[Tails-ux] Greeter design proposal rationale

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Author: spencerone
Date:  
To: tails-ux
Subject: [Tails-ux] Greeter design proposal rationale
Hi,

I worked through the Greeter alternatives being preferred by everyone
and was able to identify some key concerns being weighed that we can
focus on to move forward and have complete consensus.

TL;DR - This[4] is what we should do. Why? Read below :)

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Note that the 'Storage' section is updated to reflect the current
Greeter Rationale[0]. However, I am unfamiliar with the benefits of
'Enable' though I have trust and have included it; Alan, would you
explain so that I understand?

Also note that I spaced out the current proposal[1] and that 'Language'
is ordered first as agreed.


Key Concerns:

1. Available canvas space as 'Privacy' options increase

2. One-click Access [vs] Two-click Access


Rationale:

1. If 'Language' is not grouped with 'Privacy' then they should not
resemble each other (though tchou has some thoughts on still grouping
them with 'Language' ordered first). Also, Tails has a 'Language'
string at the footer during the current Greeter experience that, other
than its placement, is quite functional. Using this could prevent
needing pagination for the self-guided flow because it frees up so much
vertical space. Here[2] is what the change would look like.

2. To settle the pagination issue it seems that the question should be:
which is more important, one-click access, which means everything on one
dialog, or pagination of the 'Privacy' settings, which means two-click
access. However, I worked through that and discovered something. Given
the logic to move "these are your DEFAULT settings" to the 'Settings'
section, there is no confirmation to the self-guided user that they are
using default privacy settings. Because of this, 'Start Tails' is
de-emphasized until they move to the next dialog. This change conflicts
with the highly occurrent use case of starting Tails with default
settings on one click.

This also brings back the fork-in-the-road issue that I feel is best
resolved with a single button with two paths forking from there, as seen
here[3]; the mental model is more clear this way.


Resolution:

But for those who just despise the idea of a Mac-like 'Edit' button,
here[4] is the way we should go. This isolates each step as the
default, Guided Configuration, and allows people to switch to
Self-guided Configuration.

Why is *this* the way to go?

! We are going to have more info than should be displayed at once for
new users, but not more than should be displayed to veteran users
(presuming we don't overload the list and run out of room), so let's
accommodate both, as tchou was doing. This allows there to be a state
where everything is on a single dialog and a state where each step is
isolated. The difference from what we had is that the Guided
Configuration flow is now the collective starting point, as opposed to
the Self-guided one, and we won't be grouping 'Language' and 'Storage'
on a single dialog.

Wordlife,
Spencer

[0]:
https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/greeter_revamp_UI/design_rationale_phase1/
[1]:
https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/greeter_revamp_UI/Greeter.Welcome.svg
[2]: Greeter.Language.Size.png
[3]: Greeter.Forkerd.Path.png
[4]: Greeter.Alt.Path.png