Here are two similar images showing the file browser and text editor in Windows 7 and Ubuntu Oneiric.
Padding (buttons) and font size are smaller and therefore the interface looks & feels cleaner in Windows 7. Thats the reason why smaller windows seems to be more useful in Windows than in Ubuntu (compared same sized windows).
Traditionally GNOME has a lot of padding (negative example → Totem controls) and wasts a lot of screen space (has been reduced a bit last cycles).
So what to do?
- Analise every default application UI if they need that big buttons and that much padding/margin
- use the same padding/margin in every application if possible
- Reduce padding and font size - just a bit → huge difference
Kind regards
Thibaut
PS: If anybody uses Ubuntu, Win & and Mac and could make more comparison screenshots it would be awesome.
I use Windows only for gaming → my Wintendoo ;)
