[maemo-developers] Launch image to increase feeling of responsiveness (a la iPhone)

[From: Kalle Vahlman]

2008/3/11, Michael Wiktowy <michael.wiktowy at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Kalle Vahlman <kalle.vahlman at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >  Heh, well if you don't care about marketing your
>  >  product/program/platform to its users, you definitely shouldn't follow
>  >  Apple.
>
> Please don't put words in my mouth.
>  How exactly does putting an engineering-centric view first equate to
>  not caring about marketing? It clearly does not.

You specifically excluded the marketing (ie. looking good to users)
POV in the part you didn't quote.

>  I would just rather application developers give the users a better
>  experience my actual performance gains rather than blatant
>  psychological manipulation.

If the performance is good enough, naturally there is no need for
"psychological manipulation". I would assume that people already take
this into account when designing their application and make it show
the UI and allow user to start using it even if it's not completely
ready.

I'm sorry if you mistook me for suggesting *replacing* good
engineering for smoke and mirrors. I'm just saying that smoke and
mirrors can be useful in the cases where startup is long and it can't
be cut down to meet user expectations.

[snip]
>  So it appears that some people's perception of startup slowness
>  problems do not match reality.

Andrew seemed to count 4-5 seconds (dunno if he used a stopwatch though).

> So this discussion should probably be narrowed
>  down to how can you make the 770 look like it is starting up faster.
>  Something I can see Nokia having zero interest in.

Huh, I was rather discussing how to increase the perceived
responsivness of launching programs than solving someones problem with
770's or even N8x0.

>  >  I suppose many of the open source projects around do just that. They
>  >  construct beautifully engineered but unimaginably crappy UI's.
>
> You are displaying a pile of hyperbole here and slipping into the
>  tired falsehood that well engineered things look ugly.

No, I meant that most projects "put engineering first" but forget to
deliver the rest. And I have seen many many projects that probably are
well engineered but the UI sucks. Badly.

> Don't forget
>  that UI design is as much an engineering principle as it is an
>  aesthetic one.

Yes, and putting up smoke and mirrors to achieve pleasant UI can also
be well engineered.

> While I agree that Apple does a great job at UI
>  innovation, the rest of the world in not a UI cestpit. There are
>  examples of crummy UI, sure. But maemo is not one of them. It could be
>  better but it is pretty good by any absolute standard.

I suppose it's a matter of taste too... But note that a big part of
the UI in maemo is in fact NOT open source, so it's pretty much
excluded from the above comment. Not that I've commented on the
quality of maemo UI anyway in this thread.

>  >  If it was so easy to cut startup time to <3s, people probably would
>  >  have done it already. Since it hasn't happened, setting up smoke and
>  >  mirrors to entertain the user while loading would make *users* happier
>  >  (note: not the people who watch the CPU meter or even know what the
>  >  heck CPU is).
>
> Well, I have news for you ... that <3s standard for showing a basic UI
>  has already been met (with the N800 and N810 running OS2008 at least).

It's not really news, and I certainly didn't claim otherwise at any point.

>  So all your smoke and mirrors will likely impact the user perception
>  negatively since you'd be hard pressed to get a full screen fake UI
>  image up in significantly less time than that.

If the startup is fast enough, there is no need to do it. I think
that's pretty obvious. And the distinction should be made on the
application level.

For example, if the suggested image would be embedded inside the
.desktop, fast-starting things should just omit it and nothing is
lost. Applications that are known to take too long to load (for a good
reason preferrably) can include the image and gain the psychological
advantage over making the user disappointed by a long and dull period
of waiting.

But as said, I don't think the image approach will work for maemo
since the theme changes make it very tricky.

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh at iki.fi
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