GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 317221
Provide Icon and Color Indicators For Shutdown Menu to replace radio buttons
Last modified: 2006-07-29 11:55:31 UTC
This bug has been opened here: http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=16341 "Several times when I have tried to restart the computer I have ended up shutting down instead or vice versa. Current implementation uses Radio buttons and no icons, so it's very easy to make mistake choosing one of the options in the shutdown menu if one is in a hurry. Some kind of Icon indicator and more clear indicator of which selection is made would make this menu less user error prone. Radio buttons are a big part of the problem as they all look identical."
Perhaps it should even be buttons rather than checkboxes, as it is an action a user is asked to do - not a setting. Having checkboxes there does in deed seem error prone, as people tend to not take them very seriously. How about something like: [x] Remember current settings [Log out] [Shut down][Reboot] [Help] [Stay logged in] Seems kind of cluttered, although the number of widgets have been reduced by one (no more OK button). They could all have different icons for people to recognize them spatially. Perhaps there are better ways than that suggestion, but I agree with the original poster that using checkboxes is somewhat error prone.
FYI, I worked on this for Ubuntu, here's the new dialog : http://www.manucornet.net/ubuntu/#logout_dialog
THe logout and shutdown actions are now separated, and the dialog uses buttons rather than radio items now. This is much better than Manu's colorful dialog, I think. It matches more closely with what Windows and Mac OS do. And it doesn't have icons that are inaccessible by simply being the same power icon with a different color. I'm inclined to call this fixed in the 2.14+ GNOME releases.