[ubuntu-art] Moving things forwards.

[Andrew Laignel]

Who wrote:
> How does a conventional 'vote for the one you like' allow us to see this?
>   
Maybe you could vote 1...5 on each entry then look at the tally graphs 
for distribution?
>> into love it/hate it camps which should be avoided at all cost.  Ideally
>> a default theme should not be even noticed by the public - being neutral
>> and innofensive as possible should be the goal.  A perfect demonstration
>> of this is Apple, where the current theme for OSX is crips, clean,
>> stylish and probably as neutral as you can get - no loud colours,
>> drastic layouts or hard edges.
>>     
>
> AFAIK, this has never been the aim for the Ubuntu default theme - and
> I don't think it ever will be. Sometimes going for love it or hate it
> beats going for bland. At least then people see it!
>
> As long as I can remember the Ubuntu Theme has been part of the
> branding, something that helps make Ubuntu known, something for people
> to talk about. From this point of view, it has worked very well - if
> you see a screenshot of linux and it is brown, you _know_ it is ubuntu
> - if you see a blue distro.... who knows...
I'm not saying don't be brown, or to lose the Ubuntu theme, but to avoid 
anything overly stylized.  Most people using a computer will never touch 
the default theme settings, and the less likely that a sizable 
percentage will be sitting in front of something they hate the better.  
If people want something really cool/different (ultra dark/steampunk 
etc) then maybe there should be some alternate themes shipped with it so 
if someone does have a look into the menus something is there.

Ulitmately if you really want a radical theme you can with very little 
effort.  The focus should be on giving the people who simply don't care 
about the subject as pleasant an experience as possible, rather than 
forcing them to change it because it's horrible (to them).