"Switch user" is not easy to discover

Bug #67730 reported by Kirsten Watson
This bug report is a duplicate of:  Bug #33002: logout dialog UI objections. Edit Remove
8
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-panel (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Wishlist
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

 I just created an account for my son on my laptop, running Edubuntu 6.06. No problems there - it's a reasonably intuitive process. However, when I tried to find a new login screen for him to log in, I could not; I tried system>administration and generally peered in all the menus when that didn't work.

 I've since been told that I should have tried System>Quit which has a 'Switch User' option. This was not obvious at all; because I did not want to quit, I didn't try that. I've also since noticed that hovering over the quit option displays a tooltip reading "Log off, switch user, lock screen or power down computer", but again, as I was quite sure I did not want to quit, I did not notice that earlier. In fact, the place where I should have tried was the one place I was certain I did not want!

 Perhaps a better place for this would be just above the quit option?

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote :

Part of the problem seems to be that "Quit" just isn't a great name for this. Out of six options I see on my laptop (log out, lock screen, switch user, suspend, restart, shut down), only three are unambiguously quit-type options (log out, restart, shut down), lock screen and suspend are on the edge, and switch user is explicitly not quitting, only letting somebody else use the machine for a while. To many people, "quit" is a less jargonish synonym for "log out".

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thank you for your bug. That has been discussed when the session dialog has been implement, nobody came with a better word to describe the 6 actions though. Maybe you have some good suggestions? Note that the top left screen corner has that button too, maybe the icon is not optimal though, not easy to find a good icon for those 6 actions

Changed in gnome-panel:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Kirsten Watson (kjwatson) wrote :

I still think that the six actions shouldn't be in the same menu option, and that perhaps seperating out quit/log out/suspend/restart/shut down under quit, and 'switch user' and 'lock screen' seperately.

 Running the idea past my ten-year old computer club (it is, after all, Edubuntu that I'm running) came up with the suggestion that the six actions should be in a submenu marked 'More'.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

 Thank you for the suggestion. All that has been already discussed a lot on bug #33002, I'm marking that one as duplicate. Feel free to read the other bug if you are interested by that

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