7 ms·

It's not reasonable to expect a design team to be able to function under the condition that whenever a user disagrees with the placement of a UI widget, they mu

It's not reasonable to expect a design team to be able to function under the condition that whenever a user disagrees with the placement of a UI widget, they must either publicly justify their decision as being objectively correct or make the widget's position a user-configurable option. There is an enormous class of design problems that have several appealing solutions, one of which is better than the others, but not so much better that it's worth the time to find it. "Where should the launcher be?" is very likely a member of this class: There probably actually is a best place for the launcher to be, but it's better to just have it in the wrong place than to have to argue about it on a bug tracker, and certainly better than having to make a configuration drop-down for it. The entire reason you have a design team is because design-by-complaint reliably produces shitty software. Unity exists because every other Linux GUI has fallen victim to this process. Will it succeed in not being shitty? I have no idea. Ubuntu will sink or swim on the merits of its leadership. But the only way to avoid this one major failure mode is for Shuttleworth to ignore, as politely as possible, the complaints of his users.

old-gregg 15y ago
> Unity exists because every other Linux GUI has > fallen victim to this process That's very debatable. According to me, Gnome 2.3 is by far the best designed UX for a desktop operating system. Like most people, I generalize based on my own limited experience, and I have seen people grow up and learn how to use a computer in Gnome who were disgusted by Windows and OSX user interfaces. Like all animals, humans can be conditioned and there's simply no such thing as "best UX for all". Lets look at Alt+Tab functionality, which now in Unity (and Gnome3) switches between "apps" instead of windows. The problem with Unity/Gnome3 is that they're doing exactly what Shuttleworth claims to avoid. Quoting Mark: > we're not that interested in matching functionality > that was in Win95, especially if we think that > functionality will get dropped in Windows 8 or 9 or 10. Unity (and Gnome3) are both busy copying obsolete UI concepts from OSX, which itself is stuck in the 80s. I would say that they'd be better off copying Win95 instead, at least Microsoft recognized (correctly) back then that a concept of an "app" makes no sense on a modern desktop, and windows is what users want to manage, not "apps". Mr. Shuttleworth admits to be heavily influenced by Android and iOS. That's weird to me, since desktops are ultimately very different beasts. The concept of an "app" came back from the grave only because the 1st generation of mobile devices were very weak, DOS-like if you will, at multi-tasking and IPC. So... Mr. Shuttleworth picked the wrong corpse to invigorate. In their mindless pursuit of copying everything from OSX they didn't even bother recognizing OSX own bugs like broken virtual desktops. See, Apple themselves failed to copy them properly from Unix UIs (windows from different desktops in OSX are mistakenly combined in the same useless giant Alt+tab list). But the thing about Apple, though, is that they can afford to have an obsolete window management circa 1985 because their windows are shiny and fly around without lag, while Unity just recently learned how to scroll text smoothly. In the end, Mr. Shuttleworth really shouldn't mention Win95 at all, which now seems to emerge as a clearly superior desktop UX of all 3, nearly 20 years after its introduction.
- Daishiman 15y ago
  Completely agreed. It appears as though nowadays it's almost considered to be shameful if computer don't try to imitate mobile interfaces, even though it feels as if the apex of usability was reached not that long ago with usable and slick Gnome 2 releases.
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  Do you know about the alt+` shortcut to switch between windows of an app? It's really nice.
  - old-gregg 15y ago
    I do, BTW Unity/Gnome3 copied this kludge as well and they're proud of it. This is an equivalent of launching a new computer line which throws away SSDs in favour of punch cards. See, "apps" made sense in the prehistoric times when single-threaded desktops with limited RAM were primarily used to do one thing at a time. But things changed. The concept of an "app" have not been making sense for a long time: you can run Gmail and Facebook in two browser windows (which together live in the same process) or you can have a single window (Chrome) launching one process per tab, or you can have a terminal with several processes running in different windows, or you can have a copy of Microsoft Word embedded inside of an Excel spreadsheet. Similarly you can have an iframe with embedded Google Maps inside of your Wordpress blog. So what's an "app" then? Microsoft correctly recognized in early 90s that the concept of a "program" or an "app" was obsolete, and modern UI should be using "window", "document" or "folder". An app is just an implementation detail: you can have 3 apps involved in rendering a single document or drawing the same window. Early smartphones couldn't handle these tricks (like multi-tasking) well, so this temporarily reincarnated idea of the "app" came back from the grave, to be happily copied by Unity just because "iOS has them". Boo.
    - drivebyacct2 15y ago
      You say this, as every major platform migrates towards apps. Windows 8: (huge push on becoming) app centric. Mac OS X: (becoming )app centric. Android: app centric. iOS: app centric. What OS isn't? Linux. (eh, edit, this really isn't fair. Linux is as "app-centric" as I need it, though the "linux is so secure" assumption is uh, going to become fallable as its competitors approach an app-centric, isolated model. (also, X doesn't protect apps against eavesdropping, etc). Also, Ubuntu's Software Center is making the experience at the least, app-like.) I think in terms of apps. "I need to switch back to my browser". "Alt-tab". "I need to change windows in this app", "Alt-`". I guess owning a Mac got me prepared for it, but I love this new behavior in Gnome3.
crag 15y ago
"But the only way to avoid this one major failure mode is for Shuttleworth to ignore, as politely as possible, the complaints of his users." The problem is Shuttlworth can't keep his mouth shut. Personal attacks only make the situation worse. He should take a page from Apple here - "keep your mouth shut" - and produce.
- fader 15y ago
  So the solution to "you're ignoring the community" is to ignore the community? That strikes me as an odd suggestion. And if you can show me a single personal attack from Shuttleworth here, I'd be very interested. I don't always agree with him but in my experience he's always been extremely professional. Claiming anything else is incredibly unfair and mean-spirited. For the lazy, every comment on the linked bug by him (with an aside that 9 comments on this bug hardly seems to be ignoring the complaint): https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/9 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/9 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/19 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/19 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/20 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/20 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/25 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/25 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/26 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/26 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/27 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/27 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/29 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/29 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/37 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/37 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/38 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/38

old-gregg 15y ago

> Unity exists because every other Linux GUI has > fallen victim to this process That's very debatable. According to me, Gnome 2.3 is by far the best designed UX for a desktop operating system. Like most people, I generalize based on my own limited experience, and I have seen people grow up and learn how to use a computer in Gnome who were disgusted by Windows and OSX user interfaces. Like all animals, humans can be conditioned and there's simply no such thing as "best UX for all". Lets look at Alt+Tab functionality, which now in Unity (and Gnome3) switches between "apps" instead of windows. The problem with Unity/Gnome3 is that they're doing exactly what Shuttleworth claims to avoid. Quoting Mark: > we're not that interested in matching functionality > that was in Win95, especially if we think that > functionality will get dropped in Windows 8 or 9 or 10. Unity (and Gnome3) are both busy copying obsolete UI concepts from OSX, which itself is stuck in the 80s. I would say that they'd be better off copying Win95 instead, at least Microsoft recognized (correctly) back then that a concept of an "app" makes no sense on a modern desktop, and windows is what users want to manage, not "apps". Mr. Shuttleworth admits to be heavily influenced by Android and iOS. That's weird to me, since desktops are ultimately very different beasts. The concept of an "app" came back from the grave only because the 1st generation of mobile devices were very weak, DOS-like if you will, at multi-tasking and IPC. So... Mr. Shuttleworth picked the wrong corpse to invigorate. In their mindless pursuit of copying everything from OSX they didn't even bother recognizing OSX own bugs like broken virtual desktops. See, Apple themselves failed to copy them properly from Unix UIs (windows from different desktops in OSX are mistakenly combined in the same useless giant Alt+tab list). But the thing about Apple, though, is that they can afford to have an obsolete window management circa 1985 because their windows are shiny and fly around without lag, while Unity just recently learned how to scroll text smoothly. In the end, Mr. Shuttleworth really shouldn't mention Win95 at all, which now seems to emerge as a clearly superior desktop UX of all 3, nearly 20 years after its introduction.

Daishiman 15y ago
Completely agreed. It appears as though nowadays it's almost considered to be shameful if computer don't try to imitate mobile interfaces, even though it feels as if the apex of usability was reached not that long ago with usable and slick Gnome 2 releases.
bostonvaulter2 15y ago
Do you know about the alt+` shortcut to switch between windows of an app? It's really nice.
- old-gregg 15y ago
  I do, BTW Unity/Gnome3 copied this kludge as well and they're proud of it. This is an equivalent of launching a new computer line which throws away SSDs in favour of punch cards. See, "apps" made sense in the prehistoric times when single-threaded desktops with limited RAM were primarily used to do one thing at a time. But things changed. The concept of an "app" have not been making sense for a long time: you can run Gmail and Facebook in two browser windows (which together live in the same process) or you can have a single window (Chrome) launching one process per tab, or you can have a terminal with several processes running in different windows, or you can have a copy of Microsoft Word embedded inside of an Excel spreadsheet. Similarly you can have an iframe with embedded Google Maps inside of your Wordpress blog. So what's an "app" then? Microsoft correctly recognized in early 90s that the concept of a "program" or an "app" was obsolete, and modern UI should be using "window", "document" or "folder". An app is just an implementation detail: you can have 3 apps involved in rendering a single document or drawing the same window. Early smartphones couldn't handle these tricks (like multi-tasking) well, so this temporarily reincarnated idea of the "app" came back from the grave, to be happily copied by Unity just because "iOS has them". Boo.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    You say this, as every major platform migrates towards apps. Windows 8: (huge push on becoming) app centric. Mac OS X: (becoming )app centric. Android: app centric. iOS: app centric. What OS isn't? Linux. (eh, edit, this really isn't fair. Linux is as "app-centric" as I need it, though the "linux is so secure" assumption is uh, going to become fallable as its competitors approach an app-centric, isolated model. (also, X doesn't protect apps against eavesdropping, etc). Also, Ubuntu's Software Center is making the experience at the least, app-like.) I think in terms of apps. "I need to switch back to my browser". "Alt-tab". "I need to change windows in this app", "Alt-`". I guess owning a Mac got me prepared for it, but I love this new behavior in Gnome3.

crag 15y ago

"But the only way to avoid this one major failure mode is for Shuttleworth to ignore, as politely as possible, the complaints of his users." The problem is Shuttlworth can't keep his mouth shut. Personal attacks only make the situation worse. He should take a page from Apple here - "keep your mouth shut" - and produce.

fader 15y ago
So the solution to "you're ignoring the community" is to ignore the community? That strikes me as an odd suggestion. And if you can show me a single personal attack from Shuttleworth here, I'd be very interested. I don't always agree with him but in my experience he's always been extremely professional. Claiming anything else is incredibly unfair and mean-spirited. For the lazy, every comment on the linked bug by him (with an aside that 9 comments on this bug hardly seems to be ignoring the complaint): https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/9 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/9 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/19 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/19 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/20 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/20 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/25 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/25 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/26 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/26 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/27 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/27 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/29 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/29 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/37 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/37 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/38 https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/882274/comments/38