I would recommend you to try to reinstall the ubuntu-desktop package and the indicator-session applet first.

I have tried and installed the indicator-app from your ppa but KArmic wants in uninstall ubuntu-desktop.
I have let it do this, but then when I logoff and log back in my indicator-session is missing.

Am i missing something here.

THanks

Andy

Also, there was already a PPA for this: https://launchpad.net/~indicator-applet-developers/+archive/indicator-core-ppa/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

So let’s deconstruct how users could get to that confused situation. When they start their browsers, they are faced with the home page, which usually has a prominent search box inside. The address box is lost on top of the screen, inside the browser’s chrome and looks full of strange voodoo like “http://” and suchlike so it’s probably something technical that they don’t want to mess up by typing in it. They tried it before and it came back with something ugly that said “404 page not found” or something like this, they thought they had broken something and don’t want to do it anymore.

They heard about this Facebook thing and want an account so they type “facebook” in the search box and lo and behold, they get there. They create an account, a password and such and it tells them that they can now login. So the next time they start their browser they think that they want to login to their Facebook page.So they type “facebook login” in the search box and lo and behold they get to the correct page where they log in. Now that they successfully got to Facebook, that procedure is kept as “how to login to Facebook” in their list of common tasks. They do it every time. And one day, the computer behaves differently: they end up on this weird red web page they never heard of before. Panic ensues. They don’t understand why the steps they’ve used every time until now don’t work anymore.

In practice, this is very similar to the person who goes to the shops by bus every day and knows to alight at the 10th stop to go to the shop she wants. The day there is a diversion and the 10th stop is not where it used to be, she’s lost. The problem here is to use “10th stop” as the signal to alight rather than the name of the stop. For some people, using “10th stop” might be the only way to use the bus system, such as they have bad eyesight, they are in a country where they can’t read the language, they don’t understand the bus routes, etc.

From our point of view, what happens is that, as experienced computer users, we understand what is happening and are able to identify when the procedure we use doesn’t do what we expect. We understand that the immutable piece of information is the name of the web site, not its ranking in Google.

So, to improve user interfaces, we need to understand what are the assumptions we make when we use the interface, understand all the paths that could lead to the same result and which ones are resilient to change, which ones are not, and direct the user in following the former ones. This is why a home page like Opera has where you see a search box as well as a preview of the 9 sites you use most frequently is a great usability improvement: it directs the user towards a procedure that is more resilient to change: they see a picture of Facebook in their home page so they click on it thus requesting the site by name, irrespective of its ranking in Google.

Now you could say “but why don’t they just bookmark the sites they use regularly?” First because they don’t understand that what’s important is the name so they don’t even think of bookmarking it. Second, because the bookmarking procedure is lost behind a single word in the browser menu and they never use the browser menu anyway (a browser is an application where you seldom need to use the menu bar, even as a seasoned user: just try to think when was the last time you used the menu in your browser, other than to add a bookmark). So in addition to the above, in order to improve usability, you need to ensure that the change resilient procedure to do something is available in a part of the application chrome that is used regularly, even by novice users.

“Easy to use” is so easy to say, but what does it really say? Easy for whom, in what context, to achieve what?

I think what really is called for is a very conscious approach to the knowledge a user needs for a specific task. Try to reduce the amount of knowledge required. Try to put knowledge into the system. Offer information the user needs for informed decisions right in place.

There’s a lot of things the really ignorant users, who refuse to learn or are not able to, will never be able to accomplish, no matter what the developers/designers do.

I couldn’t agree more. The more thoroughly everybody developing Ubuntu understand this the more successful Ubuntu will be. I think it’s essential to have “normal people” to test Ubuntu under observation as much as possible to find out what’s difficult for them, as most of the developers (who are advanced computer users themselves) understandably aren’t able to step into the shoes of a novice.

This could be explained by the famous Google Chrome video in which the reporter asks random passers-by at Times Square what they think a web browser is. Most of them confuse it with a search engine. But it’s probably also laziness. Searching for a website doesn’t have the risk of landing on a ad-ridden typo of the domain you’re looking for.

Congratulations and welcome!