[Notifications] Competing notifications when two alarms kick at the same time

Bug #1358890 reported by Charles Kerr
12
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Indicator Date and Time
Incomplete
High
Charles Kerr
Ubuntu UX
Fix Committed
Medium
Paty Davila
indicator-datetime (Ubuntu)
Incomplete
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

A cousin of bug #1354406

Some of the early testers are hitting a use case that we didn't account for, that of multiple alarms set for the same time.

Indicator-datetime currently tries to pull up notifications for, and play sounds for, both notifications. That's happening by accident and is clearly not the right approach.

I can think of a couple of approaches we might take:

-- SOLUTION --
If 2 or more alarms have been triggered, the notification at any time will display:
  Title: 2 Alarms
  Subtitle: [Label 1] 10:00, [Label 2] 10:01

The sound of the first alarm will be played. If they have the same time, the one that has been created first.

------ UX Comment ------

Use cases:

1 - User sets 2 alarms, at the same time, with same attributes (repeat, label, sound)

Expected behaviour: Clock app / alarm manager recognise a conflict of newly set alarm time with previously set alarm and rejects it if it’s found same.

2 - User sets 2 alarms, at the same time, with (one or more) different attributes (repeat, label, sound)

Expected behaviour: the alarm that was set in the first place is the one that goes off (with correspondent sound and label) and the second one is fired as a notification bubble.

3 - User sets 2 alarms, at different times, even if the difference is 1 minute. Then first alarm goes off and second alarm does it one minute after.

4 - Several notifications fired at the same time:

Desired behaviour described here: Page 35: Notifications queuing and flood prevention

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xDSZ_dnAMAlhgFnnyjJEibaITXjVLp1_pnj_tATNm9I/edit#heading=h.5ldl02lx6rwi

"In general, applications can fire only one notification at a time, but multiple applications can fire their notification simultaneously. All notifications should be treated as if they are in a queue and will be handled sequentially according to their fire time (in a FIFO manner)."

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Medium
assignee: nobody → Giorgio Venturi (giorgio-venturi)
Revision history for this message
Giorgio Venturi (giorgio-venturi-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

There's one more edge use case: an alarm set for 10:00, one for 10:01
Desired solution:
1) The user picks the phone at 10:00 and sets the alarm off, then he has to do it again at 10:01
2) The user picks the phone at 10:02 and he can set off both of them at the same time

I would suggest the following approach:
If 2 or more alarms have been triggered, the notification at any time will display:
  Title: 2 Alarms
  Subtitle: [Label 1] 10:00, [Label 2] 10:01

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Triaged → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Charles Kerr (charlesk) wrote :

Folding alarms together still has the questions I described above -- if two alarms with different sounds kick at the same time, which sound should play?

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Fix Committed → Confirmed
summary: - Need better usability when two alarms kick at the same time
+ Competing notifications when two alarms kick at the same time
John Lea (johnlea)
Changed in indicator-datetime:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
summary: - Competing notifications when two alarms kick at the same time
+ [Notifications] Competing notifications when two alarms kick at the same
+ time
description: updated
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Confirmed → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Michał Sawicz (saviq) wrote :

One reason for keeping them separate is that it'd be easier to miss what the alarms/reminders relate to if they've been folded up.

Another is that you might want to snooze one of them, but not the other. I'd be fine with snoozing all or none, but with calendar reminders you might have per-event snoozing rules, which at some point we should probably respect.

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
assignee: Giorgio Venturi (giorgio-venturi) → Paty Davila (dizzypaty)
Revision history for this message
Charles Kerr (charlesk) wrote :

Marking as incomplete for indicator-datetime.

Designers, please reopen this component when the design decision's been made.

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Fix Committed → Confirmed
Changed in indicator-datetime:
status: Triaged → Incomplete
Changed in indicator-datetime (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Paty Davila (dizzypaty)
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Triaged → In Progress
Paty Davila (dizzypaty)
description: updated
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
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