unity-design team mailing list archive

[Andrew SB <a.starr.b@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 2:40 AM, Mario Vukelic
<mario.vukelic@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The experience is that as an interested
> user you are running the development version for months during the
> alphas with great expectations but nothing much to see UI-wise, and
> suddenly sweeping and often problematic changes land late in the cycle.
>
> This, I think, gives the impression that the design team is not really
> interested in user discussion/feedback. It also seems to me that this
> way of doing things gives very little time for users to get used to the
> changes, form a considered opinion and  give feedback. It also gives
> developers little time to consider the feedback or identify problems in
> other ways, and to implement appropriate iterations to fix them.
>
> To give a recent example, I was open to the question of having the
> window buttons on the left, but it's only now - a few days before
> release - that I feel I have used them enough to get somewhat used to
> them and really decide if I like them or not.
>
> On the other hand it's understandable, if you stop to think about it
> (often neglected on discussion boards), that the development cycle is
> actually used for development, and it's impossible to include some
> changes very early in the cycle for the simple fact that they are not
> done yet. There would also be the danger that earlier inclusion would
> just drag out the public discussions and with time let them deteriorate
> into senseless trolling even more.

I think that a lot of this has to do with simply working out project
management kinks in what is a fairly new team. My understanding is
that most of the folks on the Canonical design team don't come from a
distribution development background but from upstream application
development and non-Linux design backgrounds. And that's great! They
have the kind of experience that is going to push Ubuntu forward. But
it does raise issues with fitting their work into the our release
cycle.

I know that in the Karmic cycle there were some problems with the
design team respecting the various freezes, but from where I sit this
was much better in Lucid. Hopefully it will be even better going
forward as people fit into Ubuntu's development rhythm (dare I say
cadence?).

The application indicator and software center (although I suppose that
one fall under the rubric of the Foundations team) work seemed to land
fairly early in the cycle. I think we need to continue to embrace the
release early and often philosophy. Though this is much harder with
artwork. But do I think that it is important to remember that Lucid
saw an entire re-branding of our image, no small task and something
that more or less had to be rolled out all at once. Despite that, the
team still managed to get their work in on time for the UI freeze.

- Andrew SB