Re: [Tails-ux] Feedbacks from Fiodor [ was : greeter UX: adv…

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Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: tails-ux, Fiodor Tonti
Old-Topics: [Tails-ux] Feedbacks from Fiodor [ was : greeter UX: advanced options ]
Subject: Re: [Tails-ux] Feedbacks from Fiodor [ was : greeter UX: advanced options ]
tchou wrote:
> Some feedbacks from Fiodor, who's a member of the NUMA UX Team (Thanks
> Fiodor !).


Yes, thanks!

> -------- Message original --------
> De : Fiodor Tonti <fiodor.tonti@???>
>
> 1.
> Try to limit label text length.
> Since you have determined that the place for detailed information is in the
> "more info" links be consistent and shorten all text that can be reasonably
> shortened to avoid cluttering your UI with a verbose legend.
> An ideal UI should speak of its function through its own structure.


I really want to work on that at some point but summer is keeping me
pretty busy until now...

> "Remember your localisation options unencrypted" could become "Remember
> these options" or "Remember this".


Good idea.

> Instead of ever-present hint at danger ("*unencrypted"*), display a
> one-time contextual warning about the safety concerns, by doing this you
> leverage user actions to inform him reactively about how his choices affect
> the system. Layering information throughout the user flow and serving it in
> a reactive behaviour also gives you better chances of the information being
> actually noticed and absorbed.


Yes. Sometimes in Tails it is not possible to have "one-time" warnings
because Tails is amnesiac and starts from a fresh state every time. But
for this particular option I think that it is possible. We could have
the following UI:

  - On a new Tails installation the slider is "off" by default.
  - When the user switches the slider to "on", then display the warning.
  - Next time Tails starts, the options that were saved unencrypted are
    detected and the slider should be "on" automatically.
  - When the user switches the slider to "off" to delete those options,
    then display a notification saying that they were safely deleted.


> "Unlock your persistent encrypted data and preferences" could simply become
> "Allow local" with a one-time contextual info about encryption safety.


Here, this option will not appear for a first time user and until she
has configured persistence (in the "Guided configuration"). So we should
take for granted that she already knows what "persistence" is about but
I still feel the need for mentioning "persistence" in that label.

So that could become: "Enable persistence".

> 2.
> You may want to split your greeter process in a way that for each step the
> user focuses on one choice using a smaller set of UI elements, currently in
> the first screen you have:
>
> - Three lists
> - Two switches
> - Four links
> - Three buttons
>
> A bit too many areas to focus your attention on.
>
> I'm not sure the persistency options belong in this screen.
> I don't know Tails well enough, but if it were a classic OS it would seem
> reasonable to ask for a password at the beginning of the process and allow
> the user to select/deselect options in the upcoming screens instead of
> setting per-option password fields.


The dilemma here is that we want both this interface to be easy for
newcomers and fast for experienced users.

Placing myself from the point of view of an experienced user. I want to
be able to start Tails with one screen only since I'm doing this several
times a day. And both the localization and the persistence options are
needed in a typical use.

But still, I think we can make this screen less crowded in most scenarios:

A. First of all, in a new installation for a first-time user, the
persistence options won't appear since there is no persistence by default.

B. Even when there is a persistent volume, we could have first a button
saying "Enable persistence". And if clicked only, have the password
field and "read-only" option appear.

C. We could do the same for the localization options:

   - If there are no localization options saved, then show the full UI.
   - If there are localization options saved, then only show the
     summary of there state and a button "Change localization options"
     to have them appear again.


That would be a way of layering that information (if I understand the
concept correctly)?

> To resume: perfection is when there is nothing left to take away :-)


Agreed!

--
sajolida