Notifications: uselessness of

[Mat Tomaszewski]

Scott Kitterman wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:52:01 +0000 Mat Tomaszewski 
> <mat.tomaszewski at canonical.com> wrote:
>   
>> I'd like to reiterate the main point: we have a good reason to 
>> believe that persistent indicators only work for some very specific 
>> cases (examples being network connection, volume, etc).
>>     
>
> References please ....
>
>   
There's a strong tendency in some discussions to call upon "hard 
proofs", whenever convenient. I could do exactly the same thing and ask 
you to point me to the research that shows the effectiveness of the 
update-notifier icon.

As Matthew mentioned earlier, some areas are difficult to apply direct, 
"hard" tests to. Not to mention time and cost. However, there is a vast 
array of examples which show that whenever the important decision needs 
to be made it is better to present it to the user directly. It is 
crucial that people do update their system regularly and we really want 
to make sure they do. I agree it may not be the most elegant and classy 
way of doing it, and as soon as we find a better way, we'll implement 
it. Any suggestions are most welcome. For now though we are determined 
to see whether and how the new solution works out for Ubuntu users.

Thanks again for your feedback.

Regards,
Mat