Feature #15768
Use desktop background to warn users when their Tails needs to be updated
0%
Description
When following up with Tails trainees a few months or more after an initial training, most if not all of them will not have updated Tails since the initial training. They are able to connect to the internet and they see the Tails upgrade prompt but unfortunately inherit the behavior learned from other operating systems: That it’s ok to choose Upgrade Later and then never update. In order to better communicate a sense of urgency to users to upgrade their Tails version, it would be ideal to go a step further than a website notice and updater prompt.
UX recommendations:
- If a version of Tails is found to be outdated, change the desktop wallpaper color to a dark red, with a lighter internationally-recognizable warning symbol (⚠) and localized text explaining the need to upgrade in the center of the desktop, keeping in mind the Gnome HIG writing style: https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/writing-style.html.en. Assuming Gnome desktop supports SVG images, it may be possible to generate this programmatically without needing to maintain a set of static images.
Subtasks
Related issues
|
Related to Tails - |
Resolved | 2016-11-28 | |
| Related to Tails - Feature #14544: Spend software developer time on smallish UX improvements | In Progress | 2018-08-31 |
History
#1 Updated by sajolida 2018-08-11 09:47:26
- related to
Feature #12003: Set a warning message in RCs and alpha releases added
#2 Updated by sajolida 2018-08-11 10:04:18
- Status changed from New to Confirmed
- Priority changed from Normal to Low
- Type of work changed from Code to User interface design
- Starter set to Yes
- Affected tool set to Upgrader
I like the idea of making it permanently visible that their Tails is outdated. But since we already have a notification mechanism, I’d consider it as low prio. I’d be happy to continue the discussion and review patches but we’re not likely to implement this ourselves.
Regarding the technicalities:
- In GNOME the desktop is not often visible. At least people don’t have strong incentives to make visible again once they have several windows open. So maybe the desktop is not the best place for that… A GNOME Shell extension for example, could display something in the top navigation bar and allow providing more information when clicked.
- It’s possible to display SVG as background images.
See also Feature #12003 which is about doing similar things about release candidates and beta versions.
#3 Updated by huertanix 2018-08-22 21:33:58
sajolida wrote:
> * In GNOME the desktop is not often visible. At least people don’t have strong incentives to make visible again once they have several windows open. So maybe the desktop is not the best place for that… A GNOME Shell extension for example, could display something in the top navigation bar and allow providing more information when clicked.
>
This is mostly why I also want to change the background color in addition to adding large warning copy and a warning glyph. Although there may be situations where a window will cover it, they’ll eventually see it. I think this messaging and style will reflect the urgency of a security update more so than the current updater, or even something tucked away in the top navigation bar, which is something similar to what Windows does, but unfortunately also something ignored by most Windows users I know.
#4 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-10 17:49:13
- related to Feature #14544: Spend software developer time on smallish UX improvements added