14.04 power-cog does not turn red when restart is needed

[Greg Williams]

Bug = a popup-dialog asking the user to reboot the system after an update should not repeat (popup again) at a later time if the user chooses not to reboot. Instead, the power-cog should turn the color red and no further popup-dialogs should present at any time.

In ubuntu 12.04 the power-cog turned red when a reboot/restart was needed. This was a helpful feature because it informed users that they needed to restart the computer. But this helpful indicator is gone in 14.04 and it has resulted in me never remembering to restart my computer because there is no helpful feedback from ubuntu that a restart is needed.

In 14.04, I will perform an update and a popup tells me a Restart is needed but I usually select to restart-later because I am in the middle of working. By the the time I am done working I have forgotten that a restart is needed. Later when I am working again a popup occurs informing me that a restart is needed (but again I am in the middle of working so I don't restart). Bottom line: when the power-cog turned red, it reminded me that I needed to restart the computer. When I finished my work I look up and see the red power-cog and "Oh yeah, I need to restart. Now is a good time." In 14.04 this doesn't happen. Instead I'm perpetually bugged by a popup (which is useless because it's never a good time to restart when it pops up). The red power-cog was a much BETTER design choice.

The removal of the power-cog turning red has negatively affected the management of ubuntu updates and it should be fixed so that it behaves like 12.04.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Sorry, but this change was deliberate. A red icon may have worked for you, but that does not mean it worked for most or even many people.

The red icon dates from the era when the rightmost menu was a "device menu", trying to cover everything from attached printers to external displays to software updates to screen locking, which was absurd. Nowadays everything to do with software updates is integrated into Software Updater, including the restart notification. It will sometimes be true that the alert appears when it's not a good time to restart; but you can leave it open (even minimized) until you're ready.

[Alex Corrie (electrichead)]

I respect the fact this is a design decision and I assume it's based on user feedback.

That said, I don't really understand that rationale. I mean, it's literally a power symbol crossed with a cog, which reflects the semantics of the menu: two significant components are a UI path to system settings and power management options. I can't think of a better place to have a static notification of the need to reboot. I wholeheartedly agree with the need for this as explained in the report.

In the end, I'll probably knock up a quick solution for this because I missed it straight away, but I thought I'd throw in my 2p.

[Greg Williams (greg2lapa)]

>Matthew Paul Thomas said:
>The red icon dates from the era when the rightmost menu was a "device menu", trying to cover everything from attached >printers to external displays to software updates to screen locking, which was absurd. Nowadays everything to do with software >updates is integrated into Software Updater, including the restart notification. It will sometimes be true that the alert appears >when it's not a good time to restart; but you can leave it open (even minimized) until you're ready.

Your explanation makes no sense, Matthew. The power-cog is where users go to shutdown/restart their computer. If a RESTART is needed, this is the perfect place to advertise it. The user does not know that it needs to update. The user knows a RESTART is needed, for whatever reason. As far as the user is concerned, the update process is over/done. Users that update in the background (like my parents) don't understand the process. The only thing they understand was that when it was red (and red lettering appears in the Power-Cog, you restart. They never restart their computer anymore since I moved them to 14.04. Which means they aren't getting kernel updates. Your rationalization that everything Update-Related be kept away from the Power-Cog is misguided and flawed because the update is DONE, it's been set. The only step that remains is to perform a procedure that the user needs to go to the Power-Cog to accomplish. That is, the user is not UPDATING, they are RESTARTING.

The decision to change the red icon was a poor choice and per your explanation the logic surrounding the decision is not in accordance with good design principle nor user-use patterns.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Greg, there are two misunderstandings here. First, it is not always true that "The power-cog is where users go to shutdown/restart their computer". Some people only ever put their computer to sleep and wake it up again, by closing and opening the lid; they don't shut down or restart unless explicitly prompted, so futzing with the cog icon would be meaningless to them. Second, it is not correct that "the user needs to go to the Power-Cog to accomplish" the restart. There's a much more obvious "Restart Now" button in the restart-required alert. If Software Updater is crashing somehow before it displays that alert on your parents' computer, please report that as a separate bug. Thanks!

[Greg Williams (greg2lapa)]

Thanks for the reply, Matthew.

1) closing and opening the lid to cause sleep is unrelated to this matter. Regardless of Suspend use, if a user intends to shutdown/restart the computer, the power-cog is where the GUI user is going to go. If a user never shuts down or restarts unless explicitly prompted, that does NOT change the fact that the power-cog is the GUI area where this is accomplished. It is not meaningless to them to "futz" with the cog icon. It makes perfect sense as this is the location that restart/shutdown is accomplished.

2) it is a poor design decision to use popups to communicate that a restart is needed. It is not done in the normal Ubuntu method of communicating information (i.e., displaying a rectangular box in the upper right corner of the screen). Instead the popup is reminiscent of popups from the world wide web. Something few people appreciate. And if the popup box is closed (whether on purpose or by mistake), where does the user have to go to restart? The cog icon.

Both my parents did not understand that the popup icon demanding restart was from Ubuntu. Both my parents did (intuitively) understand however that the red cog icon was a communication from Ubuntu telling them something. And when they clicked the red icon they saw in red lettering what was needed from them. MUCH BETTER DESIGN. Canonical/Ubuntu is overall very good at design choices. But this popup choice for restart is a regression. Hopefully you guys can/will reconsider it?

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

1. If someone never shuts down or restarts unless explicitly prompted, absolutely that changes "where it is accomplished"; for them, it is only ever accomplished in places that aren't the power-cog. Furthermore, if they are the only user of their computer, and whenever they need System Settings they use the Launcher (where it is included by default), the power-cog may be something they never use at all, and have no comprehension of.

2. Status icons are sometimes okay for communicating long-lasting things, but more important or urgent things usually require something bigger. For example, when the battery is getting moderately low, the battery status icon goes red; but when the battery is critically low, you get a dialog. When you are connected to Wi-Fi, the network menu icon shows this; but when you need to enter your Wi-Fi password, you get a dialog. And the sound status icon shows the current volume, but if you press a key to change the volume, confirmation is shown in a notification bubble. These examples illustrate that a status icon is not "the normal Ubuntu method of communicating information"; it is just one method among several. Web popups are a red herring: people don't hate popups when Google Docs uses them, just when advertisements use them. And if you decline to restart after installing updates that need it, Software Updater will remind you again in a day or a week (depending on whether they're security updates), just as it would if you hadn't installed them at all.

I do not doubt your parents' experience, I say only that it is an outlier. Improving the branding of Software Updater is bug 510212.

[Greg Williams (greg2lapa)]

Let me first draw attention to the edit I made to my initial Bug Description: I have expanded the Bug scope to the fact that the popup-dialog repeats itself AND the power-cog icon does not turn red. After a system updates, only one restart-popup should present (it serves informational purposes while offering the user with an immediate way to reboot, should they want to). If the user declines this popup, then the power-cog should turn red and no further popups asking for restart should present at any time.

Matthew, many of the examples you use do not bolster the case for a repeating popup-dialog. When a battery is getting moderately low, the battery status icon goes red. This is as it should be. When the battery is critically low (and your computer is going to turn itself off or change its runlevel state), you get a dialog. This is as it should be. When you update your system and a restart is needed (but your computer is not going to change its runlevel state if you fail to interact with the dialog) the dialog is purely informational and offering a choice. If the user declines to reboot, the appropriate response is to give a red icon indicating the need to address the issue at a later time, like when the battery is moderately low.

Likewise, when I am connected to Wi-Fi, the icon changes, as it should. When I need to enter a Wi-Fi password, it is because I am trying to connect to Wi-Fi. That intention cannot happen unless I enter a password. Hence a dialog. The analogy here is that after a system is updated, one can argue that the update cannot "fully" happen unless the user reboots. But this is not true in the sense that the reboot has to happen at that very moment. The system will finish the update whenever the system is next rebooted; hence, the important thing is the user be made aware of the need to reboot. With respect to the Wi-Fi password, the user cannot access Wi-Fi unless they enter the Wi-Fi password. It's something that has to happen at that very moment.

Many of your arguments appear to gloss over or ignore an important principle in Unity design. Of course if someone never shuts down or restarts unless explicitly prompted, shutdown and restart will never occur at the power-cog. But this is a moot point. For someone who only shuts down and restarts from the power-cog, the only place the events occur is at the power-cog. The point is in the conformity to the overall design of Unity. The indicators in the right-corner of the top panel (along with NotifyOSD) is the informational hub in Unity for system-related matters. This is basic Unity design principle. This is where system-related messages SHOULD present. You seem to be arguing that how one particular user may choose to use the system warrants ignoring this design criteria/principle of Unity. If the system needs to be rebooted to accomplish something, this "longterm" state should to be communicated to users via the established Unity design principle of a red system-indicator.

Many people hate popups when Google Docs use them. And they hate them when advertisements use them. And they hate them when they land at a website and the screen grays and there's some stupid popup tellin...

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

You correctly allude to the fact that when a package update requires restart, you need to do two things: (A) install the update and (B) restart. As long as you haven't done both, you're just as badly off (for a security update, you're just as insecure) as if you've done neither. Until 2009 we used panel icons for both (A) and (B). Having noticed that that didn't work, we switched to using a dialog for (A), but still used an indicator icon for (B). Then having realized our inconsistency, we switched to a dialog for (B) too (the same dialog, if possible).

The "Unity design principle" you refer to does not exist. And even if it did, usability testing trumps principles. Sorry.

[Greg Williams (greg2lapa)]

System-related communications should present in the upper-right corner at the indicators. The indicators exist as an interface layer between the System and the User.

Application-related communications should present at the Launcher.

The requirement that the computer be rebooted is a System-related event; therefore, the communication that this event is needed needs to present at the indicators--not the Launcher, and not some ephemeral popup.

If an Application needs to be restarted, then the appropriate communication location would be at the Launcher or within the Application itself.

The ONLY instance where a popup should be used is in situations where an IMMEDIATE response is needed to proceed: for example, the user is trying to access something that requires a password. A prompt pops up to allow entering the password.

[Stephen M. Webb (bregma)]

Thanks for taking an interest in the design of the Ubuntu user interface, but even if the Ubuntu design team hadn't already declared this issue closed, it is still not an issue of the Unity shell but of the Session Menu. Reverting for a status of 'Invalid' for the Unity shell.

[Stanislav German-Evtushenko (giner)]

I was also surprised that such a neat and sweat solution was replaced by the disturbing popup window :(