No "first run" tutorial for Unity/Ubuntu

[Ethan Hogue]

What should be done by design (approved by JohnLea):

The first time an user access to his session, the Shortcut Hint should be prompted to the user, and it should fade out at the first user interaction (mouse button or key press).

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Summary:
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When a user first logs in to an Ubuntu install, they are just dropped on the desktop with no prompts on how to use the system. A new user, say someone's grandmother, could have _no clue_ what to do.

Proposed solution:
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Given that Ubuntu / Canonical is focusing on expanding their userbase, I propose that a "tutorial" is shown every time a new user logs into Unity for the first time (EDIT: perhaps some sort of slideshow with an animation on each page -- see first comment with attachement).

This tutorial will point out the BFB, the launcher, notification area, settings manager, and where to go to log out. On top of this, it should be audiovisual to make it as accessible as possible. If the user doesn't want to go through it, it should be a simple click to close the tutorial.

This will set Ubuntu above the standard of other operating systems by ensuring that not only is Unity usable and intuitive, but that it is helpful in giving users a basic understanding of how to use it. Not everyone's brain works the same, and Ubuntu is about making computing accessible to everyone. I've heard too often "I didn't want to do anything in case it messed something up," and "it's scary doing something new on the computer." A tutorial will give users the confidence to use their computer without fear of breaking something.

[Ethan Hogue (clappboard)]

I'm attaching a mockup I've done for a quick how-to on using the dash (about five seconds).

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

I think it would be nice, and also automatizing the process as your demo does is quite doable with autopilot, but I think we've not time yet for this LTS, so we can instead have some minor user instruction as defined on description.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

If you open Ubuntu Help, the links at the top half of the first page refer to basically the same contents as the proposed feature. For 14.04, how about just opening yelp in a properly sized and positioned window?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 7.1.2+14.04.20140312-0ubuntu1

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unity (7.1.2+14.04.20140312-0ubuntu1) trusty; urgency=low

  [ Brandon Schaefer ]
  * When the monitors change, go through and update all the launcher
    widths for all launchers. (LP: #1291034)

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * UnityScreen: show the shortcut hint on first run (LP: #1283619)
  * UnityScreen: use switcher's LayoutSystem to compute the scaled
    windows geometries Thanks to this, both the Alt+Tab and Spread will
    use the same codepath to define the positioning of the scaled
    windows. (LP: #925454)
  * Decorations and Menus: a bunch of various fixes... (LP: #1283156)

  [ CI bot ]
  * fixes the segfault occuring when the scale factor is < 1.0 (LP:
    #1288166)

  [ William Hua ]
  * Unity shell plugin conflicts with gnomecompat. (LP: #1284532)

  [ Chris Townsend ]
  * Remove the test_icon_shows_on_quick_application_reopen Autopilot
    test and make it into a unit test since Autopilot has difficult time
    dealing with this test as the test fails occasionally. (LP:
    #1073990)
  * Add option to allow users to restore the scroll-over-inactive-
    Launcher-icon-to-focus-window behavior. (LP: #1288957)
  * Fix the inconsistent z ordering of windows when using the mouse to
    scroll the Launcher icon of the active application. (LP: #1286784)

  [ Luke Yelavich ]
  * Present a textual description of the state of applications to screen
    reader users when navigating the launcher. (LP: #1266298)
 -- Ubuntu daily release <email address hidden> Wed, 12 Mar 2014 23:46:36 +0000

[Stephen M. Webb (bregma)]

Fix Released in Unity Unity 7.2.0.