[Design-team] Gnome-shell extension that adds a Fedora logo

[Kristóf Timur]

Hello Owen,

Thank you for responding, you raise some very good points there.
Let me answer to your arguments.

>
> Whether this package is included in Fedora is presumably only determined
> by whether it's free software, meets the Fedora logo usage guidelines
> and so forth.
>
Short answer: yes, it does.

Overall I have to say, a logo must be part of the default install.
Here are the reasons I think so:
- Having a logo will strenghten the Fedora brand and makes clear that 
the user is using Fedora
- If we don't have a logo, how can users visually distinguish between 
Fedora and other distributions?
- Having a logo in a familiar place will ensure users coming from F14 
that this is still the Fedora they love.

Now let me answer your points about why you think it shouldn't be in the 
default install.
>   - Makes it unclear whether there is one click target or two
- When the user hovers his mouse over the logo, the Activities caption 
will become higlighted. Thus, s/he can recognize that they are one click 
target.
- When the user first clicks on either of them, s/he will see that the 
logo and the caption are underlined together, so s/he will recognize 
that there is only one click target.
- Because the user sees that the two are in fact one click target, s/he 
will think of them as one single button, and not as two different items.
- Having the logo there will bring back a familiar item from Gnome 2.
- Noone ever thought that the Applications button and the icon are two 
different click targets in Gnome 2, thus noone will think they are now.

On a side note, if you have a better idea on how to make it even more 
obvious that they are a single click target, I'm listening. :)

>   - Separate the "Activities" word from the hot corner.
The "Activities" word will still be in the top left. And make no mistake 
there, the Activities word and the logo act as a single unit there.
Note that since the logo is the only icon on the top which has colors, 
it will also improve the emphasis on the Activities button.

>   - Creates a discrepancy between the GNOME documentation and
>     instructional videos and the Fedora experience.
Not that big of a discrepancy. Changing the Gnome logo to a Fedora logo 
in Gnome 2 also created a "discrepancy", but it didn't bother anyone. In 
my opinion, this should be a very important part of the Fedora branding.
Since the word "Activities" is unchanged, every user will be 100% clear 
what the documentation is talking about when it comes to the Activities 
button and the overview.

> If a Fedora logo appears to the Left of activities, many users will go
> to the corner and careful click on Activities instead of taking
> advantage of Fitt's law and discovering the hot corner.
The logo becomes part of the Activities button (just like the logo is a 
part of the primary button in every desktop environment).
Since it remains a single button and a single click target as I 
mentioned above, users will be able to discover the hot corner just as 
they were able to do so previously.
(By the way, if I hadn't read the Gnome Shell guide, I would have never 
discovered the hot corner myself.)

> (Compare, on a Mac, the Apple menu is a separate click target from the
> File menu next to it. The start menu in old versions of Windows which
> was logo + text was styled to look like a single button so is not a
> valid point of comparison.)
I have never used a Mac, but I don't think it is a valid point of 
comparison, since it uses the top panel for a very different purpose 
(applications' menu), while in Gnome, the top panel is rather a central 
piece of the UX which remains mostly unchanged regardless of what 
application I have open.

Overall, I think that the logo is a central part of Fedora's branding. 
By dropping it, we also drop a large part of the Fedora public image and 
also make Fedora indistinguishable from other Gnome distributions.

For this reason, this is something that should also be discussed with 
the Fedora marketing team. They should also have a say in this decision. 
(Because the removal of the Fedora logo will result in a weakening of 
the brand itself.)

- Please install the extension and use the shell that way for a few 
days. See what it feels like.
- If you disagree with how my idea tries to put the logo into Gnome 
Shell, then we should discuss other ways to do it. One idea of such 
another way may be to keep the logo there, but style it in such a way 
that it becomes more obvious that it is one with the Activities button. 
(I'm thinking of something like how the current application name/icon is 
represented on the top bar.) Another may be to put the logo to a 
different place and give it some functionality. I'm open to any ideas. :)
- My main point here is that the logo should be in a central, always 
visible part of the screen.

> I think the plan is to go back to having the Fedora logo on the GDM
> screen.
That is good news. :) Thanks.

Cheers,
Timur