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Re: [Ayatana] Awesome critical review of Unity
Thank you for the summary! As a deaf person, I really appreciate it.
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 6:57 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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> Here is a summary of the video.
>
> He calls the launcher auto-hide behavior "weird" and "really confusing":
> - - The behavior is different depending on whether there is a window in
> the left part of the screen.
> - - The behavior is different depending on whether any window is
> maximized (because a maximized window is in the left part of the
> screen).
> - - The launcher partly appears when you hover over the Ubuntu button,
> but doesn't actually work unless you go right into the corner.
> - - Hovering over the Ubuntu button reveals the launcher, but clicking
> the Ubuntu button hides the launcher.
> He recommends showing the launcher all the time by default, with an
> option to auto-hide it.
>
> Other launcher details:
> - - He calls the icon stacking "pretty" clever", but is annoyed that it
> expands downwards rather than upwards, which means that you have to
> scroll the launcher by clicking and dragging.
> - - The drag-scrolling is uselessly possible even when the launcher has
> empty space. "For a long time I was wondering, what the hell was
> that for?"
> - - This in turn means that you can't rearrange items in the launcher
> merely by dragging vertically.
> - - At least the scrolling is better than the paging through icons in
> Windows 7's taskbar, which "is no good because it's modal".
> - - He suggests that instead of scrolling, it would be better for the
> launcher to have a second row.
> - - Failing that, he suggests putting up a little overlay message when
> you scroll the launcher, explaining what's going on.
> - - "I think that trash can is kind of silly, I just don't think people
> need to look at their trash can that frequently."
> - - He's also annoyed that "Applications", "Files & Folders", and
> "Workspace Switcher" are stuck in the launcher permanently. "Special
> cases always require a great deal of justification", and "having
> workspaces visible by default is a really terrible idea". (He goes
> into detail about people who barely even understand the distinction
> between Web pages and browsers, let alone workspaces.)
>
> Dash:
> - - He likes the Dash, especially that the search field is at the top
> rather than at the bottom as it is in Windows.
> - - He thinks the default contents are good for novice users, but
> wonders why there are four applications here, and guesses that they
> might have been chosen by user testing.
> - - The "Shortcuts" button is weird and has a confusing Home icon --
> "it has nothing to do with" your home folder.
> - - The resize button is "weird", because clicking it rearranges the
> icons, and it seems unnecessary.
>
> Applications screen:
> - - "I generally like this ... nice and readable, very well-spaced."
> - - He criticizes showing "Apps Available for Download" by default, for
> two reasons:
> - "For most computer users ... they're overwhelmed by all the
> options that already exist on their systems ... Trying to throw
> more stuff at them just makes them less happy."
> - The list is "a whole bunch of apps, where people have no idea
> what the hell they're for." No descriptions, and crappy names.
> - - You need to click a tiny "See 74 more results" control to see the
> full list of installed applications. Why not just expand the screen
> and show them with a scrollbar straight away?
> - - It's not obvious that "All Applications" is clickable, and the items
> in it are too small.
>
> Menu bar:
> - - As someone who fidgets with his mouse, he dislikes how this makes
> the menus show and hide distractingly.
> - - When a background window is maximized:
> - You can't close, minimize, or unmaximize it.
> - The title for the active window looks like it's the title for
> the background window.
> - The menus for the active window look like they're the menus for
> the maximized window.
> - - He assumes that the "weird overlay" of the menu titles on the left
> part of the application title is "a bug that will be fixed before
> release".
> - - He'd like to get rid of the global menu entirely.
> - - Ideally, he'd prefer to get rid of the top bar entirely, moving the
> icons at the top right of the screen to the bottom of the launcher.
> - - "What they need, at the very least, to do is just ditch this whole
> concept of merging the title bar into the top bar. You can't have
> the global application menu, and this integrated title bar business,
> going on at the same time."
> - - Alternatively, have a button in the top bar that opens the menus in
> a second row.
> - - He likes the application icon shown in the top bar in Gnome 3.
>
> Miscellaneous:
> - - He doesn't like that mounted volumes appear in the launcher.
> - - He calls the Desktop folder "the long-standing dumbest idea in
> interface design for twenty years". Goes into detail about how it's
> bad for expert users, beginners, and intermediate users for
> different reasons.
> - - He wants Unity to get rid of minimization, like Gnome 3, and in his
> ideal design all windows would be maximized.
>
> - --
> mpt
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