[rekonq] quit vs. close

[Thomas Zander]

On Friday 19 August 2011 09.34.52 Andrea Diamantini wrote:
> So, back to the topic. I have no big pros/cons about the "general"
> behavior,  that is the quit action closing the current window or the whole
> app. But, having tested this in these months, I can say I like the optional
> check changed in the queryClose:

> - In rekonq 0.7 we warned the user on window close if he has more than one
> tab  open. I think that 99% of the users consider this check boring.

Where does that feeling you have about users thinking its Ok come from?

In the KDE user research done some years back the result was the opposite, the 
bugreports on konqueror asking for this dialog (also some years back) also 
show the opposite.

So are you sure that you are thinking of the common KDE users here? To help 
with that question, please notice the 'personas' KDE has created for just such 
a question;
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/Principles/KDE4_Personas

> - In rekonq master, until 2 days ago, on quit action, if you have just
> 1 window open it simply closes. If you have more than one, you are asked
> about  closing all them or simply closing the current one. It just works
> for me.

I understand it works for you, makes sense since you are fully aware of the 
fact that all those rekonq windows under water are just the same process with 
one taskId in the computer.
This implementation detail is not clear to the user of rekonq. She will click 
a link in konversation and get a new window on that virtual desktop.  Closing 
that window using 'quit' does in no way make sense if this also closes the 
rekonq window that was already running on another virtual desktop or another 
X-session or even another activity.
Especially since other KDE software doesn't behave like that.

So, in short, it doesn't make sense to me, and from experience I know that it 
doesn't make sense to a lot more people :)

> Please also consider that, as tab history saving will be pushed on master
> this  morning, the 1% of users who have closed by mistake window instead of
> tab can resurrect all the others just restarting rekonq

Thats great! And I'm sure a lot of users will like that feature. I'll try it 
soon as well. :)
I would disagree with the conclusion that this solves the problem; that would 
imply a mis-interpretation of the problem.
The problem is predictability of functionality and trusting it to behave 
consistently with the resulting fear of using functionality if this trust is 
broken.
The fact that a user can recover if the app didn't behave the way he expected 
doesn't change the fear created at the first negative surprise.  It just makes 
it easier to bear.

I've seen a user get utterly frustrated and he walked out of the room when an 
application unexpectedly exited and he assumed that this meant the last 5 
hours of work were lost.
Only an hour later, he was still kind of stressed, did he find out that by 
restarting the application all his work was still there.
This made him happy, but the real damage was already done. The end-evaluation 
of the application was that he didn't trust it with his time anymore. (he 
pressed save 5 times a minute from then on when he was forced to use it)

Being consistent and predictable is important for user satisfaction. If you 
can't be consistent with everyone else, make sure you go with the 'safe' ones 
so losing work is cut to a minumum.

I hope this makes the reasons for the behavior a little more clear :)

-- 
Thomas Zander