I might well be wrong about whether it's worth it to show disk space or not. I have no problem admitting this, because I haven't done any studies about it.
> but "You fail at UI" is a particularly abrasive way to be wrong.
>The additional cognitive load of reading a disk space requirement is negligible
Apparently I was too abrasive, or not abrasive enough.
NO amount of cognitive load is negligible. Ever. When you design a dialog with two buttons that both have to be there, both of those buttons are creating a significant amount of cognitive load. Understanding this is largely why apple makes good UI's. You should never try to justify removing something from the UI -- you must instead always have very good reasons why NOT to remove something, and remove it by default if you can't find enough (not any).
As I said, I have not made any studies of how users install ubuntu or what they expect, but as it's supposed to be installed as the os on the computer, in place of whatever that was before, and as there is no commonly available commodity hardware that it won't install on, I can easily see how there is no longer enough justification to show disk space requirements.
Ok, let me revise my statement: the cognitive load of the requirement is only negligible in comparison to the frustration not including the requirement would cause.
Apple puts the disk space requirements in every single installer. Disk usage is an important piece of information. I'd agree with you if it were something like "Ubuntu requires a Pentium II or higher".
I might well be wrong about whether it's worth it to show disk space or not. I have no problem admitting this, because I haven't done any studies about it.
> but "You fail at UI" is a particularly abrasive way to be wrong.
>The additional cognitive load of reading a disk space requirement is negligible
Apparently I was too abrasive, or not abrasive enough.
NO amount of cognitive load is negligible. Ever. When you design a dialog with two buttons that both have to be there, both of those buttons are creating a significant amount of cognitive load. Understanding this is largely why apple makes good UI's. You should never try to justify removing something from the UI -- you must instead always have very good reasons why NOT to remove something, and remove it by default if you can't find enough (not any).
As I said, I have not made any studies of how users install ubuntu or what they expect, but as it's supposed to be installed as the os on the computer, in place of whatever that was before, and as there is no commonly available commodity hardware that it won't install on, I can easily see how there is no longer enough justification to show disk space requirements.