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Does anyone have examples of good quality criticism of GUIs? Examples of reviews that changed the way you think about the GUI would be very welcome. We are goi

Does anyone have examples of good quality criticism of GUIs? Examples of reviews that changed the way you think about the GUI would be very welcome. We are going to get a rash of articles like this one, which make some valid points, but do not really compare Unity in its 12.04 guise with any kind of model of interaction or external standard. It would be nice to try to produce something better. Canonical design have done a lot of testing and have documented some of their work. I think they deserve a critical essay rather than the kool-aid type response, or the instant dismissal that seems quite common.

batista 15y ago
>Does anyone have examples of good quality criticism of GUIs? I would suggest you check out John Siracussa's reviews for OS X releases on Ars Technica.
- simonw 15y ago
  Absolutely. I'd love to see a Siracussa-style review of the new Ubuntu release.
  - keithpeter 15y ago
    Challenge: can anyone out there do the bits about the change in the libraries, the indicators, the way Unity ties in with Gnome 3 (remember Gnome Shell and Unity are both Gnome 3 shells)? I'll risk the slings and arrows and have a go at the surface/UI bit. That'll be next weekend. I'm no Siracussa but everyone has to start somewhere. PS: 12.04.1 is when you install on a production machine, that's around June
- keithpeter 15y ago
  The 10.6 review seems Comprehensive and quite technical. Thanks.
pasbesoin 15y ago
If you have a Windows machine or image handy, take a look at the Ditto clipboard manager. The way the clipboard should be done -- or closer to it. (BTW, it's free/donation-ware, last I checked. And it has the rather occasional hiccup, but the idea is solid and the hiccups don't lose data, e.g. sometimes the window repositions or it misses a keystroke momentarily while it is loading a large dataset.) Yes, this is just one small part of the picture. But that's a primary way in which things get done: Someone focuses on one part and "fixes" it really well. Other people eventually add up these fixes and integrate them. There are also "grand visions" and "productive discovery", but that level of ability seems to be somewhat less common and not always observed/adopted, no matter how deserving. From my experience, being able to use the clipboard as an indexed data store, or "memory", is very convenient. Control-C, and I know the item will be a 1 - 3 second search away, for the next few weeks.

batista 15y ago

>Does anyone have examples of good quality criticism of GUIs? I would suggest you check out John Siracussa's reviews for OS X releases on Ars Technica.

simonw 15y ago
Absolutely. I'd love to see a Siracussa-style review of the new Ubuntu release.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  Challenge: can anyone out there do the bits about the change in the libraries, the indicators, the way Unity ties in with Gnome 3 (remember Gnome Shell and Unity are both Gnome 3 shells)? I'll risk the slings and arrows and have a go at the surface/UI bit. That'll be next weekend. I'm no Siracussa but everyone has to start somewhere. PS: 12.04.1 is when you install on a production machine, that's around June
keithpeter 15y ago
The 10.6 review seems Comprehensive and quite technical. Thanks.

pasbesoin 15y ago

If you have a Windows machine or image handy, take a look at the Ditto clipboard manager. The way the clipboard should be done -- or closer to it. (BTW, it's free/donation-ware, last I checked. And it has the rather occasional hiccup, but the idea is solid and the hiccups don't lose data, e.g. sometimes the window repositions or it misses a keystroke momentarily while it is loading a large dataset.) Yes, this is just one small part of the picture. But that's a primary way in which things get done: Someone focuses on one part and "fixes" it really well. Other people eventually add up these fixes and integrate them. There are also "grand visions" and "productive discovery", but that level of ability seems to be somewhat less common and not always observed/adopted, no matter how deserving. From my experience, being able to use the clipboard as an indexed data store, or "memory", is very convenient. Control-C, and I know the item will be a 1 - 3 second search away, for the next few weeks.