Fedora Logo on the login screen

[Allan Day]

Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On Mon 18 Mar 2013 05:54:42 PM EDT, Clyde E. Kunkel wrote:
>> I am not a programmer, but, that said, why can't you put a decent
>> sized fedora logo above the users section.  If the number of users
>> exceeds a certain number, then create a window with a slider bar on
>> the right. This just does not seem like rocket science. :-)
>
> Isn't GNOME shell primarily designed as a single-user experience?

I think it's a good idea to special case the single user case. We
still want to provide a good multi-user experience though.

> How
> frequently are we expecting there to be a case where there are enough
> users in the list for a logo placed as suggested by Ray in comment 13
> (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=694912#c13)

Even if it is a corner case, it's something we should handle, I think.

> I see a 'solution' looking for a problem here. The problem isn't the
> Fedora logo looks bad when given exactly 9 pixels of vertical space
> (what logo would?) The problem is... I'm really not sure what. Can you
> help me understand? I see this multi-monitor use related bug has been
> cited:
>
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=685852
>
> It says "The distribution logo is displayed in the middle above the
> list. This visually
> clashes with the layout of the rest of the login screen. It would be
> better to
> place the logo in the top-left hand corner of the screen, in the top
> bar. "
>
> There is no screenshot, so I am unsure of how it 'visually clashes'
> with the rest of the login screen, and I'm not sure what it has to do
> with multi-monitor, if anything. A GNOME wiki link is provided, which I
> clicked on (https://live.gnome.org/Boston2012/Multimonitor) and found
> the exact same text:
>
> "The distribution logo is displayed in the middle above the list. This
> visually clashes with the layout of the rest of the login screen. It
> would be better to place the logo in the top-left hand corner of the
> screen, in the top bar. #685852"
>
> Please help me understand what exactly the problem is here?

A bit of background:

The change during the 3.8 cycle was based on a couple of factors.
First, the logo interfered with the layout of the login screen: it's a
prominent visual presence that creates another anchor point which
conflicts with the other elements on the screen (ie. it is
horizontally centered, which clashes with the anchor points in the
user list). Second, the logo was felt to be a distracting presence.
We've made an effort to make sure that the most important elements are
the most visually prominent, and we want the primary interaction
points to be the ones that jump out at you. The logo was a strong
visual presence placed above the user list: this drew the eye to it,
making it the first thing you saw, and distracted you from the parts
of the screen that are actually useful to the user (ie. the user
list). Third and finally, having the logo in its previous position
limited the size to which the user list could grow when there are a
large number of users.

My preference is to focus the user interface on providing the best
user experience possible. That means prioritising the things that
people need to use, reducing distraction and making the UI look great.
The addition of a logo diminishes the user experience along each of
these dimensions.

The proposal to replace the logo with a simple string in the top-left
hand corner is intended to mitigate the negative impact of including a
logo while retaining a visual reference to the distributor. However,
the usability issue that Ryan brought up is a valid concern about this
proposal.

It has been suggested that not including the logo somehow weakens
distributions' ability to brand their products. My view is that this
is not the case. Branding is not the practice of slapping logos onto
products. Instead, it is the attempt to instill and promote positive
associations with the brand. The best way to do that, in my opinion,
is to make the user experience as good as it can possibly be. If you
diminish the user experience through the addition of a logo, then you
actually harm the brand: you make the product worse, and in the
process you make it less likely that people will think good things
about your brand.

> From the
> thread on devel-list about improving the boot experience, my
> understanding of the problem was:
>
> 1) The logos are not consistent between GDM and Plymouth. And they
> aren't, 100% agreed. Plymouth uses the logomark only, GDM uses the
> logotype+logomark. Their balance and general shape and size are
> inconsistent, and there's no reason they need to be. We could use the
> same version of the logo in both places.
>
> 2) The logos do not transition smoothly from Plymouth to GDM. Again,
> agreed 100%. If we used the same consistent version of the logo and
> used a consistent placement, one would fade into the other in the
> Plymouth-to-GDM transition, and this would be improved.

I'm not aware that the Plymouth design has been settled. It might not
be necessary to make these two screens consistent in terms of logo
placement.

> I am at a total loss as to how making the logo 9 pixels tall and
> shoving it in the upper left corner in both Plymouth and GDM is
> necessary to solve the above two problems. Why not have a 45x45 px
> version of the logomark only halfway between the clock and the top of
> the users list (again, as suggested by Ray) and have the same placement
> in plymouth? Then you would get consistency and a smooth transition.

I agree: placing a small logo in the top-left corner is not a
preferred approach.

> Removing the logo completely and replacing it with a string is
> completely unacceptable from a Fedora point of view, and I'm very
> surprised this is the suggested solution if the problem is #1 and #2
> above. If there is some other problem-to-solve that I am missing here
> that necessitates complete removal of the logo from the operating
> system, please let's talk about it so we can work on a solution
> together.

Please see above.

Allan