intrigeri:
> sajolida:
>> intrigeri:
>>> sajolida:
>>>> I think that the biggest problem with the Activities Overview is even
>>>> more about learning how to get there than about knowing that it exist:
>>>> it only has a pretty weak signifier on the desktop.
>>>
>>> Right. […]
>>
>> The "Application" button comes with a ⏷ (downward triangle), which is a
>> common signifier for "drop-down". The "Activities" button doesn't have that.
>
> Absolutely. FWIW, I took a quick look at the code and is seems pretty
> easy to add this arrow icon to the "Activities" button.
Cool!
>>> - The (relative) strength/weakness of the signifier for accessing the
>>> Overview is a function of its styling, wording, and perhaps even
>>> more importantly: of what other UI elements we display by default.
>>
>> Agreed, except the "more importantly" part. I think that the ⏷ and the
>> wording are more important that the "choosing by elimination".
>
> Nod. Renaming the "Activities" button should be pretty easy as well.
Cool²!
>>> That is, the "learning how to get there" problem seems practically
>>> tractable :)
>>
>> I really don't think that the slightly sub-optimal categories of the
>> current "Applications" menu should lead us to replace it any time soon
>> because I don't think that the advantages will outweigh the downsides,
>
> You mean the advantages/downsides in terms of UX here, right? I'd love
> to know what downsides you're thinking of, apart of the one that
> you've already mentioned in this thread, on which I've been focusing
> so far, since you said it was the biggest one.
If we could replace the "Activities" button with a "Applications ⏷"
button, then indeed it would be strictly the same, so no downsides added
here in terms of discoverability.
Now, we have no idea about the usability of the activities overview vs
the Applications menu one you're in it. We know that the Applications
menu has slightly confusing categories but that people make it quite
all-right (I've seen it many many times in usability tests). But we
can't say the same of the activities overview as we've never tested it.
For example, observing my own behavior, to open an application in Tails
I either press Meta and type the name of the application, or use the
Applications menu. I never use the Activities overview to open an
application with the mouse because it would be much slower for me.
I really don't want to do the change before using it in usability tests.
I could reason about its usability in the abstract but, since it's
already a working piece of code, it might be more efficient to see how
it perform with users.
> To balance this, let me make it clear that maintaining the status quo
> does not exactly come for free either: we've been paying a recurring
> cost for keeping the Applications menu + desktop icons in a good
> enough shape. For example, the last iterations (Buster) took us hours
> of work.
I thought that the Applications menu and desktop icons were orthogonal
issues. We don't have the desktop icons because we have the Applications
menu.
How much of the work you did for Buster was on the desktop icons and how
much was on the Applications menu?
I had the impression that most of the work was done on the desktop
icons. I know that you're had to change the icon for the "Tails
documentation" entry in the Applications menu but I personally never
thought that this change was needed as I was in favor of keeping the
same icon as we have now. Anything else done on the Applications menu
itself?
> That's one of the two main reasons why I'm spending time looking at
> options that would kill this maintenance cost (the other one being:
> brute-forcing the Applications categories to find the app I want to
> start is not my ideal way of interacting with the system, and
> I suspect it matters even more for occasional users who won't remember
> by heart in which sub-menu the launcher for app X lives).
I will agree if we can confirm that the UX of the Activities overview is
actually better that this brute-force (there's a better UX term this
behavior pattern but I can't remember it...).
A possible next step would be to have a branch that replaces the
Applications menu with the Activities overview so I can test it at some
point while I'm testing other things (I don't think that it deserves a
run of tests on its own).
I created #17077 to track this. A possible next step could be to write a
branch that does the replacement so I could test it at some point.
--
sajolida
Tails —
https://tails.boum.org/
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