New GDM login screen counter-intuitive

[Wayne McDougall]

Binary package hint: gdm

Looking at Karmic Alpha 5:

On logging on for the first time, the user only sees two buttons. Restart or Shutdown. Many users will only look at the buttons.

Worse the login user name is already highlighted by default (only one user after first install) - it is not at all obvious that you should click on an already highlighted user name to bring up a password prompt.

I believe this needs some work to make it more friendly, usable and intuitive. I'd suggest a Login button, even if all it does is act the same as clicking on the highlighted user name. Not have the user name highlighted, unless you also display the password box.

At the moment I know most of my family would try clicking on a button or Other... in the hope that something would work. And I've spoken to some other experienced Ubuntu users who admit that on first seeing this screen they have to stop, and consider what should be done.

[Grant Paton-Simpson (launchpad-p-s)]

I suspect this design is much more intuitive when there are multiple separate users. Each would have a button and the person logging in makes a choice. But a different approach is needed when there is only one user (a pretty common scenario). I'm not sure what the best solution is but I agree with the original post that there is a problem.

[Wayne McDougall (ubuntu-codeworks)]

For the first login there will only ever be one user. So the first experience is always the most confusing.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, that's a duplicate though