Ubuntu usability is significantly decreased with Unity

[Nenad]

On 12/29/2011 02:09 AM, Sean McNamara wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:55 PM, Nenad<nenad_lecek at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>> well, I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 and found really annoying to use Unity.
>> Open several windows (e.g. Netbeans, firefox, nautilus and gitk and try to
>> work efficiently with menus of each application, minimize/maximize window,
>> etc., Unity is just driving me crazy. It is simply unnatural. In case the
>> Unity is just one application that is seldom used, and not the central one,
>> you won't get my comments for sure.
>
> Please remember that the definition of "natural" depends on what each
> user is expecting, what they're used to in prior computing experience,
> etc.
In case the user find the interface non-intuitive, or clumsy, the user 
interface is broken for sure. You may try to convince people that they 
need to upgrade their brain to be able to use your application. Good 
luck in doing so. In other words, if you need to train people to use 
your software, chances are that you still have potential to improve the 
application user interface.
>
> Unfortunately, Canonical and other organizations have done user
> studies on the Gnome2 interface with people who aren't familiar with
> computers _at all_, and found that Gnome2 is extremely
> counter-intuitive for them, and takes a long time to learn. So as you
Most of us could probably agree that Linux distros were never known for 
great user experience. Ubuntu was (before Unity :-) ) very good in 
comparison to others Linux distros, but far behind the user experience 
Apple under Steve Jobs delivered. Linux was for long time considered as 
OS for nerds, IT experts, skilled software engineers, IT students and 
similar audience. I agree that gnome panel is not really ready for 
general usage. But this is still not the reason to remove it almost 
completely.
> can see, every desktop you could possibly design will be unnatural for
> _someone_. Not even the most intelligent User Interface researchers
> have found a way to objectively define "natural" in a way that it's
> true for all human beings. Your own words serve to prove the point:
> although Canonical made their best effort to make Unity natural for a
> lot of people, and at least tolerable for almost everyone else, there
> are still going to be people who absolutely abhor it. (Self included.)
You do not need that much intelligent User Interface researchers, you 
need user interface designer(s) with very good taste, intelligence and 
experience (e.g. Steve Jobs really pushed in that direction and Linux 
distros could learn a lot from his work. Linux UIs have still a long way 
to go.).
>
> Although I just admitted that I hate Unity in terms of its actual
> usability from *my* personal point of view, you might be surprised to
> hear that I don't think it should be replaced as the default desktop
> on Ubuntu! I think it should stay for the following reasons:
>
> 1. It makes Ubuntu unique. A distro that doesn't stand out is far less
> likely to receive user loyalty and an above-average level of users,
> because users will be able to have an equivalent experience elsewhere.
> Sure, you run the risk of alienating users for being different; but
> that's OK as long as the number of alienated users is very low.
This approach forces people to learn your design philosophy. My 
experience shows that almost never worked out (exception is Apple, of 
course). E.g. on Windows you have media player as an example of 
different user interface design, which simply sucks. And many more 
examples of failures coming from branding, skinning, etc.
> 2. I'm fairly confident that Canonical has done extensive usability
> studies on new users (their main target market) and found that people
> in the poor computer literacy category find it better than Gnome 2, if
> not downright enjoyable. New users are the best opportunity for
> Canonical, because they don't already have a ton of programs that only
> run on Windows or Mac that a more experienced user would naturally
> refuse to part with.
Canonical did quite good job with previous releases of Ubuntu, respect 
for that, and personally I wish them to succeed in attracting the bigger 
user base. But they should not neglect existing users, by pushing them 
changes they do not need or even want. I started this thread just 
because at the time of Ubuntu 11.10 announcement I read that Gnome 
desktop is not anymore available for Ubuntu and the users are forced to 
use Unity. And lost my nerves with Unity yesterday evening. From 
replies, I've got, I know now  that is still possible to get Gnome Panel 
running with Ubuntu 11.10. Thank you for being supportive.
> 3. It's already there. Going back to Gnome would make Canonical the
> laughing stock of the internet, for investing tons of money in a new
> desktop, and then giving up on it and going back to the primarily Red
> Hat and Novell-funded GNOME panel. Being "wishy-washy" is NOT a good
> way to inspire confidence among the technically elite, who you
> absolutely must have on your side to be successful (as some criminal
> once said, "Developers, developers, developers...").
It is OK to promote new ideas but is less OK to force them. In my circle 
I don't know any experienced IT professional who would recommend using 
this new user interface. BTW, it doesn't look very original too.
> 4. It makes the distro choice completely obvious for those accustomed
> to Gnome2. I have to thank Unity for making me try other Linux distros
> instead of being satisfied with Ubuntu. I am completely happy with
> Fedora, and have no intention of looking back. If Ubuntu had made it
> blindingly easy for me to click a "Gnome Panel" radio button at
> install-time, I might have never consciously thought that Ubuntu's
> ability to satisfy my needs has reached unacceptable levels, and I
> might not have discovered the awesome that is Fedora 16. I consider
> that as Unity being helpful in its own way. ;)
These thoughts to change distro I had yesterday before starting this 
thread, but then decided that is better to provide some input for 
improvements of Ubuntu than to silently leave.
> 5. Everyone at Canonical uses it to do development every day, so
> clearly it is very productive for developers and power users. ;)
I also use some applications at work my boss requested me to use and 
therefore cannot publicly express my opinion about them.
>
> OK, so some of those are expressing my own frustrations in a
> satirical, tongue-in-cheek manner. Sorry if I stepped on any toes. I
> really actually like Canonical as a company, and have pleasantly done
> commercial business with them in the past. In fact, I think LaunchPad
> is an amazing piece of software, and I use it regularly for my own
> open source projects. I prefer Bazaar over almost any other version
> control system (except Git, but there's no shame in losing out to
> Linus Torvalds!). PPAs are a remarkable and easy to handle way for
> distributing binaries. Canonical has had lots of great ideas and has
> executed some of them extremely well! :)
No doubt, Canonical does really good work with Ubuntu. I'm criticizing 
only decision to change to new user interface (Unity), without leaving 
the choice to easy replace it with Gnome Panel.
>
> But not Unity -- not for me. So because I didn't have the patience to
> go back and fix Ubuntu to work like I expect a distro to
> out-of-the-box, I simply installed a distro that _does_ work precisely
> as I expect out of the box. And suddenly I felt at peace and didn't
> need to complain to Canonical or anything.
My goal was to contribute to future version of Ubuntu by sending the 
comment what is broken and could be improved. It is up to Canonical to 
evaluate comment, prioritize and decide what they want to do with Ubuntu.
>
> BTW, there is an alternative gnome2 menu extension for GNOME Panel
> (not sure if it's been ported to Gnome3 yet, though) which lets you
> search for programs and files, similarly to Unity or KDE4. OpenSUSE
> has it installed by default, and I think so does Mageia. Fedora
> doesn't, but I didn't need it so it doesn't bother me. I'm sure you
> can dig up how to obtain it if you google.
>
> As far as actually constructive suggestions for Canonical / "the Unity
> team" (let's face it, they are>= 85% one in the same), I think these
> features would help users like Nenad who try Ubuntu in the future:
> 1. In the desktop Live CD installer, sneak in a checkbox hidden under
> an "Advanced" arrow at the bottom of a window, or something like that,
> to enable classic gnome-panel mode as the default shell, regardless of
> whether the user has 3d acceleration or not. Then, at least, you could
> silence comments of "Unity can't be removed!" by retorting, "You
> missed the Advanced menu in the installer, silly!" -- users are simply
> much more likely to react with an "Oh.... sorry" to that, rather than
> the current method for replacing Unity with gnome-classic. Also, if
> that classic checkbox in the installer IS checked, be sure to disable
> global menus and restore classic scrollbars instead of the pop-up
> hovering outside the window! The reason to perform all of these
> actions in response to a single checkbox is that>99.99999% of the
> users who will check that checkbox are the same ones who DON'T want
> global menus, and DO want classic scrollbars.
>
> Of course, I'm expecting the reason for being unable to do this would
> be some subset of the following counter-arguments:
> 1(a). Live CD space limitations. Can't fit gnome-panel in 700MB, or
> can't fit the code for the added functionality, or both.
> 1(b). UI "clutter". Also takes the form of the following: Asking
> questions is bad; giving users a choice is bad; letting users know
> that there is possibly some reason why not everyone would want to use
> Unity is bad; every user wants to feel like THEY are "advanced" so
> users who have no idea will click the checkbox; etc. Yeah, yeah. I
> can't argue against these kinds of backwards design philosophy; I can
> only express my disagreement.
> 1(c). Lack of developer manpower. Also takes the form of: more
> complexity adds more bugs; too late to add features to this release;
> and so on. I can kind of understand this one, but if this is the only
> counter-argument, I'd fully expect the feature to be implemented in
> the following release, or at least scheduled for implementation at
> some point in the future.
Old story says: there is a good reason and a real reason.
>
> 2. Hmm... there is no 2! At least, I can't think of one right now.
> Adding a front-and-center option at install-time for going back to the
> classic UI (basically how it was in 10.04 LTS) would be most
> excellent, and would address the larger portion of gray-beard
> objections to Unity.
True.
>
> I don't think I really answered your question, and I kind of wavered
> from the main topic, but hopefully you'll take away from this the
> following TL;DR points:
>
> 1. Gnome2 (don't know about Gnome3) already has a third-party
> extension for adding a search bar to the menu. Google it.
> 2. It's already easy to revert to classic gnome UI in Ubuntu, and you
> can find the information posted prominently on ubuntu forums (among
> other places). But it could be easier if they'd make an option at
> install-time.
> 3. They probably *won't* make an option for the reasons I cited. Yes,
> I'm a bit cynical, especially when it comes to asking Canonical to add
> complexity  to end-user screens ;)
> 4. Don't want the hassle of undoing Unity? I'm 99% sure that one of
> OpenSUSE | Fedora | Ubuntu 10.04 | RHEL 6 | Debian Stable would suit
> you extremely well.
Actually, after reading answers in this thread, I googled for details 
and managed to switch back to Gnome Panel + removed global menu. So, now 
is everything fine again. I'm happy again. Nevertheless, switching 
procedure could be simpler and supported by distro directly. Thank you 
guys for answers!!!
>
> And that's about it. So from one Unity-hater to another, I wish you
> the best of luck, Nenad. And Canonical, I earnestly hope you guys are
> successful at targeting the end-user segment, because Launchpad is too
> useful to lose. I just hope you guys know what you're doing... ;)
>
> -Sean
>
> P.S. -- I continue to support the software I develop on Ubuntu, even
> though I don't use it personally. It installs well enough in a virtual
> machine. So from my perspective, you haven't totally lost the
> "developers, developers, developers" war, although having me use
> another desktop day-to-day is certainly at least a lost _battle_...
> *rambles*
Sean, many thanks for your comments and suggestions.