Unclear UI when switching windows via launcher

Bug #908562 reported by Marvin
6
This bug affects 1 person
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Unity
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Bug Description

This is a usability bug I am reporting here. The problem in usability occurs when one application has multiple windows open where the contents of the windows look similar. In such case when the user wants to switch to another window of this application via the unity icon bar, the user will see an overview of the windows of that application (see attachment for a screenshot that illustrates what I mean). However since the contents of the windows are similar such an overview is quite useless for the user without any additional information.

I am for example experiencing problems with this when I am reading a number of papers with the PDF reader. Since almost all papers consist of two columns of text they look very similar when looking from a distance. So when I want to switch from one paper to another I really get confused and many times select the wrong window. When you look at the screenshot I attached you will understand what I mean.

Another example was presented today by my father. He had multiple windows of nautilus open. And also there in general the contents look quite similar when looking from a distance.

My suggestion to improve this is by also showing the title of the window in the overview. In the (good?) old days of the "taskbar", users identified a window by its name. I think it is still a good idea to let users be able identify the windows by their title, in the cases (as explained above) where windows are not distinguishable by their contents.

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Marvin (marvin-nospam) wrote :
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