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From the 2.0 version on, GNOME based many of their UI changes on research studies of what ordinary computer users want, chasing after the corporate desktop and

From the 2.0 version on, GNOME based many of their UI changes on research studies of what ordinary computer users want, chasing after the corporate desktop and tablet markets. The result was something that alienated many techies, but failed to see much mass-market adoption. I don’t think the problem is UI. I think the problem nowadays is that many people are so used to an Android phone (with Google Play Services and all apps sourced through the Play store) or iPhone that they are increasingly forgetting that ordinary computers exist at all.

jxy 6y ago
THIS! It's the ecosystem. Niche phone OS is not going to dominate the market until they have a competing app store that as good as Android's or iOS's. People uses Adobe will forever bounded by whatever OS Adobe truly supports. People uses MS Office will forever bounded by whatever OS MS Office truly supports. Nobody really cares about UI. Everybody hates new UI. Once you are settled in the local comfort zone of the app that you use the most, nothing else would replace it unless that app goes out of support.
Funes- 6y ago
Your argument reads like a fallacy (over-generalization): "UI/UX modifications were carried out on a single project with terrible results, so all UI/UX changes must be useless on any other project". Look at it this way (taking a decentralized network as an example): either one of I2P's two most used implementations (Java & C++) would greatly benefit from adding an informative configuration wizard to set speed limits, enabling or disabling features, help set up UPnP or manually forward ports, etcetera. Such a small addition would make wonders for adoption. UX improvements cannot be ruled out, especially not that hastily.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Ironically, setting up UPnP or manually forwarding ports is hard in some countries today because the ISP insists you use their broadband router, and it runs a locked-down firmware where those settings are not available to end users (unless customers upgrade to their more expensive business plan). So, another example where it is the ecosystem that is biased against general-purpose computing – or at least general-purpose networking – and UI tweaks can’t change that.
bronco21016 6y ago
I fell into this, and it was easy. My laptop and desktop broke around the same time. I had an iPad Pro for work and next thing I knew I was just living in iOS. I did this for a few years before finally pushing back into desktop Linux during COVID lockdowns. There's a lot of reasons behind why it's so easy to become used to living in the mobile ecosystems but for me it was very much about form factor. It's just so much easier to carry around a slim tablet with amazing battery life and software that "just works" when you live a very on-the-go life. Projects like PinePhone give me hope that one day we can have general purpose computers in the form factors that made Android and iOS so popular to begin with. Obviously, this is a software and hardware problem, it's just that the world moved on to more and more mobile devices and FOSS stuck to less portable hardware.
doteka 6y ago
You are talking about UI though. UI is not UX. The last time I was forced to use a Linux desktop environment for work, the resolution that I needed it to run on was not supported. It took me 10 minutes of googling to find the arcane invocations to perform this simple task. The UI looking really pretty did nothing to improve the situation. Normal people outside of tech just want their problem solved. They couldn’t care less about some theoretical software freedoms. For them, freedom is being able to accomplish work without fiddling, close their laptop and have a beer. And I think this is fundamentally incompatible with what FOSS advocates are trying to accomplish, which is why we will never see the year of the Linux desktop. Put another way: computers are just tools. The less fiddling my tools take, the better. I don’t want the freedom to modify my hammer, I just care about how easy it is to drive nails with. Linux desktops are a bag of disjointed wood and metal which in theory can be used to assemble the perfect hammer. Completely free of charge, if your time is worthless or you’re really into building hammers. I want to build a shed quickly though, so I’ll just pay for a readymade decent hammer with manufacturer warranty.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  > The last time I was forced to use a Linux desktop environment for work, the resolution that I needed it to run on was not supported. It took me 10 minutes of googling to find the arcane invocations to perform this simple task What do you do if the resolution you want isn't supported on other platforms?
  - doteka 6y ago
    Is that a rhetorical question? I have never ran into the issue of my native screen resolution not being there on MacOS because the hardware and software are built in tandem. I haven’t used Windows in the past 10 years but I would safely bet that the panel’s native resolution will work out of the box.
    - schwartzworld 6y ago
      It is a rhetorical question, but to illustrate a point. One way to look at it is that the OS is not good because it didn't support the resolution out of the box. Another way to view it is that all it took was a measly 10 minutes of googling to enable features that the OS doesn't natively include. You're right, the macOS probably would have an easier job at handling your monitor's resolution.
neolog 6y ago
OP said UX, not UI.
hertzrat 6y ago
I know I may be in the minority, but I like gnome a lot.

jxy 6y ago

THIS! It's the ecosystem. Niche phone OS is not going to dominate the market until they have a competing app store that as good as Android's or iOS's. People uses Adobe will forever bounded by whatever OS Adobe truly supports. People uses MS Office will forever bounded by whatever OS MS Office truly supports. Nobody really cares about UI. Everybody hates new UI. Once you are settled in the local comfort zone of the app that you use the most, nothing else would replace it unless that app goes out of support.

Funes- 6y ago

Your argument reads like a fallacy (over-generalization): "UI/UX modifications were carried out on a single project with terrible results, so all UI/UX changes must be useless on any other project". Look at it this way (taking a decentralized network as an example): either one of I2P's two most used implementations (Java & C++) would greatly benefit from adding an informative configuration wizard to set speed limits, enabling or disabling features, help set up UPnP or manually forward ports, etcetera. Such a small addition would make wonders for adoption. UX improvements cannot be ruled out, especially not that hastily.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Ironically, setting up UPnP or manually forwarding ports is hard in some countries today because the ISP insists you use their broadband router, and it runs a locked-down firmware where those settings are not available to end users (unless customers upgrade to their more expensive business plan). So, another example where it is the ecosystem that is biased against general-purpose computing – or at least general-purpose networking – and UI tweaks can’t change that.

bronco21016 6y ago

I fell into this, and it was easy. My laptop and desktop broke around the same time. I had an iPad Pro for work and next thing I knew I was just living in iOS. I did this for a few years before finally pushing back into desktop Linux during COVID lockdowns. There's a lot of reasons behind why it's so easy to become used to living in the mobile ecosystems but for me it was very much about form factor. It's just so much easier to carry around a slim tablet with amazing battery life and software that "just works" when you live a very on-the-go life. Projects like PinePhone give me hope that one day we can have general purpose computers in the form factors that made Android and iOS so popular to begin with. Obviously, this is a software and hardware problem, it's just that the world moved on to more and more mobile devices and FOSS stuck to less portable hardware.

doteka 6y ago

You are talking about UI though. UI is not UX. The last time I was forced to use a Linux desktop environment for work, the resolution that I needed it to run on was not supported. It took me 10 minutes of googling to find the arcane invocations to perform this simple task. The UI looking really pretty did nothing to improve the situation. Normal people outside of tech just want their problem solved. They couldn’t care less about some theoretical software freedoms. For them, freedom is being able to accomplish work without fiddling, close their laptop and have a beer. And I think this is fundamentally incompatible with what FOSS advocates are trying to accomplish, which is why we will never see the year of the Linux desktop. Put another way: computers are just tools. The less fiddling my tools take, the better. I don’t want the freedom to modify my hammer, I just care about how easy it is to drive nails with. Linux desktops are a bag of disjointed wood and metal which in theory can be used to assemble the perfect hammer. Completely free of charge, if your time is worthless or you’re really into building hammers. I want to build a shed quickly though, so I’ll just pay for a readymade decent hammer with manufacturer warranty.

schwartzworld 6y ago
> The last time I was forced to use a Linux desktop environment for work, the resolution that I needed it to run on was not supported. It took me 10 minutes of googling to find the arcane invocations to perform this simple task What do you do if the resolution you want isn't supported on other platforms?
- doteka 6y ago
  Is that a rhetorical question? I have never ran into the issue of my native screen resolution not being there on MacOS because the hardware and software are built in tandem. I haven’t used Windows in the past 10 years but I would safely bet that the panel’s native resolution will work out of the box.
  - schwartzworld 6y ago
    It is a rhetorical question, but to illustrate a point. One way to look at it is that the OS is not good because it didn't support the resolution out of the box. Another way to view it is that all it took was a measly 10 minutes of googling to enable features that the OS doesn't natively include. You're right, the macOS probably would have an easier job at handling your monitor's resolution.

neolog 6y ago

OP said UX, not UI.

hertzrat 6y ago

I know I may be in the minority, but I like gnome a lot.