6 ms·

Come on people, it's not like gnome devs are masters of collaboration themselves. Gnome designers can come up with a new direction that 99% of their users hate

Come on people, it's not like gnome devs are masters of collaboration themselves. Gnome designers can come up with a new direction that 99% of their users hate and they wouldn't even care. Most recent releases have basically been "let's remove something everyone love and use every day, because we can". For example, they removed desktop icons and redesigned the dash to be big and ugly and always autohide and made display overview horizontal with no way to change back. Ubuntu is using old gnome releases because if they upgraded to the last release half their paying customers would leave in anger.

md8z 5y ago
That is a misconception. The GNOME designers I have seen are not making decisions at random or removing things because they can, there actually is data and research to back up what they are doing. If you are a designer and are interested to know more then it would benefit to talk to them and ask them for their reasons, and then maybe you could contribute meaningfully from that angle. If there is something you think they missed, and you have the data to back it up (i.e. real usage data over long periods of time from large groups of users), then I think that would be helpful.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > there actually is data and research to back up what they are doing. Oh really? There was data to back up that users wanted to start their desktop in Overview mode instead of the usual desktop? I'd be SUPER interested to see what kind of bullshit data was used, if this data ever exists. Right after this happened people created an extension to backtrack on this and this is one of the most popular extensions on GNOME extensions.
  - md8z 5y ago
    Yes, there was data to decide that, you should ask them nicely on the proper channel if you want more info. Please avoid dismissing things as "bullshit", that's rude and it doesn't help the discussion. If you have any additional data to the contrary, then now would be the time to present it. AFAIK extensions are considered as a data point but are not the only one, any time there is a design change there tends to be an extension that reverts it so it's not much of a reliable thing.
    - webmaven 5y ago
      > Yes, there was data to decide that, you should ask them nicely on the proper channel if you want more info. I'm all for asking politely if you're going to ask at all, but... why should asking even be necessary? Why not just post the justifying data by default? That seems like less work than "data available upon request if you ask nicely."
      - esarbe 5y ago
        I guess the reason that they don't just post the justifying data is that ... they actually posted the justifying data[0]. google: gnome ux research [0] https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/02/15/shell-ux-changes-the-research/ https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/02/15/shell-ux-change...
        irishsultan 5y ago
        That post very explicitly states that it does not in fact include the data for privacy reasons. Privacy seems like a good justification to not release the raw data, but claiming that data is available is wrong based on that post. In particular I see nothing about starting in Overview mode (the original question about data was about that), although maybe I'm missing something not being familiar with recent Gnome releases.
      - md8z 5y ago
        Well there is no marketing department, so AFAIK the designers have to balance doing blogs and press releases with all their other work which is not easy to do. It is a non-zero amount of work to explain it. If you just want to have a quick conversation about it and are interested to get involved with design then I think it would be faster to do that than trying to get them to write an entire blog article or something.
  - aiilns 5y ago
    From all the questionable design choices you argue about a good one. Starting in an empty space means you go to the overview to launch an app (unless you have hot-keys to launch apps which I think GNOME doesn't have configured by default). So it both saves you a click/gesture and it allows for new users to understand what's going on.
  - curt15 5y ago
    My pet peeve is the recent move of the dash to the bottom of the screen, thus requiring users to first move their mouse all the way to the top left corner, then all the way to the bottom just to switch apps.
    - esarbe 5y ago
      I cope by not taking my hands off the keyboard and launching apps by hitting <Meta> followed by the application name. You can switch apps by <Alt>+<Tab> and <Alt><Shift>+<Tab>.
  - TingPing 5y ago
    Yes there was lots of data in favor of that actually.
- alpanka 5y ago
  How can you do UX design based on data, but without a proper feedback channel and at least some AB testing? Most gnome users seem to use extensions that let them revert back to the old ways things were working. How about that as "real usage data"??
  - md8z 5y ago
    I don't think they have quite enough resources to do AB testing, it seems that needs a pretty big group of people doing it over a long period of time. AFAIK they are only able to do smaller targeted studies. I'm not sure what you mean they don't have a proper feedback channel. They have all the same ones as most other open source projects: an issue tracker, a chat room, a forum, etc.
    - sph 5y ago
      Doing targeted studies among themselves is pretty much like developing in a ivory tower. I've been following GNOME development for years, and recently getting interested in seeing how KDE handles things behind the scenes, and it's hard to miss the fact that the most prolific GNOME developers are the same 3 or 4 faces that have a really hard attitude against any type of discussion around their changes. I won't name names, but most issues on their Gitlab around any major change usually devolve into one of them saying "we're volunteers, send a merge request is you want it different". Ignoring the fact that most of their projects have opened and unanswered merge requests in the dozens. And hundreds of unanswered issues and even more on their old bugzilla. The "volunteer" excuse is the most common passive aggressive response in the open source community, to hide behind when there's actually no real interest in entertaining different point of views or alternative suggestions. So yeah, development is done in public, but they are set on their ways, dislike outside input and tend to get really rude and curt if you disagree with their idea. There are countless examples that pretty much anyone in the Linux community knows about. I actually have no real qualms with the direction GNOME is going, but they are the reason I've never contributed to the project. They are a fickle and hard to please bunch, unless you're part of the internal clique.
      - 5y ago
IshKebab 5y ago
I agree, they've shown a "we're doing it our way" attitude for years. Which is fine - they can do that if they want - just don't complain when people don't want to collaborate with you because you never consider anyone else's opinions. Btw don't forget removing menu bars entirely and stuffing everything in a hamburger button. Who came up with that madness?

md8z 5y ago

That is a misconception. The GNOME designers I have seen are not making decisions at random or removing things because they can, there actually is data and research to back up what they are doing. If you are a designer and are interested to know more then it would benefit to talk to them and ask them for their reasons, and then maybe you could contribute meaningfully from that angle. If there is something you think they missed, and you have the data to back it up (i.e. real usage data over long periods of time from large groups of users), then I think that would be helpful.

ekianjo 5y ago
> there actually is data and research to back up what they are doing. Oh really? There was data to back up that users wanted to start their desktop in Overview mode instead of the usual desktop? I'd be SUPER interested to see what kind of bullshit data was used, if this data ever exists. Right after this happened people created an extension to backtrack on this and this is one of the most popular extensions on GNOME extensions.
- md8z 5y ago
  Yes, there was data to decide that, you should ask them nicely on the proper channel if you want more info. Please avoid dismissing things as "bullshit", that's rude and it doesn't help the discussion. If you have any additional data to the contrary, then now would be the time to present it. AFAIK extensions are considered as a data point but are not the only one, any time there is a design change there tends to be an extension that reverts it so it's not much of a reliable thing.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    > Yes, there was data to decide that, you should ask them nicely on the proper channel if you want more info. I'm all for asking politely if you're going to ask at all, but... why should asking even be necessary? Why not just post the justifying data by default? That seems like less work than "data available upon request if you ask nicely."
    - esarbe 5y ago
      I guess the reason that they don't just post the justifying data is that ... they actually posted the justifying data[0]. google: gnome ux research [0] https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/02/15/shell-ux-changes-the-research/ https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/02/15/shell-ux-change...
      - irishsultan 5y ago
        That post very explicitly states that it does not in fact include the data for privacy reasons. Privacy seems like a good justification to not release the raw data, but claiming that data is available is wrong based on that post. In particular I see nothing about starting in Overview mode (the original question about data was about that), although maybe I'm missing something not being familiar with recent Gnome releases.
    - md8z 5y ago
      Well there is no marketing department, so AFAIK the designers have to balance doing blogs and press releases with all their other work which is not easy to do. It is a non-zero amount of work to explain it. If you just want to have a quick conversation about it and are interested to get involved with design then I think it would be faster to do that than trying to get them to write an entire blog article or something.
- aiilns 5y ago
  From all the questionable design choices you argue about a good one. Starting in an empty space means you go to the overview to launch an app (unless you have hot-keys to launch apps which I think GNOME doesn't have configured by default). So it both saves you a click/gesture and it allows for new users to understand what's going on.
- curt15 5y ago
  My pet peeve is the recent move of the dash to the bottom of the screen, thus requiring users to first move their mouse all the way to the top left corner, then all the way to the bottom just to switch apps.
  - esarbe 5y ago
    I cope by not taking my hands off the keyboard and launching apps by hitting <Meta> followed by the application name. You can switch apps by <Alt>+<Tab> and <Alt><Shift>+<Tab>.
- TingPing 5y ago
  Yes there was lots of data in favor of that actually.
alpanka 5y ago
How can you do UX design based on data, but without a proper feedback channel and at least some AB testing? Most gnome users seem to use extensions that let them revert back to the old ways things were working. How about that as "real usage data"??
- md8z 5y ago
  I don't think they have quite enough resources to do AB testing, it seems that needs a pretty big group of people doing it over a long period of time. AFAIK they are only able to do smaller targeted studies. I'm not sure what you mean they don't have a proper feedback channel. They have all the same ones as most other open source projects: an issue tracker, a chat room, a forum, etc.
  - sph 5y ago
    Doing targeted studies among themselves is pretty much like developing in a ivory tower. I've been following GNOME development for years, and recently getting interested in seeing how KDE handles things behind the scenes, and it's hard to miss the fact that the most prolific GNOME developers are the same 3 or 4 faces that have a really hard attitude against any type of discussion around their changes. I won't name names, but most issues on their Gitlab around any major change usually devolve into one of them saying "we're volunteers, send a merge request is you want it different". Ignoring the fact that most of their projects have opened and unanswered merge requests in the dozens. And hundreds of unanswered issues and even more on their old bugzilla. The "volunteer" excuse is the most common passive aggressive response in the open source community, to hide behind when there's actually no real interest in entertaining different point of views or alternative suggestions. So yeah, development is done in public, but they are set on their ways, dislike outside input and tend to get really rude and curt if you disagree with their idea. There are countless examples that pretty much anyone in the Linux community knows about. I actually have no real qualms with the direction GNOME is going, but they are the reason I've never contributed to the project. They are a fickle and hard to please bunch, unless you're part of the internal clique.
    - 5y ago

IshKebab 5y ago

I agree, they've shown a "we're doing it our way" attitude for years. Which is fine - they can do that if they want - just don't complain when people don't want to collaborate with you because you never consider anyone else's opinions. Btw don't forget removing menu bars entirely and stuffing everything in a hamburger button. Who came up with that madness?