Comment 4 for bug 670403

In user testing of Ubuntu Software Center 2.0 and 3.0, consistently the biggest problem has been that people could not figure out how to launch newly-installed applications.

Having a separate pane in USC for draggable launchers was one of the options I evaluated (#6 in <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareCenter/LaunchingApplications>). The biggest of its disadvantages turned out to be that it wouldn't actually solve the problem. (1) Realizing that the "recently installed" pane existed, (2) navigating to it, and (3) dragging the application to the launcher would be three non-obvious steps that, combined, would make people unlikely to benefit from it. And anything we could do to make the steps obvious enough would be more annoying (e.g. opening the pane automatically) and/or stodgy (e.g. displaying text telling people to drag and drop) than just hoisting the application to the launcher. That the hoisting solution adds zero extra elements to the interface doesn't by itself mean that it's the perfect solution, but it sure is a hint.

As I mentioned in the spec, we could have a “View” > “Newly Installed Applications in Launcher” menu item, on by default -- so that people who frequently install applications, and have become familiar with where else to find them, can "graduate" from the automatic behavior.