Big Board Design
From Mugshot Developer Wiki
This page describes the Big Board design, what decisions were made and why.
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The State of The Desktop
Here's a screenshot of the current GNOME desktop
There are a number of problems with this desktop for new users to desktops and new users to the Linux Desktop.
Empty Desktop
When a user logs into their Desktop for the first time they are greeted with almost a completely empty space. There are a few items hanging around, but we don't give any clues to help people get started.
An interesting perspective exercises is to look at our desktop as if it were a web page. Would you build a web application with the layout of our desktop? Mostly empty space, drop down items for tools to get you started? Probably not.
Now that you have this empty desktop where do you get started? You've just installed Linux or are running it for the first time, what should you do? Here are the elements we leave around for people to begin figuring out what to do with.
Two panels, what are they doing? Both are nearly empty but contain a few widgets that probably make no sense to someone who has never seen them before. You could try clicking them all but you won't see much until you try the menu.
One could say that we give them a menu and launchers to get started using applications on the Desktop. But as you can see I've used lots of red and intentionally made things look foreign because that's how they would look if you were using this desktop for the first time.
Some of the Desktops will provide some icons for Computer, Home, and Trash in order to give other starting points for using the desktop. I think these are a bit of a waste of time as they are usually covered when people are working with applications and they don't access anything you'd use to get started. A common mistake is for new people to open the 'Computer' icon expecting that to have an interface for them to use the computer.
Personalization & Identity
Looking back at the state of our desktop. Who is currently logged into this desktop? You have no idea, there's no obvious way of knowing who's currently logged in. Your username, real name, or photo do not appear anywhere; there is no significant identifying element to the desktop session.
If we wanted to solve the anonymous desktop problem above we could ask people to identify themselves and personalize their desktop and then display that information some how. In order to identify yourself to the GNOME desktop you'd need to edit the 'About Me' information in GNOME.
However there is a lack of incentive for updating the About Me dialog and it has nothing to do with the dialog itself, it's not a usability problem on the dialog. Rather the problem is a design problem emanating from the desktop.
One possible solution to the "Anonymous Desktop" is to add a persons image to the main desktop environment. This image can come from AIM, Yahoo!, GTalk, or the GDM Greeter; it is the image that represents you on your GNOME system. Not only does displaying your personal avatar / photo / icon give a hint to who is logged into the desktop but it also reminds you what image you're projecting through IM services that might use that same image.
Logging into the desktop with the GDM Face Browser requires the user to have setup a GDM face image and often helps to have a real name associated with the image. By displaying this chosen image and name on the desktop we will encourage people to pick a non-default image for themselves. And thus we will also help them to find themselves in the GDM login screen, where as if we didn't encourage them to have their real picture and name it would probably remain whatever poor defaults happened to be chosen.
Many other systems show a person's name and/or username in order to help make them aware that they are currently logged into their acccount. Take a look at what some well known web applications do to create a similar effect.
The overall goal here is not just to display user account information, but also to give the feel of some level of personalization. Instead of looking like a sterile work environment we should strive to look like a place where people actually get work done, with pictures and notes hanging on the wall.
Often Used Applications
Application menus hide the applications beneath layers of arbitrary categories. Usability studies focused on the desktop often look to shuffle the applications around in order to find the optimum layout. Despite this time spent reordering application menus are still cumbersome for people to use repeatedly and awkward to understand originally.
Allowing people to search for the specific or type of application they are interested in is a common theme being used a lot in desktops today. This helps people to find the correct application to use and improves the original or first time experience of launching an application on the desktop. However it probably isn't the best method to improve the frequent experience of running an application over and over again, something like QuickSilver behaved in this manner.
After you've found an run the applications you wanted you'll probably want to run some of them again and again. People often use the panel toolbars and desktop launchers to build a set of applications they would like quick access to. This is manual work that is an annoying management activity. Some systems will attempt to auto-populate a "quick list" with applications you often launch, however this doesn't capture the actual applications you use.
Search
Most desktops are beginging to integrate search functionality as we slowly figure out that being able to search our own system extremely valuable. However these search systems are getting shuffled under a number of layers of menus or buttons instead of sitting right on top.
Cure for the Common Desktop
Here are some of the elements of the new design and what their purpose is.
Personalization
- Who's logged in?
- picture, name, username
- What online applications am I connected to?
- What am I sharing?
- Music, Photos, Documents
Search
- Deskbar style search across multiple elements
- Bookmarks
- Applications
- Documents
- etc...
- Search yourself and your friends online bookmarks
Applications
- Application can be listed dynamically according to mosted used (not most launched, see Application Statistics)
- Allow favorite applications to be "pinned"
- More Applications opens Application Browser
- Browser has links to installing new applications
Online Presence / Contacts
- Integration of IM presence
- AIM, GTalk, Yahoo, VOIP, etc.
- Local network presence
- Rendezvous search showing file, music, photo sharing
- Email Contacts shown as well
- More People opens People Browser
- Browser manages accounts and contacts
Documents
- Documents listed according to most recently used
- More Documents opens Document Search / Browser
- Documents are likely to be sync'd with remote system
Mockups
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