[Usability] New panel design - GNOME usability hackfest

["Philip Ganchev" <phil ganchev gmail com>]

On Gnome Live, I read about the the designs for a new Gnome panel:
http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/WindowManagementAndMore .
I am not sure where else to discuss the designs, other than the
usability mailing list, so here it goes.

1. The new design for context switching replaces the task list in
favor of an overlay showing windows and a side bar showing documents
and applications. The overlay and side bar appear when overlay mode is
invoked by the user.  This is a bad idea.  It will not work well on
slower computers.  Also, switching tasks is done so often that the
list of tasks (windows) should be available to the user at a glance,
without requiring interaction. It is done more often than switching
user or changing status, and even than changing the volume, and
checking the time, the weather, battery status and network connection.
 So the task list deserves the space on the panel more than all those
other applets.

2. There will be only one panel, placed at the top of the screen.  I
applaud the removal of one panel to save screen space, but why should
the remaining panel be at the top?  There it will interfere with the
quick un-maximization (or roll-up) of maximized windows, which is now
possible by throwing the mouse to the top and double-clicking.
Similarly, it will interfere with convenient closing of maximized
windows.  Neither of those problems exist with the panel at the bottom
of the screen.  And, all other operating systems place it at the
bottom.

3. Activities will be sets of applications to be launched together.
This is too complicated as a UI and approaches the problem in the
wrong way.  Instead of starting all applications which I might need at
the start of editing a photo, there should be an easy and seamless way
to start applications as I need them and to pass the photo to them.
That can be done either in the new sidebar, or through the
applications themselves. For example, photo viewers should have a menu
entry to open the photo in the image editor, and a menu entry to post
the photo to a web service.

4. A notification applet on the panel will aggregate all desktop
notifications, such as received email messages, battery status and RSS
feeds.  I think this is a good idea, but not if it replaces the
permanent status icons.  The actual status of things like battery,
network, weather and mail is what the user usually wants to see.
Trying to discern status from the notifications will be more work for
the user.  For example, if you only want to know how many unread email
messages you have, you would have to perform an action to filter the
notifications.  It is easier to have a mail applet showing that number
without interaction, and showing the list of latest messages on
mouse-over.

Any thoughts?