Ubuntu Jaunty Tries to Set the Usability Agenda

[ Thanks to James Maguire for this
link. ]

“A case in point is the discussion of Ubuntu’s new
notification guidelines on the ubuntu-devel list over the past two
weeks, which quickly turned into a discussion of whether
notifications should be used at all.

“The discussion centers around the new guidelines for
notification messages, which typically appear by the notification
tray in GNOME. These guidelines were announced in Mark
Shuttleworth’s blog entry for February 21. Both the blog and the
guidelines include screen shots to illustrate what they are
describing.

“The problem is that the now-standard notification bubbles
(so-called for their shape) are easily missed because they
disappear after a few seconds, and often point to icons in the
system tray, which users may find hard to click. For such reasons,
the guidelines call for a reduction in their use, although
acknowledging the possibility that they might still be useful in
unspecified circumstances.”
(No,you’re not seeing things– the story changed, and the URL
remained the same. Title has been updated– ed.)

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