Ubuntu
notify-osd package

Notify OSD usability considerations

Asked by Kevin

Has there been any discussions regarding modifying the interaction effect with notify OSD?

I have found that some users attempt to hover over notify OSD in order to keep a notification on screen longer and the fade/blur negatively impacts their ability to read the contents of the bubble. I've read that the decision to fade/blur the notification bubble on hover is so users may still interact with elements hidden behind the notification, although it seems there may be other solutions to this problem. One option would be to allow users to right-click on the bubble in order to make the notification disappear. Another would be to add a close icon to the bubble. Are there additional options being discussed?

It seems the purpose of notify OSD is undermined if the user isn't able to read the alert before it disappears or are given additional ways to keep the notification on screen (or remove it quickly for that matter).

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#1

Your feedback is welcome....
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotifyOSD

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ntucker (ntucker-launchpad) said : 		#2

I agree about the hover behavior. I'm not seeing any fading/blurring, I see the notification completely disappear on hover (presumably because I have certain effects disabled). This drives me absolutely insane every time I get a notification that I would like to respond to (e.g. a new instant message), because my natural inclination is to want to click on the notification. Each time this happens, I spend a little time re-discovering that trying to interact with the notification bubble is like a big frustrating tease. Back in the 80's there was a joke app for the Mac that created a system crash dialog and when you tried to click the "restart" button it actually ran away from your mouse. I am always reminded of that.

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