Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Jan Claeys schreef op za 23-04-2011 om 02:49 [+0200]: BTW: I've already seen developers who include code in their application to whitelist itself. As Jorge asked me on IRC what applications are doing this... http://www.fewt.com/2011/03/whitelist-utility-script-to-allow-apps.html is one example of this (with another person in the comments indicating he will do it too). This was linked from a quite popular Ubuntu/Linux news site BTW... (I've read a similar comment on some other blog too, but can't find it right now.) -- Jan Claeys -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Martin Pitt schreef op vr 08-04-2011 om 08:52 [+0200]: Rick Spencer [2011-04-07 18:38 -0700]: 1. There are key feature regressions, for example, there is no systray support for many important applications. For the record, this is currently purely a design decision, not a technical problem. Unity does have a systray, but most applications are not allowed to use it. The current exception list is AFAIR Java applications, Skype, and Mumble. If this is a major issue, then frankly I'd rather just remove the whitelist and allow all old-style systray applications than dropping Unity by default completely. One problem is that there is no easy-to-use or easy-to-find way for the user to review and whitelist (or blacklist) the applications that are trying to use the old-style notification area, so whitelist all is the only way not to break people's favourite applications... BTW: I've already seen developers who include code in their application to whitelist itself. One reason is that currently AppIndicators lack many features that they need (or want to use). Some applications that *have* an AppIndicator in Ubuntu have also lost usability features that users depended on (e.g. Tomboy). -- Jan Claeys -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On 2011-04-08 08:52, Martin Pitt wrote: Rick Spencer [2011-04-07 18:38 -0700]: 1. There are key feature regressions, for example, there is no systray support for many important applications. ... If this is a major issue, then frankly I'd rather just remove the whitelist and allow all old-style systray applications than dropping Unity by default completely. Totally unaware of the preceding considerations, I'm a little puzzled by this discussion. Based on what I have read in this thread, I'd vote for dropping the whitelist whether the issue is major or not. Personally I have noticed that mail-notification is broken in Unity, which is enough of a reason for me to keep using Classic for now when not needing Unity for developing tests. If the feature can be provided, without a price in the form of e.g. extra maintenance time, is there a good reason for disabling it? Closing the door prematurely on the users and developers concerned seems not right to me. -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Jono Bacon wrote on 16/04/11 20:05: On Fri, 2011-04-15 at 03:00 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: ... Last week, Charline Poirier ran a user test of Unity, with 11 individual participants. This week, I have helped Charline analyze the results. ... Wonderful work, and now very visible work: http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/04/16/0239213/5-Out-of-11-Crashed-Unity-In-Canonicals-Study ;-) Up to Slashdot's usual standards, I see. To correct the obvious from that post: * No, the results of the study have not been published. Charline will do that soon. * No, my name is not Rick Spencer. (rickspencer4?) * The object of the study was, obviously, not to measure crashes. Crashes are usually quick to find and fix, so any user test of those would be weeks out of date when published. I mentioned them only as a reminder that to users, bugs are indistinguishable from design flaws, and vice versa. (For example, one test participant pressed Ctrl Alt F1 apparently by accident, and ended up at a console. This wasn't a crash, but it had exactly the same effect as one.) I think this feedback points to a series of design and engineering bugs that we need to resolve in 11.10. Have the design bugs been filed in Launchpad? Charline has been working with John Lea on that today. I think it could be worthwhile to rate the prioritization of the design bugs based upon the level of success in your study. As an example, if 1/12 achieved a task, it would be a high priority bug, as opposed to if 10/12 achieved the task it would be a low priority bug. ... I'll pass that on to John. Cheers - -- mpt -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk2tokcACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecr1TgCePApLBm/ySLUAasdjINBrWQHs LKYAoNLXk9mfWvVzz9fF7h4rl3eBq9u3 =j4k8 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On 19 April 2011 15:13, Jan Claeys li...@janc.be wrote: Matthew Paul Thomas schreef op di 19-04-2011 om 15:55 [+0100]: * The object of the study was, obviously, not to measure crashes. Crashes are usually quick to find and fix, so any user test of those would be weeks out of date when published. I mentioned them only as a reminder that to users, bugs are indistinguishable from design flaws, and vice versa. (For example, one test participant pressed Ctrl Alt F1 apparently by accident, and ended up at a console. This wasn't a crash, but it had exactly the same effect as one.) Maybe we need to add a line of text above the login prompt somehow, that tells the user what key to press to get back to their GUI? (This might be difficult to do correctly with multiple logins etc. though?) We could do like Fedora and have X on virtual terminal 1. Why do we need 6 virtual terminals anyway? Jeremy -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Sun, 2011-04-17 at 09:17 +0100, Paul Sladen wrote: On Fri, 15 Apr 2011, Rick Spencer wrote: For brand new users? Some of the tasks aren't relevant. Which ones? Changing the background image and setting in general. On the contrary. Changing the wallpaper and screensaver are comforting personalisation steps that new users seem to undertake on their own. That was my point. You don't personalize something until you *own* it. Until you've used it enough that you know how you want to own it. It's not something you do while you are carrying out other tasks. In any case, it's a moot point, since changing the desktop background was something that the study found users could do easily, they were blocked by the usability engineer telling them not to do it in the obvious manner. Cheers, Rick -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Fri, 2011-04-15 at 03:00 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Rick Spencer wrote on 08/04/11 02:38: ... Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. I'm following up on this list at the suggestion of the Tech Board to give folks a chance to respond or escelate any concerns. ... Last week, Charline Poirier ran a user test of Unity, with 11 individual participants. This week, I have helped Charline analyze the results. snip Wonderful work, and now very visible work: http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/04/16/0239213/5-Out-of-11-Crashed-Unity-In-Canonicals-Study ;-) I think this feedback points to a series of design and engineering bugs that we need to resolve in 11.10. Have the design bugs been filed in Launchpad? I think it could be worthwhile to rate the prioritization of the design bugs based upon the level of success in your study. As an example, if 1/12 achieved a task, it would be a high priority bug, as opposed to if 10/12 achieved the task it would be a low priority bug. I just want to ensure that we build this feedback into the design and engineering iteration process. Jono -- Jono Bacon Ubuntu Community Manager jono(at)ubuntu(dot)com www.ubuntu.com : www.jonobacon.org www.twitter.com/jonobacon : www.identi.ca/jonobacon -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 1:48 AM, Bryce Harrington br...@canonical.com wrote: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. What would be telling is if the people who didn't figure out the task the first time remembered how to complete it the next time. That shows that the task is learnable, which is acceptable if the curve matches the difficulty of the functionality. Unfortunately very rarely do you use the same users for multiple tests (in fact it is usually discouraged unless you are doing longitudinal studies) except in longitudinal studies. I'm curious whether these stats are higher/lower/same-as with Classic Desktop. IOW this needs a control group so we can tell if the new design brings improvement or regression. Also, these tests measure usability, but not their overall impression. Did they like it? Find it frustrating/confusing? Do people in the UK use the System Usability Scale, NASA TLX, or Modified-Cooper Harper? Theyre assessment surveys that measure satisfaction and cognitive load, but I've only seen human factors engineers use them. Bryce -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop -- Celeste Lyn Paul KDE Usability Project KDE e.V. Board of Directors www.kde.org -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Bryce Harrington wrote on 15/04/11 06:48: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. I'm curious whether these stats are higher/lower/same-as with Classic Desktop. IOW this needs a control group so we can tell if the new design brings improvement or regression. Sure, that's the main problem with using this data. The test was intended to find fixable problems in Unity, not to compare Unity with Classic. And the tests Canonical has done on Ubuntu previously have mostly been on other tasks, such as importing photos and music and burning CDs. Also, these tests measure usability, but not their overall impression. Did they like it? Find it frustrating/confusing? ... In my limited experience, user test participants can often be highly complimentary about an interface that completely failed them (or critical of an interface where they had no trouble). They can also start guessing about what other people what other people might think, or guessing about how easily they might learn something later. That said, here's a representative sample. P1: I've got a Mac, and I think it's quite similar to a Mac, the layout, which made it easier to use. I think people going from Windows to this would need a little help, because it's a very different layout. And: It's a nice casual-ish font that you've used here. P2: I'm guessing the way it's set at the moment, with the wallpaper, the background, I'd personally want everything to be crisper and clearer and more obvious ... I find it all a bit blending into each other, with those settings. But I do like the overall design of it, with the nice curves and the nice icons at the side, and the font used, and the design of it's really nice. P3: It's prettier than a lot of current operating systems. And: I don't think it's a complicated operating system ... it would just take time. P4: Some of the features, like when you minimize something you don't find the menu bar, so it's quite hard to find. And: The simple is quite simple, not too hard to follow or too hard to understand. If possible, if you could give them a demo. This is where you go to get a file, this is where you get all your icons, for the first time user, obviously. P5: I really quite like it. I think it's quite intuitive, with the exception of the favorites, making an application a favorite, which obviously I wasn't able to achieve. I wouldn't be baffled about how to use this operating system for the first time, if I didn't have a manual to read ... It's quite clean-looking, it's quite modern-looking. It seems to me to be closer to a Mac-style operating system than to a Microsoft-style operating system. P7: No. I don't know. So at this point, I would have to say my initial impressions are -- I wouldn't write it off, because I've heard too many good things about it, but my initial impressions are 'Damn, I'm going to need a manual' ... I don't really want to do that, which is a bit lazy of me, I know. At the end: It's not really working for me. I'm finding it time-consuming and slightly confusing at times ... That's my kind of bottom-line impression, really, that the differential [between Windows and Ubuntu], the gap is really very big. P8: Maybe the settings should have been more prominent, but I found them eventually. Fairly standard. If it can run anything I wanted, I would consider it. P9: It's okay ... It's not as confusing as the Mac. P10: So generally I think it's pretty good. I think it needs some work on it. I think making it a bit more intuitive. P11: Oh yikes, is it like Apple? ... I never liked the [Mac] interface. I didn't know where I stored things, where I put things. I like these pictures. It's aesthetically pleasing. It also looks like it's child-friendly, because it's pictures. And it looks more ordered than Apple. So I want to play with it now. At the end: I think it's pretty. It's aesthetically pleasing. P12: And I really like the cleanness of it all. It's tidy. At the end: It's quick and responsive. I'm still frustrated that I'm not able to find anything like My Computer. And hardware as well, I want to see what the hardware is, the versions of the graphics and drivers. - -- mpt -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
First, thanks Usability Team! I know how much work goes into planning and running a study like this, and how much agony is involved in interpreting and writing up the results. It's clear that there are some areas for improvement in 11.10, and these results will be instrumental in helping to guide those investments. On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 22:48 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. Well, think back to the last time you got a new device. For example, if you have an Android phone. You are probably pretty facile with the interface now, but if someone handed it to you and said do this task with it you may have struggled to some basic things, like launching apps. A lot of the fun for users in getting a new devices is learning how to use it. Given my experience, these numbers look they could be improved, but I don't find them particularly concerning. For example, you can easily use Unity quite productively before you learn that you can add items to the launcher, or change the background picture, though I suspect many Windows users would right-click and the desktop to set the background picture and would do fine. The only area here that is at all concerning to me regards launching applications. I'd like to see some focus on the application lens in 11.10 (see what I did I did there? :) ) I'm curious whether these stats are higher/lower/same-as with Classic Desktop. IOW this needs a control group so we can tell if the new design brings improvement or regression. For brand new users? Some of the tasks aren't relevant. For others, like finding installed applications, I presume this was dead easy in Classic GNOME, but it's hard to say for a certain. Also, these tests measure usability, but not their overall impression. Did they like it? Find it frustrating/confusing? This is actually a very important question. For me, when I go back to Classic, it feels very old and mundane. Many theories hold that the aesthetics trump usability, or at least strongly influence the perception of the usability of a system. In other words, given 2 identically design systems that only differ in terms of theming, for example, users will rate the system with the more pleasing design to be more usable and are more likely to start using it. Cheers, Rick -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
2011/4/15 Matthew Paul Thomas m...@canonical.com: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to access them by hovering over maximized close/minimize/unmaximize buttons then moving horizontally -- which was extremely slow, and failed whenever the window wasn't maximized. Why not swap the default state of the panel from one where the application name is shown in full and the menus hidden, to the alternative where the menus are shown, and long application names are partially obscured? Then, allow that if someone mouse-overs the application name, it reveals itself fully; in this case, an arrow symbol (for example) could be included to make this action discoverable. I believe this swap wouldn't cause any usability problems (unless knowing the long name of a window is critically important), but instead would make the location of window menus obvious. Of course, if it is intentional that menus are hard to discover (to push application developers towards Chrome-like streamlining), or if there would be problems due to claims of Mac-mimicry, then it clearly makes sense to keep the current behaviour. -- Toby Smithe http://launchpad.net/~tsmithe -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 07:08:02AM -0700, Rick Spencer wrote: On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 22:48 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. Well, think back to the last time you got a new device. No, I definitely agree there, but this is why I suggested a control group - to help understand if it's just ordinary newbie level learning curve stuff. Like, maybe with Classic Desktop only 2/10 new users could find a new game (esp. if they're equating USC with the recycling bin...) so 6/10 with unity would be a huge step forward. On the other hand if with Classic it's at 9/10 then I think you'd be right that it's an area needing further attention. In any case, I'm loving the numbers, you know how much I geek out on quantification of issues. :-) I would love to see this same test repeated again every so often, so we can chart the results and use them to demonstrate that we're getting better. mpt's additional info adds a lot more context to the numbers and makes them sound a lot less troublesome, but I'll comment against that one separately. Bryce -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 01:33:27PM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: Bryce Harrington wrote on 15/04/11 06:48: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: Also, these tests measure usability, but not their overall impression. Did they like it? Find it frustrating/confusing? ... In my limited experience, user test participants can often be highly complimentary about an interface that completely failed them (or critical of an interface where they had no trouble). They can also start guessing about what other people what other people might think, or guessing about how easily they might learn something later. Good point. Even so I find the comments on their impressions adds a lot of context to the numbers, so thanks muchly for forwarding them. AIUI, ensuring a good initial impression was one of the major goals for the new design work, and judging from the comments this was definitely achieved. Most everyone had positive comments as to the aesthetics. My favorite is: So I want to play with it now. Of the negative comments, the theme seems to be around learnability, which may also be a quirk of the testing process (people may have felt pressure to do the given tasks quickly so they can complete the test). But this issue has also gotten a fair bit of airing on blogs and mailing lists. I've heard several sources also make P4's suggestion about making demo videos easily available. Jorge put out a demo video on how to multitask in Unity, which I found very engaging and enlightening. Ideally stuff should be discoverable, but until it is maybe an effective workaround would be to just ensure demo videos are easily at hand? Like a hyperlink to an online collection of videos that's provided in the global help menu, on the desktop, or on the welcome page of the webbrowser or something. Bryce -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Rick Spencer wrote on 15/04/11 15:08: First, thanks Usability Team! I know how much work goes into planning and running a study like this, and how much agony is involved in interpreting and writing up the results. It's clear that there are some areas for improvement in 11.10, and these results will be instrumental in helping to guide those investments. Charline did all the planning and test moderation. I was just the stenographer afterwards. Later on, Charline will publish a full report on the test. I just wanted to post a quick summary in time to be helpful for the default experience discussion. On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 22:48 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. Well, think back to the last time you got a new device. For example, if you have an Android phone. You are probably pretty facile with the interface now, but if someone handed it to you and said do this task with it you may have struggled to some basic things, like launching apps. A lot of the fun for users in getting a new devices is learning how to use it. I didn't have anything close to that kind of trouble when trying out an Android phone. (Though like anyone on a developer mailing list, I'm not a representative sample.) ... For brand new users? Some of the tasks aren't relevant. Which ones? ... Also, these tests measure usability, but not their overall impression. Did they like it? Find it frustrating/confusing? This is actually a very important question. For me, when I go back to Classic, it feels very old and mundane. Many theories hold that the aesthetics trump usability, or at least strongly influence the perception of the usability of a system. In other words, given 2 identically design systems that only differ in terms of theming, for example, users will rate the system with the more pleasing design to be more usable and are more likely to start using it. ... This is the aesthetic usability effect. http://usabilityfriction.com/2010/03/30/aesthetic-usability-effect/ http://jnd.org/dn.mss/emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better.html - -- mpt -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk2oxq0ACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecoIcACcCcdaRX0LStM999wHOWz+q/GU 4YEAn05ZbWUmv1dPOkBJzHvpYb8eSaXg =I/jZ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Fri, 2011-04-15 at 23:29 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Rick Spencer wrote on 15/04/11 15:08: First, thanks Usability Team! I know how much work goes into planning and running a study like this, and how much agony is involved in interpreting and writing up the results. It's clear that there are some areas for improvement in 11.10, and these results will be instrumental in helping to guide those investments. Charline did all the planning and test moderation. I was just the stenographer afterwards. Later on, Charline will publish a full report on the test. I just wanted to post a quick summary in time to be helpful for the default experience discussion. On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 22:48 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. Well, think back to the last time you got a new device. For example, if you have an Android phone. You are probably pretty facile with the interface now, but if someone handed it to you and said do this task with it you may have struggled to some basic things, like launching apps. A lot of the fun for users in getting a new devices is learning how to use it. I didn't have anything close to that kind of trouble when trying out an Android phone. (Though like anyone on a developer mailing list, I'm not a representative sample.) Oh? I recall learning many things on my phone. How to launch apps. How to use the task manager to switch between running apps. How to enter text in general and swype in particular. How to pull down the notification area and how to push it up again, etc... If you were watching over my shoulder you may have said Fail Fail Fail many times. Perhaps you would have been correct, the usabliity could be better. However, it's easy to forget the first few times you satisficed through something compared to the hundreds of times you've done something after you mastered it. ... For brand new users? Some of the tasks aren't relevant. Which ones? I believe the following are tasks indicative of repeated and experienced usage, not first time usage: * Changing the background image and setting in general. * Adding a game to the launcher. * Rearranging items in the launcher. And these were some that users had the most trouble with. Cheers, Rick -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Rick Spencer wrote on 08/04/11 02:38: ... Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. I'm following up on this list at the suggestion of the Tech Board to give folks a chance to respond or escelate any concerns. ... Last week, Charline Poirier ran a user test of Unity, with 11 individual participants. This week, I have helped Charline analyze the results. In this summary, I have numbered the participants: - - P1, 19, a student and Mac user - - P2, 33, an administrator and Mac user - - P3, 25, a student and Windows user - - P4, 32, a teacher and Windows user - - P5, 27, a compliance officer who uses both Windows and Mac - - P7, 44, a life coach who uses both Windows and Ubuntu - - P8, 30, an IT network manager and Windows user - - P9, 22, a student and Windows user - - P10, 21, a student and Windows user - - P11, 47, a teacher and Windows user - - P12, 34, an operations manager and Windows user. The test machine was a Lenovo ThinkPad T410i running Ubuntu Natty with unity 3.8.2-0ubuntu1 and compiz 1:0.9.4git20110322-0ubuntu5. Charline asked each participant to try several tasks. Not every participant had time to try every task. * Every participant who was asked understood most of the launcher items. P7 and P11 thought that LibreOffice Calc was a calculator, and P7 and P9 thought Ubuntu Software Center was the Recycle Bin. Nobody understood Ubuntu One. (The Classic session has much smaller icons for everything, but has a visible-by-default label plus an extra tooltip for each app.) * Almost everyone understood most of the indicators, but 4/11 people (P7, P9, P11, P12) thought the Me menu icon might be a close button. * 11/11 people easily launched Firefox to check Web mail. * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to access them by hovering over maximized close/minimize/unmaximize buttons then moving horizontally -- which was extremely slow, and failed whenever the window wasn't maximized. * 10/11 worked out how to open a new Firefox window, though 5/10 first tried clicking Firefox in the launcher again, which didn't work. * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. This is not as bad as it looks: for some of the others, Charline had asked them *not* to right-click on the desktop, because she was testing access to settings in general. Nevertheless, no-one found System Settings, in the session menu or anywhere else. * Only 5/11 could easily rearrange items in the launcher. For the other six, the main problems were that the launcher scrolled when they were trying to drag an item, or that it didn't accept a drop. (P10 was particularly unlucky in doing a Dash search for menu and finding the Main Menu editor, which is useless in Unity but still present by default.) * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the launcher. (P2 deserves special mention for finding and launching the game's .desktop file amongst piles of detritus in Nautilus's File System search results.) * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. For the other eight, the main problems were that the launcher disappeared when a window was maximized or at the left of the screen, that Dash items didn't have context menus, and that the launcher often didn't accept a drop. * 2/2 successfully removed an item from the launcher. * Only 2/6 noticed an XChat Gnome notification, despite (1) a notification bubble appearing, (2) the Ubuntu button going blue, (3) the messaging menu envelope going blue, and (4) an emblem appearing on XChat Gnome's launcher. * 9/9 easily launched LibreOffice Writer to write a letter. * 5/5 easily found today's date. * 9/9 easily saved their LibreOffice Writer document. (P1 recovered amazingly well after trying to save Letter to Mr Smith 08/04/11, and getting the vile response Error stating file '/home/ubuntu /Documents/Letter to Mr Smith 08/04': No such file or directory). * 9/11 people could easily close a window. The other two (P2, P7) were not the only ones to be attacked by a bug that hid the title bar for a window underneath the menu bar; they were just the only participants for whom that bug really cramped their style. * 9/9 easily found and opened an existing document. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. The other one (P2) managed it eventually, but the missing title bar for one of the document windows was again a major stumbling block. * Only 1/7 (P9, a Windows 7 user) easily arranged windows side by side by discovering the window snap feature. (That's probably not really a problem;
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 - User testing results
On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:00:31AM +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: * 8/10 people could find a window's menus, but 7/8 of them learned to * Only 4/11 worked out how to change the background picture. * 6/10 could easily find and launch a game that wasn't in the * Only 1/9 (P4) easily added that game to the launcher. * 9/11 people could easily close a window. * 8/9 easily copied text from one document into another. * Only 5/10 could easily delete a document These seven items in particular seem like really basic tasks that ought to be testing at 90%, so these stats seem a lot lower than I'd expect. I'm curious whether these stats are higher/lower/same-as with Classic Desktop. IOW this needs a control group so we can tell if the new design brings improvement or regression. Also, these tests measure usability, but not their overall impression. Did they like it? Find it frustrating/confusing? Bryce -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Le vendredi 08 avril 2011 à 19:05 +0200, Martin Pitt a écrit : I mean GNOME here, as most of the patches we carry for appindicator are against GNOME applications. But it really applies to all other upstreams, starting from hplip, mumble, etc. Hi, Not that I agree that unity should deprecate the systray for applications still using it, but dx is upstream for libappindicator so saying indicators landed upstream doesn't really makes sense there. Nothing stops the hplip or mumble project to start using libappindicator in their code if they want (it's shipped as standalone source since this cycle so it doesn't require to ship the indicator stack). Cheers, Sebastien Bacher -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On 04/07/2011 11:52 PM, Martin Pitt wrote: Rick Spencer [2011-04-07 18:38 -0700]: 1. There are key feature regressions, for example, there is no systray support for many important applications. For the record, this is currently purely a design decision, not a technical problem. Unity does have a systray, but most applications are not allowed to use it. The current exception list is AFAIR Java applications, Skype, and Mumble. If this is a major issue, then frankly I'd rather just remove the whitelist and allow all old-style systray applications than dropping Unity by default completely. Martin I think it's the height of arrogance for us to tell a user that we're going to deliberately break his application because it wasn't updated to use our new indicator library. Still working the way it used to is a reasonable fall back. Yes, there may be a political benefit to the white list as it will increase the pressure for applications to change, but in the meantime we'll have deliberately introduced a regression. I can't see how that would be a good thing. Scott Ritchie -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On 04/11/2011 06:26 AM, Martin Owens wrote: On Mon, 2011-04-11 at 04:22 -0700, Scott Ritchie wrote: I think it's the height of arrogance for us to tell a user that we're going to deliberately break his application because it wasn't updated to use our new indicator library. We tell users all the time that we've broken their windows application by not implementing any windows apis. No guarantees. The difference here is their application worked on a previous version of Ubuntu. Regressions for current users are worse than other kinds of problems. So, do we guarantee completely that gnome 2.x apps will function in Unity? If we do, then we should support the entire API (somehow), otherwise we be honest and say we support a major subset which may mean your app won't work completely. It can hardly be arrogance so long as we're honest about what we support. Martin Owens There's a difference between supporting something and not intentionally breaking it. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Hi Rick, On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 06:38:27PM -0700, Rick Spencer wrote: Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. Before anything else, I want to say that everyone working on Unity has been rocking, and their efforts are to be applauded. I hope they will forgive me for the rest of this email. :P I was specifically asked to re-try Unity for today. I want to say up front that I don't really see myself as Unity's target audience, and I have had long-term problems with compiz's usability vs how I want to work. Regardless, this is my report. :) I had to finish my Patch Pilot shift first, but then spent the afternoon with Unity (and more frustratingly, compiz). Compared to earlier in the devel cycle, things are greatly improved from my perspective. But then I was fighting Intel driver regressions and plenty of other problems beyond just unity and compiz. At the time, compiz crashed every 5 minutes, and I couldn't go more than 30 minutes of this without just giving up so I could actually get work done. This afternoon, compiz only crashed twice, and I was able to use Unity for a few hours (most of the time spent filing bugs, see below). I am still using Unity at the moment, but bug 755156 has gotten so bad, I may have to go back to metacity soon. I still find it alarming that compiz crashes at all. I do not remember metacity crashing on me in several years, for example. I've previously opened a lot of bugs against compiz (most still open), so I was nervous to really dive into this and document my last few hours. Here are my notes, along with my crashes... - window resizing does not include window size information (especially critical for terminal geometry sizes) - workaround: ccsm / Utility / Resize Info (enable) - clicking this option crashed compiz (filed as LP: #755167) - apport did not pop up - is the notifier applet missing? - if so, how will people get security updates? - cannot reproduce crash - unity --reset does not reset themes (had to select Ambience manually to have a sane-looking indicator area). - cannot pick minimized applications out of launcher without 2 clicks in very separate screen locations - old interface: window switcher click for list, move slightly to desired window title, click again, done. - no visibility of window titles at all, actually - right-click on launcher produces popup that could not be interacted with - problem went away for no reason - cannot reproduce - did not file bug - right-click on launcher disables auto-hide. clicking other places outside the launcher does not close the pop-up. - problem went away for no reason - cannot reproduce - did not file bug - crashed when clicking launcher for Terminator while Terminators were running - all windows relocated the width of the top panel lower on unity restart - apport still did not pop up - filed mine as LP: #755146 - 7 other identical crashes - cannot reproduce crash - focus-follows mouse setting has no effect on launcher autohide speed - did not file bug - launcher autohides after raising a window even if mouse is still on it - did not file bug - desktop items are shifted right by the width of the launcher and cannot be moved back into position (dragging them causes the launcher to appear!) - didn't file, suspect this is by design - alt-tab is a disaster of sluggish responsiveness and frustrating timing (my long-standing objection to the compiz task switcher...) - best approximation of the snappy and responsive metacity-like alt-tabbing: - static application switcher behavior popup window delay = 0 speed = 50 timestep = 0.1 appearance opacity = 100 highlight mode = show rectangle - cannot find a way to get rid of the center window preview animations :( - focus-follows mouse happens after an alt-tab, defocusing selected window, even when not using mouse, but only some times, making me crazy - filed as LP: #755156 with video of behavior - windows disappear while dragging at/in the top panel, firefox stops rendering and performs freaky window clipping - reported as LP: #755152 with video of behavior - interacting with some fullscreen apps (xine) triggers inconsistent launcher unhiding - reported as LP: #755160 with video of behavior Marc Deslauriers is trying to convince me that focus-follows-mouse is evil, but since I'm neither using a touch-screen nor a touch-pad, I can't agree. Until I see something as convincing as this[1], I'll keep using it. :) Thanks! -Kees [1] http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/ -- Kees Cook Ubuntu Security Team -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
2011/4/8 Timo Jyrinki timo.jyri...@gmail.com: There are a lot of bugs and lack of features (and many have been fixed already as well) and the performance is quite bad in parts, but those are not as serious as a) crashers and potentially b) accessibility and lack of any help. Just reflecting on the more recent posts, I'm using Unity on my work machine, but I do have only 1280x1024 (or 1400x900, depending on if I use internal or external display) resolution. I mostly run everything full screen, and most of the time I don't use Unity to switch between windows at least yet - I use either alt-tab (somewhat annoyingly slow) or compiz's scale plugin which I have bound to lower right corner of the screen (works pretty nicely for me). As for what I say to others factor, I (and Ubuntu Finland website as decided by us already around 10.10 time) continue recommending Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS for everyone. I don't believe users should generally install a non-LTS Ubuntu, even with the caveat of not the newest hardware support. 18 months of security support and therefore need to upgrade N number of times to get to the next LTS is too much for many, since the upgrade is still something of a hassle at times, regressions appear et cetera. Unity being still maturing is just one factor that contributes to this, but I wouldn't have any problem recommending 12.04 LTS with Unity to everyone, since it's going to be ok already in 11.04 (and fabulous effort / re-write since 10.10) it's a piece of cake to believe it keeps improving. Not that I would have any problem with gnome-shell either, it's becoming great nowadays as well. I know that as a power user I'm from the more adjusts to the environment part of scale. I don't need to keep doing the way I've been doing before, and I usually stick to quite near the shipping defaults. I did have focus follows mouse though, which I disabled since it worked so poorly with Unity :P Of course I wouldn't keep using Unity if it hadn't improved in the last month like it has, but the application launching via Super key or Alt-F2 really starts to work now, better than ever in GNOME 2. Still too laggy and does not always just work, but most of the time it's neat. -Timo -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Am 09.04.2011 06:43, schrieb Sean McNamara: ... I have much respect for the Unity developers for contributing to FOSS, and I think that it has genuine utility in the netbook form factor. I just don't think it's ready for the general purpose desktop. My wish is for the Ubuntu Netbook Remix to continue, and provide Unity by default there, but provide either Gnome2 or (preferred) Gnome3+GS for the main Ubuntu desktop distribution. Thanks, Sean I, too, think that Unity is fine for a netbook and I'll use it there. But on my desktop PC I'll continue to use Gnome 2 at least for 11.04. So I wonder if it would be a solution to make Unity the default Desktop but offer a choice during installation to override this default and use Gnome2 (or Gnome3) instead. This would make it easy for those who prefer a Gnome desktop instead of the new Unity desktop. Regards, Chris -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 10:47 PM, Martin Owens docto...@gmail.com wrote: But what is available isn't classic ubuntu gnome... at least not in testing so far: Seb128 has fixed this, the Classic GNOME in Natty as of yesterdayish is now what you'd think Classic should be. For people who prefer classic they'll get almost the same desktop they had in 10.10; traditional 3 entry GNOME menu and no appmenu. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Rick Spencer [2011-04-07 18:38 -0700]: 1. There are key feature regressions, for example, there is no systray support for many important applications. For the record, this is currently purely a design decision, not a technical problem. Unity does have a systray, but most applications are not allowed to use it. The current exception list is AFAIR Java applications, Skype, and Mumble. If this is a major issue, then frankly I'd rather just remove the whitelist and allow all old-style systray applications than dropping Unity by default completely. Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
2011/4/8 Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com: I couldn't have believed it even two months ago still, but today I feel the same. When I switch back to classic GNOME it feels inferior now; I'm particularly missing the super-fast keyboard shortcuts/search/navigation and bigger screen real estate. I have started to like Unity a lot, at least on a though level and also seeing in practice that it's really improving. The biggest issues have been that unity has been crashing for me all the time. Today is actually the first day that unity/compiz didn't crash within a minute of logging in when alt-tabbing or something similar (then it usually took longer time before it crashed the next time). Fingers crossed that unity 3.8.4 is now actually more stable in real use - same was said about 3.8.2. If it stays for a day of work without crashing, that's a really good accomplishment compared to before. Besides fixing crashers I really would see need for more accessibility support and help. I don't know how to access eg. indicators or system menu from keyboard, which is quite essential for me even without disabilities, but for people with disabilities I believe the accessibility in general is relatively poor at the moment. gnome-shell already has a lot of a11y stuff integrated in 3.0 (considering it's the first stable release), and Ubuntu with accessibility as one of the core Ubuntu philosophy items should have as well. Of course, by 12.04 LTS at least. There are a lot of bugs and lack of features (and many have been fixed already as well) and the performance is quite bad in parts, but those are not as serious as a) crashers and potentially b) accessibility and lack of any help. For 11.10, probably something should be done about the logging in time, with is terrible at least with a traditional spinning, encrypted disk, compared to normal Gnome. Weirdly sometimes I saw a pretty fast logging in even after reboot, but normally it's 30s+ from gdm to desktop. Something is seriously churning the hard disk with seeks, possibly something that only occurs with specific conditions. -Timo -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
2011/4/8 Neil Jagdish Patel neil.pa...@canonical.com: 3.8.4 should be much, much more stable, especially if you're on a 64-bit system. The entire team is concentrated on crashers and I think we'll have a very stable Unity by hard-freeze. Sounds good, and yes I've 64-bit which explains a bit. F10 - Opens first available menu in Panel and then left/right arrows let you move between all the menus on the panel Alt+F1 - Focuses the launcher and allows you to keyboard-navigate the icons and also navigate the Quicklists. Super - Opens the Dash Yippee! Super and Alt+F2 I had realized (and Alt+F2 was great to have when it appeared and I noticed it from changelog), F10 and Alt+F1 were news to me and they seem to work great at the first sight (except when in calendar, where it seems there is zero way of getting out with keyboard only - I will check if there is a bug for that). The keyboard usability just got a huge boost for me. This illustrates though somewhat the problem of finding these out and the lack of any built-in Help. -Timo -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Neil Jagdish Patel [2011-04-08 11:38 +0100]: I'll be looking into this, I believe it's because we needlessly initialise the place-daemons during log-in. Does that include zeitgeist? As a Python program, it has a pretty heavy impact on the login sequence. In previous releases we tried to keep it out of the critical path, by delaying sytem-config-printer by 30 seconds (and we didn't have any other Python stuff during boot). Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Jorge O. Castro [2011-04-07 22:00 -0400]: We've been transitioning since 10.04 now so I don't think this should be attributed to Unity entirely, we could have easily run into this by not shipping the notification area in classic mode. Well, we can always break things harder, but IMHO this is a battle which we aren't going to win until/unless we actually get indicators landed upstream... Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Le vendredi 08 avril 2011 à 18:38 +0200, Martin Pitt a écrit : Well, we can always break things harder, but IMHO this is a battle which we aren't going to win until/unless we actually get indicators landed upstream... Who is upstream? libappindicator is a free software project not tied to unity and any project is free to use it, some are doing it. GNOME said they would not but for the things we patch there like the keyboard layout we would be better to write system indicators like we did for others Cheers, Sebastien Bacher -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Sebastien Bacher [2011-04-08 19:03 +0200]: Who is upstream? I mean GNOME here, as most of the patches we carry for appindicator are against GNOME applications. But it really applies to all other upstreams, starting from hplip, mumble, etc. Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On 04/07/2011 06:38 PM, Rick Spencer wrote: Hello all, Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. Please reconsider. Despite the gush of greatness posts, I'd like to post a usability comment as a user. For example (the same applies to most applications): I open SeaMonkey in G2 and keep multiple mail/news/browser windows open, see: http://img840.imageshack.us/f/screenshot9sw.png/ [click to enlarge scroll to the bottom] I can easily click on any of those, or use Alt-Tab to change. In Unity if I attempt to do the same, I have to use the SeaMonkey menu to select the window. I can of course use Alt-Tab, but afterwards I have no immediate idea about which/how many windows I actually have open. See: http://img820.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4wz.png/ [again, click to enlarge] The inability to have that bar with windows that I can use is, for me, a complete show stopper. Also, note that the lack of a top tool bar where I can dock an application for monitoring cpu, temps, etc., with a single glance is as well. Not to mention being able to launch an docked application with out losing focus on the application that I am currently using. For example; if I want to launch LibreOffice while viewing a SeaMonkey (or Firefux page) in Unity, I first must move the mouse to the upper left corner, let it hover for a second or two, figure out if I actually have LO 'docked' as I can't see otherwise, and if so then click it. On G2, I see that it's there move the mouse click. Note: I can also hide/unhide my G2 panels with a single click as well, so I already have the option to maximize viewable real estate. How do you propose to resolve that simple work environment example? Do you think that users will accept using Alt-Tab to go from one window to another (mail/browser)? How would one keep a System Monitor going to monitor cpu/temps, printer status, etc? I have tried Unity (and continue to try Unity) and find that it is a DE that reminds me of an ipodTouch without the being able to use a touch screen or lacking fingers. The insessant screen space to advertise available application downloads (Apps Available for Download) is unnecessary and irritating (particularly when you can't even easily find your regular G2 installed application), and overall lack of usability is, again IMO, unacceptable. As a longtime Ubuntu user, I highly recommend that Unity *not* be the default, and instead be an alternate to the standard G2 DE. Unity is an 'experimental' DE at best and should not be forces on 11.04 users as a default anything. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
I have to agree. Unity has potential but I don't understand why it can't just be an option for DE. BB -Original Message- From: NoOp gl...@sbcglobal.net Sender: ubuntu-desktop-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:21:54 To: ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com Cc: ubuntu-de...@lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 On 04/07/2011 06:38 PM, Rick Spencer wrote: Hello all, Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. Please reconsider. Despite the gush of greatness posts, I'd like to post a usability comment as a user. For example (the same applies to most applications): I open SeaMonkey in G2 and keep multiple mail/news/browser windows open, see: http://img840.imageshack.us/f/screenshot9sw.png/ [click to enlarge scroll to the bottom] I can easily click on any of those, or use Alt-Tab to change. In Unity if I attempt to do the same, I have to use the SeaMonkey menu to select the window. I can of course use Alt-Tab, but afterwards I have no immediate idea about which/how many windows I actually have open. See: http://img820.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4wz.png/ [again, click to enlarge] The inability to have that bar with windows that I can use is, for me, a complete show stopper. Also, note that the lack of a top tool bar where I can dock an application for monitoring cpu, temps, etc., with a single glance is as well. Not to mention being able to launch an docked application with out losing focus on the application that I am currently using. For example; if I want to launch LibreOffice while viewing a SeaMonkey (or Firefux page) in Unity, I first must move the mouse to the upper left corner, let it hover for a second or two, figure out if I actually have LO 'docked' as I can't see otherwise, and if so then click it. On G2, I see that it's there move the mouse click. Note: I can also hide/unhide my G2 panels with a single click as well, so I already have the option to maximize viewable real estate. How do you propose to resolve that simple work environment example? Do you think that users will accept using Alt-Tab to go from one window to another (mail/browser)? How would one keep a System Monitor going to monitor cpu/temps, printer status, etc? I have tried Unity (and continue to try Unity) and find that it is a DE that reminds me of an ipodTouch without the being able to use a touch screen or lacking fingers. The insessant screen space to advertise available application downloads (Apps Available for Download) is unnecessary and irritating (particularly when you can't even easily find your regular G2 installed application), and overall lack of usability is, again IMO, unacceptable. As a longtime Ubuntu user, I highly recommend that Unity *not* be the default, and instead be an alternate to the standard G2 DE. Unity is an 'experimental' DE at best and should not be forces on 11.04 users as a default anything. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:21 PM, NoOp gl...@sbcglobal.net wrote: On 04/07/2011 06:38 PM, Rick Spencer wrote: Hello all, Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. Please reconsider. Despite the gush of greatness posts, I'd like to post a usability comment as a user. For example (the same applies to most applications): I open SeaMonkey in G2 and keep multiple mail/news/browser windows open, see: http://img840.imageshack.us/f/screenshot9sw.png/ [click to enlarge scroll to the bottom] I can easily click on any of those, or use Alt-Tab to change. In Unity if I attempt to do the same, I have to use the SeaMonkey menu to select the window. I can of course use Alt-Tab, but afterwards I have no immediate idea about which/how many windows I actually have open. See: http://img820.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4wz.png/ [again, click to enlarge] The inability to have that bar with windows that I can use is, for me, a complete show stopper. As a long time Gnome2 user (and prior to that Windows), I agree that not having the Windows-style taskbar is rather jarring for someone used to having it. Changing between windows in Unity is a mystery, and if you are running more than 2 applications it becomes unmanageable and takes way too much time for multi-taskers. Surely the programmers of Unity would have realized this while running Unity and developing it at the same time; all the different windows you have to have open to develop software would surely expose the problem... e.g. terminal emulator; documentation sites / Devhelp; IDE / text editor; IRC for collaborative development; bug tracker... The fact is that Unity just doesn't scale for this kind of use case. But after using the present feature of Gnome 3 (just hit the Windows key on most keyboards), I don't miss the window list in the taskbar that much anymore. On my small screen laptop (1024x768), Gnome 3 + gnome-shell effectively eliminates the vertical real estate consumed by Gnome2's bottom panel. But the window decorations are still there (this is good, since I'm used to them), and the top panel is still there (which is good, since I'm used to it). So on Gnome 3 + GS we have *some* real estate savings, but we still have a lot of the goodies that we're used to from Gnome 2. I'm running Gnome 3 + GS on Fedora 15 Alpha right now, and I absolutely love it. It's got some of the space savings + nice effects + cool factor of Unity, without the usability trainwreck. Having used current builds of Unity and Gnome3+GS quite a bit in recent weeks, my conclusion is that I think Gnome3 has out-Unitied Unity! It seems to accomplish many of the same design goals as Unity, but it has stability, performance, wider free desktop community acceptance, and a more familiar interface for users of Gnome2 on its side. Unity seems to me like it has gone too far in adopting slick screenspace-saving UX idioms; the result is that it's nearly impossible to multitask efficiently. Gnome3 does not suffer from the same kinds of limitations, even though at first it would seem that Gnome3 has many of the same problems for old hands that Unity does. My pipe dream would be to drop Unity (or just ship it as an optional installable) and ship Gnome3+GS by default, falling back to Gnome2 if hardware 3d rendering isn't available. But I know that (1) this would be a very tall order to turn the boat so dramatically inside the space of a month for the 11.04 release; (2) it is almost guaranteed not to happen if only due to the immense pride of the developers behind Unity, and their proportional level of influence in the Ubuntu development process; and (3) breaking the time-based release schedule in order to give us sufficient time to switch out a major desktop component is even less likely to happen, simply because the whole point of a time-based release is to be, well, timely. This point applies equally to shipping Gnome2 by default as well, I guess (although it's less valid there because the Gnome2 environment of Ubuntu has been tested and refined extensively for years already). Also, note that the lack of a top tool bar where I can dock an application for monitoring cpu, temps, etc., with a single glance is as well. Not to mention being able to launch an docked application with out losing focus on the application that I am currently using. I miss these things too, but for what it's worth, a top panel remains in Gnome 3, so there is hope that we can develop Gnome-Shell plugins to do these things in the future, if such features aren't already available. So not to belabor my point again, but if you like the fancy effects of Unity but want the usability of Gnome 2, take a look at Gnome 3. It'd be worth your time. For example; if I want to launch LibreOffice while viewing a SeaMonkey
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Hi all, I think I can offer some opinions on this without repeating what others say too much. I want to compare this to the decision a few releases ago to make Empathy the default IM client in Ubuntu. Then why I think Unity should become the default desktop session and not classic GNOME. Pidgin was the running favorite, there were a ton of fans of the client, people were really liking the application and along came the rookie Empathy, which at that point few had heard about, but was a very good candidate based on the amount of time their devs had put into the client and the potential of the software. Once the switch was officially made, the backlash in bug reports and in the social media was harsh, and rude at times. Look where that client has come to this point since we made it default. I sincerely believe (and the devs have expressed the same sentiment) that it wouldn't be as good as it is now if it weren't for that decision and amount of attention. Not to digress any further, I feel that Unity will thrive in the same environment. If we delay it any further then we are keeping some valuable attention from its development. There will be backlashes, in bug reports, in the social media. With the amount of attention and use it will get by being default, it will grow fast. It may appear to be a couple steps back, but I think in the end we will find that Unity as the default desktop environment for 11.04 will be a gigantic leap forward later on. Thanks for all of your time, ~Brian On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Rick Spencer rick.spen...@canonical.com wrote: Hello all, Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay the default for 11.04. I'm following up on this list at the suggestion of the Tech Board to give folks a chance to respond or escelate any concerns. Note that there are some arguments for changing the default from Unity to classic' GNOME: 1. There are key feature regressions, for example, there is no systray support for many important applications. 2. There are usability problems, for example, settings are hard to find, the launcher icons behave differently when you click on the trash can versus the home folder launcher, it's hard to find a categorized view of applications, searches do not always turn up expected results. 3. We are coming in too hot, there are too many crashers on some hardware and the final product will be buggy. I won't rebut these points myself, as I am rather striving to represent the viewpoints not argue against them. Representing the desktop team, Jason Warner believes that Unity will deliver the superior experience for most users in 11.04. I agree with this position and support staying the course. Cheers, Rick PS - You can reference the recent and current bug fixing efforts of the Unity team here: https://launchpad.net/unity/+milestone/3.8.4 https://launchpad.net/unity/+milestone/3.8.6 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop -- = Ubuntu Member: http://launchpad.net/~bcurtiswx Freenode IRC: BCurtisWX Ubuntu Wiki: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BCurtisWX Ubuntu District of Columbia LoCo: http://dc.ubuntu-us.org/ GNOME3 Team: http://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team Ubuntu Bug Control Team: http://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-bugcontrol = -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Rick Spencer rick.spen...@canonical.com wrote: 1. There are key feature regressions, for example, there is no systray support for many important applications. According to the AppIndicator Design document the notification area will be phased out: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CustomStatusMenuDesignGuidelines We've been transitioning since 10.04 now so I don't think this should be attributed to Unity entirely, we could have easily run into this by not shipping the notification area in classic mode. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
I can honestly say that when I am not in a unity environment, I don't feel at home. I bounce back and forth between ubuntu and osx, and when nvidia was broken, and when I'm in osx, I often find myself trying to 4 finger slide, throwing my mouse to 0,0, tapping super, and generally evoking unity idioms. unity has very quickly made itself a *very* natural part of my workflow and i couldn't imagine working without it any more. It's leagues beyond anything I've ever used, and I am massively impressed with what we've created. -- --Alex Launi -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
