[Boot splash screen] spinning Ubuntu logo on update & boot feels frantic and not very classy

[Jane Silber]

There is a large spinning Ubuntu logo during updates and a small spinning Ubuntu logo during the boot process. There are several bugs already filed regarding the inconsistency in size and speed (see bug 1355093 1335789 1350348)

Regardless of the size/speed of the spinner, I this progress indicator feels frantic, cheap and off brand to me. It is an obvious and simplistic device, and one which we have tried to avoid as a core part of the user experience. We have always been able to develop classier options. E.g., the desktop has the word Ubuntu with dots which change colour to indicate progress. Is there a specific reason we have diverged from an existing (and excellent) solution? Isn't this unnecessary divergence for the phone? And if there is a good reason for a new solution (i.e, different than the desktop), then I think it needs more work to reach the standard of beautiful design elsewhere in the product.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks Jane. Many of us share these concerns and they're already being tracked in:
  bug 1355093, bug 1335789

Also related is bug 1350348.

[Jane Silber (silbs)]

Actually, those don't cover all the issues. One issue is the consistency (or intentional inconsistency) of the activity notification. The other issue is the use of a spinning logo at all (regardless of size and speed). I believe the spinning logo is overly simplistic, not very classy and doesn't live up to the standard of design elsewhere in the product. I think we can do better than that (and have done so in the desktop start up/shut down images as an example).

Un-duped, and original description edited to reflect the design question rather than the implementation of size/speed.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Looks like Jouni forgot to provide the design when marking this as fixed. But in bug 1355093 he linked to <https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ulthdi43a7t2os9/AABd_E913XKUlaFhHenYLtzsa?dl=0>. (Download warning: 230 MB!)

The video shows the dots filling exactly once. In the absence of a spec, it's not clear whether they are supposed to be determinate, always filling exactly once (as with the progress bar in Ubuntu 9.04 and earlier), or indeterminate, looping around (as in Ubuntu 9.10 through 15.04). Jouni, could you clarify? I'd be delighted if we returned to determinate progress -- that would follow our design guidelines of using a progress bar for a type of task that usually takes, or has already taken, more than five seconds. <https://design.ubuntu.com/apps/patterns/communicating-progress>

Either way, though, it's not clear how the dots should interact with the progress bar for installing a system update, a process which spans multiple restarts. Since the dots *look* like they're showing progress, at least, I guess the progress bar should replace them entirely.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

Merged and released (e.g. rc-proposed). Also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AS_r85m0Qs