Comments on: Running a program after install

By: Tworzenie Stron www

Tworzenie Stron www — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:31:15 +0000

Nice Blog!

By: hughsie

hughsie — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:32:24 +0000

@rizz:

Agreed, I’ve added the name first, thanks.

By: rizz

rizz — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:53:54 +0000

Good initiative!

If I may add some comments with respect to usability: usability studies have shown that people only ’scan’ text briefly from the start of a sentence. If you start each line with ‘Play’, this requires a user to read more of the sentence. So, it is advisable to start each line with a keyword that clearly defines what that action does, e.g.

Blackjack – the classic casino card game
Freecell – challenging decks of cards
Chess – the unsurpassed two-player board game
etc.

A few rules of thumb:
* don’t make lines too long and put the important stuff at the beginning of the sentence
* avoid ‘wordiness’ (i.e. remove words that do not add anything to sentence)

Moreover, mentioning the games by their name makes it easier for people to find them back at a later stage (if those names also appear in the menus).

A few short articles by Jakob Nielsen on this matter:
how users scan a page: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

aligning text in menus: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/navigation-menu-alignment.html

By: me

me — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:31:18 +0000

One thing I forgot, make sure to add a

[ ] Don’t show this again

checkbox to dialogs like this, some users are offended by the system treating them like beginners.

Drag & drop to the menu bar or applet to show the path might have the advantages of being slightly easier to write (you don’t have to figure out what kind of launching system the user is using) and not requiring a button, but it is undiscoverable and counterintuitive; the drag and drop doesn’t have the effect of moving an object or applying it to anything. I would in fact expect dragging an operation like those in the list to cause a shortcut to that operation to be created.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:03:19 +0000

I, for one, have clamored for this. There have been plenty of times when I installed stuff, and had trouble finding it in the menu system. I agree that showing where it is in the menus when you click on it (or at least showing the menu path in the list view) would help.

By: schmichael

schmichael — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:37:44 +0000

+1 to what Michael said above (Name field, no package names, tiles instead of list).

Also, is “Run” really the best verb? Why not “Start” or “Open”? I suppose “Run” is used some other places in Gnome, but it seems antiquated.

Better yet, drop that button altogether and make each App clickable (similar to Domas’s suggestion).

+1 to Ian McKellar’s drag & drop feature as well.

Did I just end up suggesting a Nautilus window with links to the apps you just installed? Oops.

By: Domas

Domas — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:50:23 +0000

The idea is quite good. However, I would move the button “Run” to each row where programs’ descriptions reside. I would also add “Remove” button there in case one didn’t like the program that just ran.

By: Ian McKellar

Ian McKellar — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:20:13 +0000

When I implemented this for the Eazel software installer (which sadly died with the company) I made it so you could drag the applications to your panel / desktop, and it listed what menu path the program is available so that users can find the software they just installed again next time…

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:17:06 +0000

Not to rain on any parades, but why? I can’t imagine that ther’s been any major clamour for that feature.

By: me

me — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:07:17 +0000

Looks like a fun idea, but unless you show the user where to find the program the next time, it’s not very useful. I think it should have a button, that when pressed shows the menu with a highlight on the item.

Another idea of course is to split this:

- What’s new
- What’s installed
- What’s available

Although those could contain many items, so they would have to be categorized and searchable.

Also very neat would be to include interactive or video tutorials in the list.