Re: [Usability] Screensaver and idle time
- From: Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:35:10 +0000 (GMT)
--- William Jon McCann <mccann@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Joachim and Matthew,
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
On Mar 8, 2006, at 8:01 AM, Joachim Noreiko wrote:time
...
I have been giving this some more thought.
For the idle time label, how about one of:
"Treat the computer as idle after:" * minutes
"Treat the computer as idle after this length of
time."
"Treat the computer as idle after this length of
without user input."
...
I'm not sure I like the term "treat" perhaps
"regard" (in the sense of
deem to be) is better.
That's still a level of indirection. "Treat thecomputer as idle"? Does
this mean the computer starts criticizing its ownlethargy? :-)
to the screensaver,
Perhaps this should all be defined with reference
since it's the most visible thing. So thescreensaver preferences
themselves can have:is inactive for: ...
[/] Turn on the screensaver when the computer
future Security
Then either the Screensaver preferences or some
preferences can have:screensaver
[/] Require password when returning from
And your IM client can have:
Mark as [Away :^] automatically:
[/] When the scrensaver turns on
[/] When inactive for: ...
Interesting. I suppose it depends on how you look
at it or perhaps what
kind of computer user you are.
Many of us are lucky enough to have at least one
working hand. Perhaps
consequently we totally love our switches, knobs,
levers, etc. For
example, I have a stick shifting manual transmission
in my car. We'll
always have some type of control in hand. However,
what usually happens
is that over time discrete low level controls are
replaced by more
broadly scoped high level (for the time) controls.
Correspondingly, the
details and visibility of the lower level controls
recede into the
background. We'll likely end up driving with
computers in our hands
before too long.
I'm not a user interface expert so I'm not sure what
the state of the
art is with regard to using abstractions in an
interface. I don't see
how we can avoid it though if we are to move
forward.
When I left my house this morning I had to do a
number of really boring
things like closing the blinds, turning off
appliances, and locking
doors. I previously programmed my thermostat to my
regular schedule so
that I wouldn't have to turn it down manually.
There are two primary
reasons for all this stuff: power saving/management,
safety/security.
And of course there is the internal contradiction -
it is hard to do it
all at the same time - which is why people leave
lights on when they go
away.
However, might it be nice if I could lock my house
instead of locking my
door? Or might my house be able to detect when I'm
not there so that I
don't waste energy running the furnace on a
timetable?
Some people already have things like this. Though
you probably need
infrared motion detectors to do it so your lights
won't go off when you
are sitting still reading a book. And maybe you can
use some kind of
accounting how many bodies enter and exit a room.
And maybe you don't
want the lights to turn on when you walk into a room
while someone is
watching a movie.
So, what the heck does this have to do with
screensavers?
The one thing that I must tell my hypothetical smart
home is how long
should it wait to regard itself as unoccupied. It
doesn't make sense to
define this only with reference to the window blinds
- even though they
are more visible than the state of occupation.
I expect there would be some kind of configuration
like:
Regard the home as unoccupied after [30 minutes] of
inactivity
[x] Close doors, windows, and blinds when unoccupied
[x] Lock the doors and window when unoccupied
Actually is is a little bit more complicated than
this because of
multiple sessions and other details.
I hope this metaphor doesn't confuse things even
more. To summarize, I
don't think people should be controlling how their
screensaver works -
but rather how their desktop/computer works. I
don't think we'll have
succeeded until the screensaver cannot be identified
as a discrete
component.
The metaphor is good, and it makes perfect sense. It
also sounds really cool... to geeks.
Most people don't want this level of faff in their
homes. That's why Bill Gates' vision of
computer-controlled homes and fridges that know when
the food is past its date haven't taken off. Most
people aren't ready for this. What we see as a cool
use of technology, they see as complication.
Some people also want their blinds to close when it
gets dark, even though they're still in the house. Or
their front door to lock when they go into the back
garden. It's not as simple as 'in' or 'out', and the
same goes for 'idleness'.
I still think my use case of the screensaver going
while I'm working with paper or eating my lunch at my
desk, and therefore disturbable by an IM contact, is
valid.
Some people just want to say 'start the saver after x
minutes', without all the smart joined-up desktop
stuff.
I think it should be possible to cater for the
joined-up model, and also the simple 'save after x
minutes' type of user.
It may be that the screensaver slider should *say*
'start the saver after x minutes' even though it is
ALSO the idle time, and that the idle time can also be
set in the session prefs tool. That may surprise users
(good docs help here), but it also follows the rule of
staying in context.
Alternatively, the 'start the saver after x minutes'
could be a different setting to idle time, and a
warning is shown to the user if they change settings
in such a way that the saver would never be seen (OS X
does this: have you taken a look at this?)
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- Re: [Usability] Screensaver and idle time
- From: William Jon McCann
- Re: [Usability] Screensaver and idle time
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