Feedback and problems regarding the application launcher

[Noah Davis]

Hi Tom, I'm already working on a patch that will solve some of the
issues you listed. The current version of Kickoff has a fixed size,
which is why text gets elided so much. My patch will make the default
size scale to fit the content better. It's not quite ready since the
context menus for apps don't have any useful content yet, but I would
appreciate some feedback about the rest of it. If you have any
feedback, please post it in a comment on the MR and not as a reply to
this email.

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/merge_requests/420

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 7:04 AM Tom Zander <tom at flowee.org> wrote:
>
> Short version; right click on the application launcher and select
> "Show alternative" and select one of the other ones.
>
> The Application Launcher is a typical usability disaster that
> (looking at the merge request) comes from too many chefs and not
> enough actual users testing it. Making it default before it was
> found actually nice and useful by a large section of the
> **users**.
>
> See https://ibb.co/FKS4nQP
>
> Some UX flaws that we found with actual usage;
>
> - texts are not shown fully. (Sl... instead of sleep).
> - pressing the shutdown options then gives another full screen
> dialog to select _again_. Why now simply one "Shutdown" item?
>
> - Items that have a dot dot dot instead of the full text do not
> have a mouse-over tooltip or auto-expanding feature to show the
> full text. I don't know what I'm clicking on here...
>
> - the top row of items in my screenshot are a mix between tabs
> (applications / places) and buttons (sleep etc) and one popup.
> But there is no visual indication about their different behaviors.
> This breaks one of the most fundamental UX rules: avoid
> surprises.
>
> - The button (top right) that shows alternative ways to leave
> (like logout) is an arrow-left. If it were on the left side of
> the dialog, that might work, but on the right the concept just
> fails to indicate "leave". Additionally, it should be square to
> indicate leave. Not round.
> The way it is now, it looks like a "collapse to right" icon.
>
> - List on left is sorted alphabetically, with fun things
> like "All" and "Development" in English being prominently at the
> top. Which makes it the worst case for most users.
> No, the excuse that people won't install stuff they will not use
> does not fly.
>
> - The old problem of menus changing on hover has re-appeared.
> Users not so adapt with the mouse will not move the mouse very
> fast and they will move from one of the menus to the item in a
> diagonal line. As the mouse moves, they will end up triggering a
> menu-change involuntarily until they realize the problem (hah!)
> and move horizontal to the icons area before they go vertically
> down to the icon they want.
>
> - List on the left is not very consistent when operated with a
> touch-screen. Sometimes a swipe leads to selections, sometimes it
> leads to moving the list. This is a solved problem, people. Who
> went and started re-innovating flick-lists?
>
> - My full name is listed bottom left. Why? That does NOT belong
> in an application launcher.
> Hovering over it, again gives me a 'dot dot dot' type text that
> only adds confusion. (and why?)
>
> - the "Places" tab has 3 items
>   + "Computer" (which is a place, but it then lists places,
>       but also Remote. contradicting its sorting).
>   + "History" this is not a place. What is that doing here?
>   + "Frequently used". Nice feature, but that should
>   affect sorting, not force people to go to a back-alley place to
>    find the things he used often. Completely misses the point
>    again.
>
> - Search, as OP indicated, is interesting. For instance I DO have
> kcalc installed and its description is "Scientific Calculator".
> Searching for "ca" does NOT find it.
> Now, if I type a 3rd char, suddenly it does. Weird.
>
>
> [old geezer rant]
>
> Now, in my time we had people actually sit down with users and do
> a dozen main usage tasks and then we'd find out what the problems
> were based on actual users doing stuff. User testing.
>
> That actually gave pretty decent software. Stable software we had
> back then that we now see Windows copying for their version 11.
> It would be nice if we went back to this level of stability.
> Especially before making something this fresh become the default
> it very clearly is not ready to be.
>
> /end rant.
>
>
>
> On dinsdag 22 juni 2021 15:16:02 CEST Michael Algemeen wrote:
> > Dear recipient,
> >
> > I am writing you because I have some feedback and problems
> > regarding the application launcher.
> >
> > I have replaced kcalc with another calculator. I uninstalled it
> > via the package manager, but it stays in the launcher. I can't
> > figure out how to get rid of it, can you help?
> >
> > Also, when I type “ca”, the first program it returns is
> > “cantana” despite never using it. Can I make it suggest
> > “Calculator” instead? Xfce does this.
> >
> > Also, how do I remove entries that aren't actually installed at
> > all? It makes for a lot of cruft. I can't find the settings
> > for this anywhere
>
>
>