Re: [Tails-ux] [Tails-dev] [PATCH] Change syslinux menu entr…

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Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: Tails user experience & user interface design
Subject: Re: [Tails-ux] [Tails-dev] [PATCH] Change syslinux menu entries from "Live" to "Boot"
spencerone@???:
>>>> Chris Lamb:
>>>> Attached [was] the following:
>>>> commit 6c331780610f290d495f9c77f16bf7263c4e0f2a
>>>> Author: Chris Lamb <lamby@???>
>>>> Date: Wed Sep 9 00:26:54 2015 +0100
>>>>
>>>> Change syslinux menu entries from "Live" to "Boot"
>>>>
>>>> Having to explain what "Live" means so early on in the Tails
>>>> experience (or ever) doesn't seem like the best experience.
>
> If someone gets to this point on their own by following instructions,
> they understand that L=Live and what value that has (presumably).
>
> If someone gets to this point as a result of booting a gift, 'Live'
> isn't very clear.


I agree with trying to get rid of "Live" on this screen.

>>> anonym:
>>> This seems like something we'd like our UX team to ACK before taking
>>> action. For the record, I'm in favour of this change, and the patch
>>> looks good.
>
> How does it look? I couldn't do anything with the .bin file. No mount
> :( Suggestions are welcome :)


The patch is changing some code in the build system. There's not much to
actually "see" in it.

>> Lunar:
>> Isn't “boot” quite jargon? How about “Start Tails”?


Agree, we've always tried to avoid "boot" and use "start" instead.
Except... when referring to this particular screen as it was displaying
"Boot" on it :)

>> For failsafe, we could have “Start Tails in failsafe mode” probably.
>> But I really wonder if that thing is any useful. I have *never* used it
>> since I'm using Tails, and it's been a while.


We advertise it for hardware compatibility issues, see [1].

[1]: https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/startup_options#boot_menu

But I admit that I never used it myself :)

> We are using 'Start Tails' for the 'Start Tails' button in the Greeter,
> so saying that in the syslinux menu might cause issues because we argued
> that Tails had yet to be started when in the boot dialog.


I had the same concern as spencerone. We're already using "Start Tails"
in the Greeter. People will see "starting Tails" as a process going from
the syslinux screen to the GNOME desktop, with various steps.

To avoid having two objects saying "Start Tails", I would propose having
on this screen:

            [no title]


        Tails
        Tails (failsafe)


> If we use 'Boot' and 'Boot (Failsafe)', then we resolve the issue at
> hand. But you are correct, this isn't that clear to everyone. We can
> either:
>
> - Change the verb, which challenges a very widely established concept -
> the boot dialog - which I am all for but might be too tails specific.
>
> - Remove the dialog, which introduces usability issues for those who
> need failsafe (which can be argued against, too). We can also remove
> the dialog but display text instructions for hotkey access to failsafe.


We can't really remove that screen because it's sometimes needed to add
boot options for debugging, see [1]. Other than that I would be super
happy to get rid of it, but that's out of question for now I guess.

> If we need the dialog, I am all for 'Boot' and 'Boot (Failsafe)',
> presuming that's what the patch proposes :)


I'm personally concerned about how to adapt our documentation. So far
we've been referring to this screen as the "boot menu" (as it was
displaying the word "boot"). But if we change that, then maybe we need
to find a way of referring to it in the doc. On the other hand, we are
referring to Tails Greeter without having the word "greeter" appear
anywhere on the screen. So we could continue calling this screen the
"boot menu" even if it does not display the word "boot" anywhere.