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> The non geek will [...] love the gloss that Unity brings to Ubuntu. I don't know. It seems common sense that "non geeks" (hear, common people) like glossy th
by gbog 15y ago
> The non geek will [...] love the gloss that Unity brings to Ubuntu.
I don't know. It seems common sense that "non geeks" (hear, common people) like glossy things. After all, the Miss Universe thing has some success and is pure gloss. But I think it can also be an observation bias, or the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing.
For instance, we check what people like to watch on TV, but what the people are fed with on the TV is already the result of some presupposition over what they like.
Some counter example exist, showing that people do not always like preformatted content, or glossy interface. Two different cases come to mind:
In France, there was a movie called Etre et Avoir, about a teacher in a remote countryside village. No professional actors, no story, just some shots in a school. Who would have bet on it? Is it not obvious that spectators want action, glamour, movie stars? Well in this case it was not true: the movie has been widely successful.
Another case, closer to HN interest: Is not Wikipedia the most successful (rich) content website ever? Who could say without laughing that Wikipedia has a glossy interface?
So I think one need to avoid clichés and presuppositions about "non geeks". They may or may not like Unity. If they do, it could be because it looks "glossy", yes, maybe, but it could also be because it just works, or because it is cheap, or because it is fast, or for some other reason.
- kmfrk 15y agoI also think that he is mistaking "gloss" with "UX that won't make you want to pull your hair out". Creating a good experience has more to do with creating some good interface metaphors that look good and work well than to just emulate known platforms like Windows and Mac.
- jiggy2011 15y agoEntirely agree, I think pherhaps when people describe apple products for example as "glossy" or "shiny" a large part of that is because they like the overall experience of the hardware + software but don't know enough Computer / UI jargon to describe exactly why they like it so they pick up on something concrete that they like such as colours and materials. It's like if you ask somebody why they find a woman attractive they are more likely to talk about her breasts , smile or legs rather than mentioning things like distance between the eyes, nose shape or cheekbone structure.
- ssp 15y agoSo I think one need to avoid clichés and presuppositions about "non geeks". Indeed. And the concept of dividing the world into geeks and non-geeks is flawed to begin with, because non-geek covers so many different kinds of people, like kids, chemistry professors, Belgians, housewives, the mentally retarded, taxi drivers, muslims, the poor, the rich, and on and on. The "average user" doesn't exist (and isn't called Joe).