it because the=20
notification didn't let me know this"?

> > That needs to be fixed, regardless. Introducing another way of notifying
> >  the user of important system events is not a solution but creates
> >  inconsistency and makes this problem even worse.
> >
> > I'm not saying that this piece of user interaction (critical suspend)
> > can't be improved. Replacing it with a dialog is just the wrong
> > direction.
>=20
> I agree that it would probably be better if this was handled somehow
> consistently.=20

so lets do that.

> But the result would be something similar to a modal dialog
> anyway, as it _must_ disturb the users workflow.=20

you don't need a modal anything to get user attention. and no, you do NOT n=
eed=20
to FORCE a disturbance upon the user. i want to know when i need to take=20
action, but i don't want to have what i'm doing interrupted forceably for t=
hat=20
information to be passed on. the only things that piss me off are things i=
=20
can't control, such as disk checks on start up (as one example). i am not=20
unique in this way.

> Maybe a very prominent
> colored, flashing and non-disappearing popup somewhere near the panel wou=
ld
> work as well.

well, colored and flashing is probably unnecessary. non-disappearing is eas=
y;=20
large is easy, too.

> But dialogs have their advantages too: Everyone notices them,
> and everyone knows how to use them.

that's a fallacy. people who know how to use a computer know what a dialog=
=20
looks like because they've seen them before. but there is nothing that says=
=20
that they will use THIS dialog in the way we are hoping to.

see my other email why i think this would be very likely to backfire badly.

=2D-=20
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks

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