Ubuntu Wiki

Intro:

Currently a large part of the system is quite hard to work with as default when using a touch screen for input (Especially if its a small screen). It would be nice to have a ui that is scalable from little 7" screens all the way to 30"+.

Looking at how many of the touch screen interfaces are moving to icon based navigation (Win XP vs MS Surface; or Winmo vs WebOS, Android), and being somewhat inspired by the simplicity of the ToPaZ concept. I came up with the following (a bit phone like UI, just scaled up with multi tasking).

The mock-ups are not representative of any eventual theming, they are simply conceptual illustrations for navigation and not so much the actual implementation ("look"). If you have any question, or feedback there is a discussion at this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1065430 I'll also happily clarify anything that might seem unclear

Contents:

A lot of wild (But not too far out) ideas. The basic layout:

-Desktop Layout

-Menu Structure

-Window Navigation

-Real-time System

-Multi-touch

-Conclusion

Desktop Layout

The idea is to have it simple but not too radical for old users to be turned off by it.The basic layout i could think of would be a bit like this:

(system menu)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(global status)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(notifications)

(¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨Left_Dock¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨Up/Down¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨Right_Dock¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨)

This arrangement separates tasks in a clean way:

* System menu contains only system related actions such as settings, help, & shutdown.

* Notifications are divided into two. Since computers nowadays do a lot of things this division of notification areas makes sense, apart from making better use of the panel it also puts the information in better focus.

- Theres a "global notifications" area providing any information not related specifically to the computer such as date (and appointments), time, and weather.

- The notifications area deals only with system specific notifications (such as wifi, battery).

* The docks/menu at the bottom are a quick access to all applications and utilities, as-well as important places.

Menu structure.

An important part of making the menus simple would be th make them more icon based (or at-least have such an option), with information about what is being selected displayed in a neutral place like a translucent box above the selection. Here is how the system menu could be structured.

as for the main application dock/menu, it could be arranged by preference of the user with simple drag and drop. It is divided into two fields to make for simple organizing, with a third field for places (i forgot the trash in the mock-up, but that would go there) or other things. Folders would also be dockable. In the example i put utilities to the right and apps to the left, but the configuration would be very customizable, the dock/menu is shown expanded.

EDIT: Heres a blog-post that has come to my attention that details a really nice implementation using AWN: http://tretle.co.cc/blog/2009/01/30/gnome-30-and-user-interface-design/

Also, having an option of an onscreen keyboard embedded in the bottom between the docks and menus would probably work nicely for onscreen text input.

Window Navigation.

Currently almost all of the window navigation goes via the bottom panel or keyboard shortcuts. And the way the keyboard shortcuts work by default isn't too good.

A solution i propose is to have 3 easily switchable views:

* Traditional-like the current default, it works well for simple multitasking, no need for change.

* Zoomed in group view- a bit coverflowish.

* Multiple Group view (this would probably negate the need for multiple desctops, since it would perform the same functions, unless you want multiple groups on one desktop)

Ill cover the last two mentioned briefly:

Zoomed in group view allows you to work in one window and easily switch to another.

Multiple group view allows you to manage several groups at once, keeping as many as necessary active. In this example im showing one group active:

Real-time system.

Part of simplifying the ui would be making the system smarter. Constantly saving changes in real-time so users don't need to save a document before closing it would be a step in that direction (possibly with versions like F-Spot does with photos).

Multi-touch gestures.

Simple navigation would be key and multitouch support, heres some ideas on simple gestures (apart from the basics: pinch to zoom, tap to open), i put quite a lot of thought down on these:

* Hold 1 finger, double tap with another = right click.

* Hold 1 finger, double tap with 2 others = copy.

* Hold 1 finger, double tap with 3 others = paste.

Window/view manipulation:

* Here i think 4 OR 5 finger gestures would be good,

- double tapping 4 or 5 fingers on a window would maximize it.

- swiping down would zoom out (from maximized) on a window to group view, repeating the swipe again would lead to multiple group view.

- Swiping up on a window would close the window.

- Side swiping swiches between the open windows of a group when viewing them in maximized.

Other:

* Another idea i had is that placing 8-10 fingers on the screen (or double tapping) could bring up a on-screen keyboard.

Conclusion.

Since gnome is already working on 3.0 and KDE is also on their own 4.x road map, i dont see any of this being implemented anytime soon. Although it would be nice if some of this would be found useful, possibly in the development of another window manager or just apps/addons to improve work-flow. I have only ideas, not programming 1337ness.