unity-design team mailing list archive

[Lee Hyde <anubeon@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 16/03/11 15:00, Mitja Pagon wrote:
> You picked the wrong example as "left-aligned" windows controls were not
> a design decision "per se", but rather a decision based on Mark
> Shuttleworth's own personal preference, as stated by himself.

Never-the-less it was a design decision, simply one handed down by our
beloved benevolent dictator for life. ;-)

If indeed what you state is the case, and Mark made the decision based
purely on personal preference, that is a rather flimsy basis upon which
to make such a design decision. UI design is part art and part science,
but a decision based on personal preference is neither. Furthermore,
when such decisions result in a locked down UI (like Unity) where the
user is forced to accept someone else's preference, nobody wins (I
wouldn't force Mark to use right-aligned window controls)

As I said before, I would welcome some means of gathering/submitting
user data so that the science part of UI design can be better informed.
Without such data the science of UI design boils down to untested and
unfounded intellectualisms (philosophy, not science) and that really
does vex me. When some know it all claims that the way I have set up
*my* desktop UI is inefficient (pointing to some crackpot theory of UI
design), it belies the fact that there's a human being clicking the
mouse buttons (and this human being likes to optimise his UI to suit his
own work-flow thank you very much).

On 16/03/11 15:25, Mitja Pagon wrote:
> Users existing habits and work-flow are a common obstacle to adoption of
> new interfaces, but that has more to do with the fear of change and the
> unknown and it doesn't imply that said interface is bad. MS Office
> ribbon interface is a good example of that, lot's existing users
> complained, but new users and users who got beyond that initial fear,
> were actually very pleased with the experience (a similar example in the
> field of programing languages is VB.NET at the time it was released).

While it may be true that the primary obstacle to the adoption of new UI
designs it is important to recognise the need for compatibility with
existing and (more importantly) co-existing work-flows. My previous
example regarding left/right alignment of window controls is a case in
point. I have little choice but to use both Windows and Ubuntu as my
work environment (a laboratory) relies on the Windows platform. Thus the
need to repeatedly readjust when switching between operating systems is
a part of the user experience for me (and I'm sure others), albeit a
part of the user experience which isn't unique to Ubuntu. Never the less
I think it would be wrong for Unity's design team to ignore such
externalities, as they *do* form part of the user experience as a whole.
I would dearly like to use Unity as my default shell, but if it disrupts
my work-flow as experience tells me it will, I'll have little choice but
to stick with gnome-panel and (should support for gnome-panel be dropped
before this issue is addressed) eventually ditch Ubuntu altogether in
favour of an all Windows environment or another Linux distribution.

Oh, and I speak as one of the people who welcomed the new ribbon
interface in Microsoft Office. Whilst there was a considerable
adjustment period I felt it was worth the pain for the more efficient
and intuitive ribbon interface. That is, however, a wholly difference
matter to desktop UI decisions that cripple customisability and
disaffect the dual-boot user experience (as one needn't chop and change
between ribbon and classic office UI).

Kind Regards,

Lee.

-- 
"The second basic thesis is that intellectual freedom is essential to
human society — freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom
for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by
officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the
only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in
the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed
into bloody dictatorship. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of
the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics,
economics and culture."

	-- Andrei Sakharov, The New York Times (July 22nd, 1968)

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