Auto-launching of applications

[Ante Karamatic]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:32:27 +0100
Oliver Grawert <ogra at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> they will surely notice there is movement in the notification area if
> the icon appears (or at least notice there is an icon they dont know
> if they were afk while it appeared) its a one time thing to find out
> what it is/does, the second time they will know it. 

While I'm not a fan of auto launched applications, I can confirm that
users[1] don't notice or/and don't update their systems. They don't see
that icon as something important and never click on it. They've used to
having lots of icons in Windows' tray and they just ignore them. In my
observations, users just don't care about updates. They would be
happiest if updates wouldn't exist at all. Second best thing to that is
not presenting updates.

Most of Windows users don't update their systems by them self. Windows
does that for them and they just click on 'restart my computer', when
*requested*. It's way easier than reading what updates are available
and *deciding* what to do.

A lot of people don't understand multitasking and having two
applications opened at the same time confuses them. A lot of people doesn't
use firefox' google bar. Heck, for them it's easier to type in
www.google.com, and then search for www.cnn.com, than just enter cnn
in google bar or typing in www.cnn.com into location bar.

[1] I'm takling about users that perceive computers as just a tool or
inconvenience in their work/life, about users that check mail, live
on facebook or every now and then use computer to listen to music or
type some letter in office tools.

my 0.02€