Tails

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2015-01-22 20:13:03

I didn’t read the entire thread on tails-ux, so sorry if this has already been taken into account.

I’m not convinced: elsewhere in our documentation, we use “Start Tails” for, well, starting Tails, as opposed to starting the user session. My reluctance is not about technical accuracy, but about user confusion: I bet that even non-tech-savvy users would be confused to be proposed to start Tails, after having booted it and picked a choice in a boot loader that says “Boot Tails”. They might rightly think that Tails is already running.

Besides, the concept of a login screen is quite widespread in common operating systems. I would consider using the same terminology they are using.

#2 Updated by sajolida 2015-01-23 21:41:33

> I’m not convinced: elsewhere in our documentation, we use “Start
> Tails” for, well, starting Tails, as opposed to starting the user
> session. My reluctance is not about technical accuracy, but about
> user confusion: I bet that even non-tech-savvy users would be
> confused to be proposed to start Tails, after having booted it and
> picked a choice in a boot loader that says “Boot Tails”. They might
> rightly think that Tails is already running.

Tails is already running from a technical point of view only as you
cannot do anything useful from the Greeter. The wording “Start Tails”
might actually help making that clear: Tails hasn’t started yet, you’re
still in the boot process and not yet “in” Tails.

> Besides, the concept of a login screen is quite widespread in common
> operating systems. I would consider using the same terminology they
> are using.

The difference here is that there is no notion of “login”, as in
“login/password” in Tails whereas this is primary goal of login screens
on other operating system: asking for your password.

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2015-01-23 22:40:54

> Tails is already running from a technical point of view only as you cannot do anything useful from the Greeter. The wording “Start Tails” might actually help making that clear: Tails hasn’t started yet, you’re still in the boot process and not yet “in” Tails.

OK. I’m still not convinced, but no big deal, I’ll trust the UX team expertise, and I can live with this outcome.

I expect the terminology move will be a bit hard to handle and may be in itself confusing to users, once the meaning of “starting Tails” suddenly changes in our documentation.

Here’s one example, to give me an idea of what it could become: on https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/startup_options/#index1h1, we say “The boot menu is the first screen to appears when Tails starts”. I’m curious how this can be worded once “starting Tails” really means “go through the Greeter to enter a session”. We’ll have to find a way to express something that happens before startup, which can be… an interesting problem to solve :)

#4 Updated by sajolida 2015-01-25 09:37:31

I would change “The boot menu is the first screen to appears when Tails starts” into “The boot menu is the first screen to appears when starting Tails”. Then “starting Tails” would become a process, including several steps before Tails is actually started: 1st the boot menu, 2nd the Greeter, then Tails is started.

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2015-01-25 10:16:39

> I would change “The boot menu is the first screen to appears when Tails starts” into “The boot menu is the first screen to appears when starting Tails”. Then “starting Tails” would become a process, including several steps before Tails is actually started: 1st the boot menu, 2nd the Greeter, then Tails is started.

It may be that my mind is fighting against a new understanding of things and most other people will get it right, but I find it very confusing that clicking “Start Tails” would happen after the “starting Tails” process has begun.

#7 Updated by sajolida 2015-01-25 11:08:33

This is the time where I feel that you would add a “yes, but” endlessly to whatever I say. So I instead marked this to be explicitely tested while doing Feature #8238.

#10 Updated by alant 2015-09-14 14:25:49

Please look at https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/greeter_revamp_UI/design_rationale_phase1/ for a proposal by Spencerone and me that address this issue. This proposal now needs to be tested (Feature #8238).