[PLUG] Natty is here

[Mike Connors]

. An in-depth study of the reactions and problems
> of new desktop users, comparing Unity, Gnome, KDE, and a few others,
> would be very revealing.
>
> I won't speculate as to the outcome. I only wish to point out that
> without some scientific evidence, everything that people say pro and
> con Unity is wild ass speculation. Whether you or I personally like it
> or not is irrelevant. Ubuntu's goal is to make Linux usable on the
> desktop for newcomers to Linux. Those users are the ones whose opinion
> matters.

If the folks at Ubuntu, Gnome, KDE, et al. are truly interested in
bringing Linux to the masses than this is
what needs to happen. I just participated in a bunch of thread posts
on LinkedIn about why more companies
don't use Linux. Many people cited usability.

 I totally agree, desktop usability is completely about the opinion of
new users and not people who've run many different distros and
desktop / X-Windows.

To the best of my knowledge, Ubuntu really seems to be driving the
"average jane desktop user" development. If we
all want to see the Linux community grow than this work needs to
happen. Historically, desktop usability has
not received a lot of care and attention as most developers wanted to
work on the kernel, drivers, etc.
Which needed to be done. What's the point of worrying about how the
dashboard in your car looks / feels if the engine keeps stalling
and the tires fall off.

Maybe this is a sign of Linux's maturity?

When I worked in Silicon Valley, it wasn't uncommon for the developers
of new sw apps to sit out on the street with a
few laptops with their app running so random people could check it and
provide impromptu feedback. Studies are good, but I think
you also need to let people just play around with it and get their
uncensored / unstudied opinion while they're using it.

The reality is that MS & Apple have captured the minds of the avg
computer user in the U.S. as to how to a GUI should work. If you hope
to
bring some of these people over to Linux, you're going to have to make
your UI similar enough to MS / Apple to make it easy for people to
change over.

-Mike