Here’s another, a bit long-ish, review of Ubuntu 5.04.
48 Hours with Ubuntu 5.04
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Here’s another, a bit long-ish, review of Ubuntu 5.04.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
mpt.net.nz not available…or is it just me ?
Just takes a while for me, eventually works.
The Ubuntu hype keeps coming. Today we offer another article mentioning 60+ things where Ubuntu has tried to clone XP and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.
Wow that’s informative… oh and Ubuntu like all other Linuces are ofcourse redy for the desktop and have been for 5 years, just that it doesn’t work but almost….
Ubuntu has given me the impression, thanks to all this hype, that it talks the hype but certainly forgot about walking the walk…
I found the points discussed in this usability study quite enlightening and many of Ubuntu’s rough spots that I had not noticed before now seem painfully obvious. Hopefully developers will consider and make use of the worthwhile advice offered here.
I also hope Matthew’s boss takes note of this article as well.
How is this a review? It’s just a newbies diatribe!
“How is this a review? It’s just a newbies diatribe!”
Try reading the last paragraph…
Anyway, yeah, he’s definitely on to something with many of his gripes with the Ubuntu GUI. These kind of articles are a tolerant developers dream I can imagine. It’s now always easy to see errors in your own doing.
Until I read this review, I thought GNOME did not have any serious issues. Now I see that the usability of KDE is not that bad. What the author should do is to write another review for KUBUNTU.
This is not a review of Ubuntu, but a list of issues he has with user interface in Gnome and various applications. Some of his points are valid, others perhaps less so. But most of them have little to do with Ubuntu – fixing them would be beyond the scope of what we usually mean by ‘distribution’.
Having said that, I thought it was an interesting read.
It is ironic that the author being a interface design engineer with Canonical writes in detail about GUI design flaws for the Linux distro that his company produces.
Mathew writes:
”
I am grateful to my boss for lending me the laptop on which I have been using Ubuntu, and for giving me the go-ahead to post this entry, but I don’t speak for my employer and they don’t speak for me. My boss, by the way, is Mark Shuttleworth. I’m working for his company, Canonical, as an interface designer.”
There is a old Malay saying “Membuka Pekung di dada” – which can be deciphered to mean ‘exposing ones own flaws’. Why didn’t the author highlight these to Ubuntu (I presume they are wokring as ONE group).
In any case, I have to congratulate Mathew for being so observant. Many useful aspects of proper GUI design can be taken up by not only Ubuntu, but Gnome and other Linux distros for that matter.
I don’t think the writer understands what the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act is for.
From the link:
“The Act gives you rights when you buy faulty goods.”
I think he’ll have a hard time convincing Apple that his PowerBook which worked fine for a year and a half before it died, is faulty goods.
The reason for such a law is so you don’t buy an already broken product and then have to buy a whole new one that works.
I suggest the writer reads up on Mercantile law a little bit more before making an ass of ones self.
I wouldn’t have enough of the night to comment on each point, but that viewpoint (the blog entry states it’s not a review, so…) is light years away from the casual user’s usual gripes. It makes me fear Ubuntu might become a usability engineer’s guinea pig.
On Ubuntu’s site, it states that “Our work on Ubuntu is driven by a philosophy on software freedom that we hope will spread and bring the benefits of software technology to all parts of the globe.” It is my opinion that developing an OS experience that would stray farther and farther away from the behavior of the most used proprietary OS right now will simply not accomplish that optimaly.
The fact that it comes from an interface designer from Canonical is…surprising, to say the least.
Since Matthew Thomas is a interface designer (and hired by Canonical Inc.) most of his points may be/are valid.
(Be aware that he is no way a newbie and this article is no review, as he writes himself in the third paragraph. )
Many of them are about details. Details are important, because are make the difference between a quite nice system and a “smooth” system. (A smooth system is a system you barely notice using because everything just works)
His ideas may also become more important in view of the upcoming GNOME 3.0, which will (as stated on live.gnome.org) break UI compatiblity and (is intended to) introduce some new UI ideas.
Linux needs distributions that actually care about usability. These are the things that make new users either run away scared because the system doesn’t act how one would expect it to, or makes them fall in lover because the system does and acts as one would assume it would even better than their previous system.
His gripes with spelling and punctuation, while nit picky, are important. These things need to have consistency and that starts with how you spell your own name, how menu items are spelled, etc.
This was a great review, because Ubuntu now has 69 goals that should be met without exception for their October release. Good article all around.
wow!
finally someone said something brillant. the linux community should learn alot from this guy. i always disliked the fact that most linux developers/users keep ignoring major problems when it comes to gui stuff under linux.
i’m talking about all these little things that make most linux windows managers look so flat & static. i always take, as an example, an editbox control. under windows, they look so dynamic. you get some look and feel from it that makes you feel like you’re really entering text. under linux, well under xwindows, well under the gui toolkit you’re using (ie: gtk), the same editbox control looks so flat and static. the control is badly designed (it doesnt feel like a box, no 3d feeling) and the caret behaves in a way that you’re not always sure if everything you type is ok.
this is just one example but there are tons. just start dclicking alot on your desktop background (under gnome or kde) and you will notice that the icons on your desktop will start flickering. why?
all these little things make alot of people switch back to windows or macos after a while because the whole gui doesnt feel solid.
the problem is highly related to the xwindow architecture and to the gui toolkit youre using (ie: gtk). the sad thing is, people keep ignoring it instead of fixing it.
i think the linux community should learn alot from windows and macos in this area. im sure alot more people would use linux in the gui was consitant.
my 2 cents
Are the Apple style menus that are always at the top of the screen really that good? That was the way my old Amiga used to work and I seem to remember preferring the way X did things (Fvwm) with popup menus everywhere.
I am considering purchasing a powerbook. If I were to buy a laptop that is probably what I would want, however I’m not entirely comfortable with the way the menus work.
Do people who use both have a real preference? Do they even care? Why do people keep mentioning it as if it’s the ultimate in user friendly?
The “menubar” on the top has great benefits if you try to provide an object oriented interface.
This way, the menues and icons of an application relate to the documents (the “objects”) and not to applications. Most user tend to find this easier to understand.
GNOME also seems to move towards a object oriented interface (look at applications like EOG or Nautilus) but is hindered by the fact that menues are bound to every window.
Maybe this will change…
48 hours with Ubuntu….24 hours with Kbuntu….12 hours with Debain….6 hours with Mandrake…3 hours with Suse
1 hour with Fedora…half hour with Windows XP and 10 minutes with Free-DOS…..
I am not sure why someone as knowledgeable like Eugenia posts something like this on her website. It certainly does not make any sense to hype something just to see it going down in future. Well I admit concept of Ubuntu is to provide bleeding edge Debian..but this is what is affecting linux …everyone thinks of new concept and lists their distro on Distrowatch….instead of focussing on the apps on linux…and when some1 says developer should listen to users….you get shouted at
No Thanks…..Xp is fine with me if I have to deal with this chaos…..or even better FreeBSD
You might like to try finding out what the Act actually says – namely that goods must last a “reasonable period of time” without failing. It’s open to a lot of debate, but I’d argue that the logic board failing a year after being bought, but a week out of warranty should be covered – as he apparently has.
It sounds like Apple are arguing that they can contract out of it, which is a typical merchant’s mistake, and they deserve what they get for it.
I think he goes well overboard on a lot of points, notably:
The login screen uses the term “username”.
The login screen uses the term “reboot”. (My shoes are fine as they are, thanks.)
In short: Get over it! “username” and “reboot” are terms people should understand – if they don’t, they’re too damn stupid to use a computer.
What’s next, you won’t be allowed to tell people that they have to “change” the “oil” in the “engine” of their car?
A few specific comments:
Number 1: Nothing but MacOS works this way (or KDE if you want to make it all crap). Live with it – I’d argue it’s completely unintuitive because application menus are delocalised from the application they refer to.
28: Obviously it’s different, the screen’s locked, you aren’t logging in as a new user. Seems fine to me.
32: Linux problem, which has a lot to do with lack of hardware specs and broken ACPI implementations.
33: How on earth does that happen? I’m using KDE, but it provides me with a shutdown option in the same place as log out – as one would expect!
At least Firefox seems nicer here than it does for him!
Gaim’s never done it for me, but I have to argue with number 61: He’d be criticising it if it didn’t have a send button – it can’t win!
Can’t argue with the last one though!
Applications are the most important bits of a computer. True.
But the manner in which these applications are provided is also very importand. Integration, common ground, dictum of the least surprise. Imagine if a third of your applications required a double click to open a menu but a singe click to start an application, another third requires double clicks for buttons but.. you get it.
It’s a distributor’s task to provide and create this integration. Microsoft and Apple have a very thight grip on their systems and have the manpower to do this.
<i.I am not sure why someone as knowledgeable like Eugenia posts something like this on her website. It certainly does not make any sense to hype something just to see it going down in future[/i]
There were several stories before this one for 8 hours, maybe 3 replys in that time, this story hits and 20 minutes later there is 20 posts. That is your reason. say Ubuntu and the genie appears to grant you many clicks.
nothing against the ppl on OS news, they have bills.
I think this is a killer one:
21. In the “Time and Date Settings” control panel, I have checked the checkbox “Periodically synchronize clock with Internet servers“. If my Ethernet cable isn’t plugged in during startup, Ubuntu spends 63 seconds “configuring network interfaces”, in which I assume it learns that I’m not connected to the Internet. (If it doesn’t learn this, what is it doing all that time?) It then takes another 37 seconds trying to synchronize the clock with a time server, which can’t work because (surprise!) I’m not connected to the Internet. I don’t mind the clock synchronizing “periodically” — but please, not when I’m waiting for Ubuntu to start up.
I’m forced to have both network cards down (wireless and ethernet) in my laptop because of this particular issue in Mandrake. 37 seconds to acknowledge eth0 is not connected is simply too much.
Having to su and ifup ethX to start the network card is a really bad orientation, but it is exactly what I have to do with kde every day.
I think there are a number of good observations, which the GNOME devs would do well to consider. Also, I must disagee with Jaramin — I think it’s possible to have both an easily usable and familiar interface.
There are few points I would quibble over, like the icon+text thing.
I must, however, disagree with his #1, and his later related point about there being no Nautilus menu bar at the top of the desktop. First, it’s efficient to keep functional bits associated with their targets — this allows one to use multiple apps at once without having to travel up to the top of the desktop, as well as avoid the flashing of the screen as the top menu bar reconfigures itself. Second, I see the desktop as a space, not a mega-app — I find it more logical for the menus to stick with the app windows. His objection might make more sense on a PDA.
This (and the Hello Kitty looks and single mouse-button) is why I could never warm to Mac. A screenie of my GNOME desktop below, for comparison (1400×1050):
http://sourav.net/Screenshot.png
I honestly hope GNOME never implements #1. I’ve always found that having a single menu bar at the top of the screen as Macs do both confusing and inefficient. Menu bars like that are leftovers from when Mac OS was primarily a single process operating system, and it should have been ditched long ago.
Having one menu bar for every application is confusing because then it is not directly connected with the application. It appears to be global, but function local to the application. If the focus is on the wrong window, for various reasons, it can lead to very confusing and potentially destructive behavior.
My gripe with menubar on top of the screen is that it doesn’t work with “focus follows mouse”, which I prefer.
Some people have commented already that this guy knows his job and that he further got hired by Canonical. I assume this happened recently and his first job was to evaluate Hoary in order to have an overview of the issues involved.
Further, this review has been noted by both the Ubuntu guys (not surprisingly) e.g. in
http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2005-April/006796.htm…
and http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2005-April/001682.html as well as some GNOME guys. Davyd Madeley (gnome-applets maintainer) says in
http://www.livejournal.com/users/davyd/139939.html
“This is the sort of bad-arse interface testing we need“. Nat Friedman says in
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2005-April/msg000…
“If GUADEC were next week, I would propose that the hackfest be based on
Matthew Thomas’s excellent GNOME UI review (which you can and should
read at http://mpt.net.nz/). But I don’t think we should wait till
GUADEC to fix the problems that Matthew lists, so we should choose
another topic for the GUADEC hackfest“
“The Ubuntu hype keeps coming. Today we offer another article mentioning 60+ things where Ubuntu has tried to clone XP and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.”
Bingo.
The funniest part of all of these reviews/distro wars/flamebait articles is that they post screenshot after screenshot on OSDir.
Wonder how many duplicate images exist on there now, since these reviewers and distro-makers insist on putting up screenshots of KDE/Gnome with a modified wallpaper.
Even funnier? The fact that zealots insist on blathering about how Ubuntu/Lindows/Debian/Slackware isn’t Linux, but it’s the Linux kernel and a collection of GNU apps.
Then they put screenshots on OSDir. It should be renamed WMDir.
Although I did not agree with the author concerning several points he raised, his criticism of the GNOME+applications(ie. Ubuntu desktop) is likely to appeal to certain developers.
Firstly he is not cricising those things which ‘geeks'(like me and most of you) frequently complain about. He is not complaing about ‘speed’ -one of the most difficult things to quantify, one which is mostly an issue of perception(an aapp that *feels* slow, *is* slow) and one which is notirously difficult to tackle due to so many intervening factors.
Secondly he is not complaining about ‘bloat’-which usually can mean about a dozen different things depending on the context. He is not posting the contents of ‘top’ to tell us about how some applications apparently consume gobs of memory.
What he has done is rather simple. He is a die-hard Macintosh fan-for him how the Macintosh does things is not only the natural way but the way all things should be. Now I happen to very much disagree with this position-but it gives him a unique perspective of the GNOME/Linux desktop. He is obviously one of those ‘artsy’ types
-of which there are so few in the Linux community. The visual pleasantness of the interface and it’s functionality and usability flow from underlying philosophical approaches in his view. Although I do not wish to overly endorse such a viewpoint-such critique can be very usefull(for me beauty is not a function of the ‘correctness’ ie. the truth, of the underlying philosophy.)
Macintosh has had one distinct advantage over every other computing interface around- they, Apple, have catered to the ‘artsy’ types, the aetheticists, from day one with the introduction of the Lisa. Consequently such people belong to the loyal cadres of Macintosh users. For usch users the functionality of the system is the big ‘given’ and therefore the issue of refinement is the defining issue. Linux is gradually reaching the stage of declaring functionality to be given and embarking upon the phase of refinement and of course people demand far, far more from Linux than they do from Macintosh.
Considering how snobbish many of the Macintosh folks traditionally have been concerning all things user interface his remarks about Ubuntu were, to put it mildy, rather positive. Apparently Ubuntu’s desktop (ie. GNOME+applications) was sufficiently simliar to the functionality to which he was accustomed that he commented very little about the overall design of the system. Most of his comments are about small details-buttons, labels, etc. Now of course the devil is in the details but apparently GNOME is converging on the extremely high aesthetic tastes which has been the hallmark and identity of Macintosh users. Though I should note that this is certainly not as much the case as it once was, mere mortals can afford a Macintosh nowadays so the elitist days are numbered.
Most of the things he criticized are relatively simple to change eg. wording and text-very minor indeed. Much of what he criticizes are issues of self-same consistency-much of which is extremely difficult to address due to the myriad of sources of software-most GNOME applications are largely self-same consistent-but the Linux desktop is always a hybrid-Mozilla and Synaptic are only superficially integrated in a GNOME desktop. Many people criicze the apparent duplication of applications present in GNOME-ie. why do we need epiphany when we already have firefox ? But the reason is simple- epiphany is a HIG compliant GNOME browser today, whereas firefox may be, one day, adaptaed to more perfectly fit into the GNOME desktop.
The folks from Ubuntu can only act on a very small subset of the things which the author pointed out. Ubuntu, alone, cannot change, synaptic or Mozilla, or change fundamentals in GNOME-or shall we say-they should not otherwise GNOME is not GNOME anymore(as evidenced by the fairly braindead changes they made to nautilus.)
I honestly believe one of the biggest issues in Linux land is simply a question of ironing out. Most issues have been redressed at various points along the way-but these issues have never been really ironed-out and re-appear over and over again in a trully discouraging way. The folks at GNOME and KDE have known for years how one correctly implements the X copy/paste mechanism but we have seen regressions in this functionality routinely over the years-where in one release it all ‘just works’ and in the following release whoops it broke again. The Linux desktop is slow to solidify, slow to completely resolve issues once and for all. It is trully rare in the Linux world that some issue is resolved finally-sometimes it is just smarter to change certain things and leave them the way they are-this kind of consistency is something users trully appreciate-even more so thatn the percieved ‘correct solution’.
Such things carry over into the diffcult nebula of user expectations-those who use Linux regularly tend to have a large repetoire of workarounds at their disposal to confront issues where there expectations would lead them to expect something other than what they actually experience. There is something broken in every other release of the mime type specification and some of these errors are just mind numbing…ie. stock gnome-2.8 could not correctly recognize Word documents due to someone who incorrectly changed the MIME type association according to some inconcievable whim.
The good news is that the more people end up bitching about the small things, the *details*, the more apparent it is that the majority of things actually just work-otherwise noone would even bother complaining. I really wish many of the developers could/would simply grok this fact. Users complainingg about things is actually a very, very good sign that the devs are doing a lot of things right-complaints are always relative against the back drop of assumed and expected functionality.
Stock Ubuntu is extremely fine-tailored for the GNOME desktop. In contrast to most distributions Ubuntu comes with very few applications. So the issues of self-same consistency in Ubuntu are arguably much smaller than in the vast majority of distributions. I realized how important these issues are for my users when I setup our LTSP system. I have Ubuntu installed as a fallback system on my home computer-I like it but do not regularly use it-but when I went about setting up our LTSP system I followed a similiar philosophy- I tried to use GNOME applications whereever possible so that my users only have to learn *one* file save/open dialog, *one* print dialog, etc. One can also achieve much the same with KDE-but I found that our users simply avoided most of the functionality of the system at the time KDE was the standard-it was simply to confusing and powerful for them-they would click something somewhere and something would happen which they could not grok-and when what happened was bad they pathologically avoided using the application…
Overall I wish that most reviews of a distribution were focused on the kinds of issues that the author touched upon. I would hope that some developers actually feel motivated by such criticism….
I hope the GNOME developers will take at least some of his suggestions into account (I still prefer the menu-per-window approach). That said, I’d love to hear what the author has to say about KDE.
I don’t think the writer understands what the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act is for.
From the link:
“The Act gives you rights when you buy faulty goods.”
I think he’ll have a hard time convincing Apple that his PowerBook which worked fine for a year and a half before it died, is faulty goods.
The Consumer Guarantes Act lays responsiblity at the retailers feet i.e. the Apple dealer, not Apple.
The reason for such a law is so you don’t buy an already broken product and then have to buy a whole new one that works.
The act has a durability clause in it, just many similiar laws in different countries.
I suggest the writer reads up on Mercantile law a little bit more before making an ass of ones self.
Perhaps you should have a read yourself: http://www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz/consumerinfo/cga/faultygoods.htm…
The reason for such a law is so you don’t buy an already broken product and then have to buy a whole new one that works.
I think that’s fair enough.
What’s the standard warranty that comes with buying a new power-book?
interesting article…! good that he picked out the mistakes so that they can be corrected within six months…
try sending the same list to Redmond Way and they will probably read it and trash it or if they really like it they will implement it in an OS after probably 2007-2002=5 years
The usability comments he makes could be made of any operating system other than Mac OS X, and even in Mac OS X toolbars quite often appear within the Window, not on top.
Point 18 is especially silly, as a programmer who follows the common convention of using ALL_CAPS to distinguish constants from variables, I have occasion to use the CapsLock key. Further, I really don’t see the advantage in an operating system refusing to support two keys present on every computer keyboard.
Point 19 betrays an ignorance of whats going on. The use is not “changing settings” as they can often change settings without the super-user password. A better caption would be “Escalating Privileges” or something similar
Point 20 is equally valid. It does not matter what the computer displays when starting up and shutting down, as there is nothing for the user to do during these sequences. However if the computer fails to start correctly, this “technical gibberish” could prove invaluable in gaining support and fixing the problem. Usability isn’t about pretty pictures.
Regarding point 24, “Reboot” is a technical term that, thanks to Hollywood, must computer users understand easily
In point 26 the author claims not to understand the meaning of “Default System Session” in the “Session” menu. This is just deliberate stupidity.
Point 27 demonstrates an astounding ignorance of how computers, and in particular Linux, work. Thanks to the Unix architecture, this _is_ a settings folder in which the use can root around for the necessary data, or else use the relatively easy gconf-editor to look into the problem. However, like all settings folders, it’s hidden so the user doesn’t have to search in their home folder for their own files. And there is a graphical option to reveal hidden files.
Point 28. The reason for the different appearance of the login screen and unlock details screen is that in the latter you don’t have to specify session or language, nor shall you need to shutdown or reboot the machine. There are application issues too, but that’s beside the point. A better point for the author to make would be the different terms used to identify the fields for user and password.
With regard to point 33, the home edition of Microsoft Windows XP, in my experience, takes up to 15 seconds to shutdown. Time to shutdown isn’t a usability issue though, again it’s something the user walks away from. What is a usability issue is the absence of a shutdown option from within the session, so they don’t have to wait to log out (the time quoted by the author is disturbing, I’ve never had a healthy system take 25sec to log out). Most Linux distros have this, I’m surprised Ubuntu doesn’t, particularly as they only support the one desktop environment.
Point 36 is a usability bonus as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen more users accidentally start renaming files when trying to open them, than I’ve seen users accidentally start open when trying to rename them. The context menu is the correct way of renaming files in my opinion.
Regarding Point 42, most users are taught to use the context menu (it’s not a “short-cut menu”). All USB devices need to be “unmounted” (though “Deactivate” or “Prepare to Eject” are better temrs). And the context menu is far superior to the Windows approach which involves an obscure icon in the system tray.
The author lists the four applications in point 43 as if this were some unaccountably backward feature of Ubuntu, even though it’s common on most platforms, bar MacOS X where iTunes is a do-it-all application. In usability terms, I see these as separate tasks: why should a user who knows nothing about digital must and just wants to play a CD be confronted with a full on MP3 player, organiser, CD Burner and CD Ripper?
The points about Firefox and Evolution are mostly acceptable except the “Host Lookup” one (point 56). Applications attempting to magically work around errors creates unexpected behaviour: it’s better to be upfront with the user (and maybe suggest the offline mode).
The Gaim points are poor though. There’s no point having an IM app open when you’re not on the Internet, and it’s right to complain. Your account is in the buddy list so it’s easy for you to find and edit it. The Send button is there for people who don’t know to press Enter (how will they know this?).
A lot of this article is pie-in-the-sky aspirational nonsense. This is a pity, as there are some good points buried in there. In particlar the use of brown for widgets. Brown does not offer an adequate level of contrast with either white or brown text for users to be able to read the text easily (contrast is important, a lot of people work with colour deficits). While brown backgrounds are nice, the widget set should use high-contrast colours (e.g. navy with white text for selections).
I’m surprised the author has been employed by Canonical, his technical knowledge seems quite sparse, or else he’s being deliberately stupid, on the assumption that the average computer user has the intelligence of a stunned goldfish. While many cynical IT professionals may come to suspect this, it’s not true, and software should not be designed on that basis.
Why does every single opinion random person X post on random website Y turn into a news item?
“A USB device must be “unmounted” before it is disonnected from the computer, to prevent loss of information. However, the only way to access this function is by a shortcut menu, which few people will ever see.”
Sh*t! Do you really have to do this? I’d better inform my Dad, on whose computer I installed Hoary recently as an experiment. I know you have to “stop” devices in pre-XP versions of Windows, but I never thought it was necessary for digital cameras in Win XP or, I guess, Ubuntu. I just unplug my digital camera all the time and haven’t experienced any data loss.
Anyone care to comment?
Exactly. The last line says:
> I am grateful to my boss for lending me the laptop on which
> I have been using Ubuntu, and for giving me the go-ahead to
> post this entry, but I don’t speak for my employer and they
> don’t speak for me. My boss, by the way, is Mark
> Shuttleworth. I’m working for his company, Canonical, as an
> interface designer.
>
It’s a GUI from a Mac user’s perspective. IMO, some of the comments are just differences from the Mac. In particular comment 1 is something I absolutely hated about the Mac and would balk at GNOME if a global menu were the only option available. Just because Fitts Law is true, doesn’t mean that there should be no menus within windows, All it says is that items on the edges of the screen should be important because they are so easy to get to. My major beef with the global menu at the top is that it’s dynamically generated. I have a similar beef with MS Window’s menus that only show you the last few items that you selected and hide the rest under “…”. My second major beef has to do with the principle of locality which states that you tend to always work in the same are of the screens and do the same sort of thing, so it makes sense to group things close to where you work. That’s why Firefox or xterm tabs are so much better than the global windows task bar, even though they do the same thing. (Note that tabs violate Fitts law). If you’re browsing, your next task will likely be to keep browsing, if you’re in an xterm, the same is true. If you have multiple windows open (my own use case keep dozens of windows open, most of which are not maximized), you’ll likely stay in the same corner of the screen and not want to flick your mouse to the opt of the screen and then move your mouse back to the app.
Anyway, I know there’s a lot of emotion behind the global menu, so I wouldn’t mind if it were an option, just not the only option.
> The login screen uses the term “reboot”. (My shoes are fine as they are,
> thanks.)
Dumbest. Complaint. Ever.
<cite who=”Roguelazer”>
> The login screen uses the term “reboot”. (My shoes are fine as they are,
> thanks.)
Dumbest. Complaint. Ever.
</cite>
No, it’s not.
“booting” originates in bootstrap, which refers to the little strap on the backside of youre boots. This strap helps to get into the boots.
But “reboot” is a silly term which has no logical connection to “restart the computer”.
Why should anyone be required to learn that “rebooting the the process of restarting the computer” when “restarting the computer” is easier to understand an even more logical?
Sorry.
especially the one about the non-modal print dialogue in Firefox and the “save as” in Gimp. None of the two problems he explained is possible to achieve in Ubuntu Hoary. I tried and failed to reproduce it.
However: this guy is obviously no fool, and almost all of his points are certainly valid. Reading that he is actually hired by Canonical to do interface design brings a warm fuzzy feeling to me, because it seems he can actually make a difference.
here are some important points:
Until you start dragging, resize handles and scrollbar thumbs give no indication of whether you clicked on them successfully or whether you missed.
this is important, and it’s part of making a GUI responsive. a GUI must show different states of widget.
The mouse pointer does not hide itself when it is stationary and I start using the keyboard. As a result, it frequently gets in the way of what I am typing or reading.
this would be a nice feature for gnome 2.12 or ubuntu breezy
There is no indication of whether an item in the top panel is intended for use with the left mouse button (such as the “Network Monitor”), the right mouse button (such as the rebelliously sentence-case “Modem monitor”), or neither (such as the “Battery Charge Monitor”). It’s like the Windows system tray mess all over again.
again, GUI responsivness comes from the GUI giving you hints to the states of widgets and thier usage (which is why 3D buttons are part of usability, in some sense). what I think should happen is that left-click items should change when hovered upon, while right-click items should not.
All the text in the login interface — including the login field itself — is too small, and most of it is too low-contrast, to read comfortably.
again, good point, this is a problem you see in many themes.
I mentioned only the points that I find most important, but I think that in general his comments should be looked upon.
His iBook broke AFTER his warranty expiration. He is going to have a hard time with that law. The reseller is probably going to tell him to get bent.
Mr Bryan Feene, you obviously did not understand that the reviewewer was trying to put himself in a non-technical user’s pair of shoes. This is the main target audience of the Ubuntu distribution. Please do not feel offended but with accusing the author of not understanding the basics you showed about as much finesse as a dead beached whale.
To the author of the review – a big thanks for very valid UI points, it’s really good they’ve been noticed and well received by the Gnome and Ubuntu devs (http://www.livejournal.com/users/davyd/139939.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2005-April/msg000…).
Also, some great sense of humour, made me giggling like hell.
Regards,
antoni
Well, you *still* have to “stop” or unmount USB disklike devices in Windows XP. Just because you haven’t experienced data-loss does not mean it is not necessary. Memory cards don’t in digital cameras are usually only read so data loss is not likely, but just disconnecting them is *not* the right way of doing things. And Windows XP probably gives you a big warning about having disconnected a device without stopping it.
So.
For some reason I usually find software both insulting my intelligence and hideously complicated. It’s just bad design. Even if you spell it B-A-D and paint it in pastels, it’s still bad design.
Other than that, I like Caps Lock. I don’t think I like ]/} that much though ([/{ is fine).
> you obviously did not understand that the reviewewer was trying to put himself in a non-technical user’s pair of shoes. This is the main target audience of the Ubuntu distribution.
I do remember “training” a friend of a friend to double click icons, he had a hard time (really). Ubuntu must take care of this pressing usability issue ASAP.
Some points for you to note. I’m naming no names; this applies to more than half of you. I probably mean *you*.
1. Read the article. Twice. /Then/ criticise.
2. This chap is famed for being a very critical nit-picker of user interfaces after his critique of Mac OS X. This article is a follow up to that one, as it says clearly in it. Read the first article *as well* before you comment.
3. You do /know/ what Ubuntu is about, don’t you? It’s a privately-funded initiative to create a friendly all-Free desktop Linux. On context, what better move than to find someone who’s a savage usability critic and hire him, so that he will show you how to improve?
(This for all those idiots who went “duh! He’s criticizing his own company!” ‘Ironical,’ my ass. ‘Surprising,’ my ass.)
4. He picks on points that are the things technies with specialist knowledge have left in the UI. It doesn’t *matter* if a techie knows what they mean; what matters is that a *non*-techie does *not* know. E.g. unmount, reboot, etc.
(This for all those idiots who went “duh! He doesn’t know what ‘reboot’ means. It’s jargon. Jargon is bad.)
5. It’s not a review, it’s a critique. Go look it up.
6. He’s *not* a newbie, he’s a pro. If you think he’s a newbie it’s because you haven’t understood what he is actually saying. This man is not only a skilled pro, he can do something you can’t: put himself in a newbie’s shoes. He’s /better/ at this than you. All you achieve by criticising him is to make yourselves look very stupid.
That article is an /excellent/ little piece of writing, as demonstrated by the respect given to it by the GNOME developers already. If you don’t get its point, it’s *you* that’s missing something. I suggest you go looking for it.
There is no one *right* way to configure a desktop environment. It is *very* obvious that he is an apple user, as most of his comments seem to say “this isn’t like apple does it, so it’s bad”. He does seem to know the GUI design lingo, but I think he makes calls on some GUI issues which are not all black and white.
Interesting to read, by no means do I hope Ubuntu, GNOME, or whoever takes these as gospel.
Hey, I think I like this guy. OS makers pay attention.
most, as in like 95%, of the things this guys complains about as beeing ‘flaws’ are things that i like in my OS.
Two words. Great article.
This is what I call good feedback. I really hope
the linux community will “absorb” some or all (I hope)
of this.
Ive been waiting a long for a fair “review” of a linux distributions for some time now. Im gettin migrane headaches of all so called reviews that doesnt really present anything deeper than “I used [INSERT PACKAGE MANAGEMENT TOOL NAME HERE] and selected GAIM and clicked install” and it worked flawlessly. So what? What if it doesnt work? If I wanna upgrade and if I get dependency problems that it can´t solve without user-input? What If I need to build it myself?
Im not saying its a BAD thing to know that its easy to
install/update the system but its bad that its generally just that or something other thats just touching
the surface thats brought up in reviews. This tells us
alot of review authors.
Nothing is perfect.
I was a bit confused with the complaint
on the term username.
Whats wrong with the term Username? I think
its a perfectly good and logic name. I prefer that
rather than “Login name” or just “login” or some other variant. Username – the name of the user. Very selfexplanatory.
Tnx
Simply put, it’s an excellet read. There are many tiny points that he makes that are all obvious once pointed out and definitely need to be addressed.
It’s true that some points are pedantic and from a Mac user’s point of view. However overall it’s a nice article and I hope Ubuntu and Gnome developers pick up as many things as possible.
> “It is ironic that the author being a interface design engineer with Canonical writes in detail about GUI design flaws for the Linux distro that his company produces.”
It’s not only ironical but also a good thing. Imagine an employee from Apple or Micros~1 would write a public article about design flaws in the operating system of his company. I doubt he will get promoted for it…
That’s what I love Linux for.
<em>I do remember “training” a friend of a friend to double click icons, he had a hard time (really). Ubuntu must take care of this pressing usability issue ASAP.</em>
he he! switch to Single Click then… Check out somewhere in System> Preferences [> Mouse ??]
I find a little disturbing and very annoyed that every time mr. noone writes a review of a distro (ubuntu in this case) all the web sites run to notify like it’s gospel on earth. tha last one is a long description of “i don’t’ like brown” “I dont’like round edge, and white shades and this border and this color and this icon”. So what? five years ago we were talking about serious issues like no mouse support and now we give credit to a long list of colors “demode”.
please reserve your space for more meaningful reviews.
“My gripe with menubar on top of the screen is that it doesn’t work with “focus follows mouse”, which I prefer.”
BINGO
“His iBook broke AFTER his warranty expiration. He is going to have a hard time with that law. The reseller is probably going to tell him to get bent.”
Some countries (including my Norway and apparantly New Zealand) actually has laws that prohibit manufacturers from only offering you a ridiculuously short warranty period.
A one year warranty is pathetic given that it is a machine that is meant to work for much longer than 1 year. If it breaks after two years after nothing but regular use, the machine was badly produced in the first place, and should be fixed (or replaced) at no cost.
In Norway you are by law guaranteed either a three year or a five year period (depending on a fuzzy idea of how long the product is supposed to last) in which you can require the manufacturer to fix the product at no cost. If they refuse, you can take them to court (or have national consumer organisation take them to court). The Apple “1 year warranty” is fairly meaningless in Norway but at least makes them less likely to stir up a fuss.
If the US don’t have that kind of consumer act, you consumers are getting screwed.
Most manufacturers cave when you confront them with the law. This apparently is what happened with his iBook as well.
Yup, I’m a “style” guy too. What’s so phenominally trival to most linux users is flaming-death-from-above to me. Labels, buttons, capitalisation etc.
This lack of believing that this is important is one of the hurdles in getting Linux mainstream. And just like office Joe who doesn’t understand the importance of Graphic Design when Clipart-logo “will do”, Linux devs seem to think that these are non-issues.
They’re probably the biggest issues linux has to deal with. Mainstream does not mean Windows users. Mainstream means “Mum & Dad”
Great article.
This is not a review of Ubuntu, but a list of issues he has with user interface in Gnome
<extreme sarcasm>
But wait a minute, Gnome is perfect and its developers have made it pretty farking clear that they need no input from mere mortals because they always know best.
</extreme sarcasm>
Most of his points are good, though there are a few I disagree with. Many of these points are pretty nitpicky, but the details are important and should not be ignored (I just don’t consider many of these “showstoppers”). However, I think reading this article and taking it to mean that Gnome/Ubuntu is worse than some other system are missing the point of the article. He’s done a similar critique of OSX and found issues. I’m sure he’d find problems with Windows and KDE. I hope that Gnome developers will read these points and consider fixing most of them.
Lastly, like several others have said, PLEASE don’t implement #1.
Some of his points ring true, but I generally found him to mention a lot of rubbish. Like saying that mouse-over highlights are bad because they are distracting? I think you’ll find they are great because they make it clear what widgets can be interacted with. It should be obvious from the widget’s appearance that it is an clickable widget, but a consistent mouse over hint is excellent feedback.
I forget what else I disagreed with as I read it last week. But I figured I should counter some of the ridiculous praise he’s getting.
Sure he clearly has some education in this field and some sense, and some of his points were new to me and quite excellent, but he also talked some utter nonsense and I’d not employ him if I ran a software house.
I’d very much like to see the whole UI paradigm of modern OS’s move to that of something similar to Motion.
Context sensitive “dashboards” that are dynamic, intuitive, unobtrusive, and always directly below your mouse. Fitts Law taken to a useful extreme, that can also be done in a very aesthetically pleasing manner.
I suppose a bit like NeXTstep, just better implemented for today’s computing landscape.
About the only tricky facet of such a system is how to deal with determining context for keyboard navigation/shortcuts without focus of the cursor, though in all likely hood it would function much the same way it does now via top most z-order cues.
“It’s a GUI from a Mac user’s perspective.”
read his usability critique of osx. he isnt a mac user, and went off about as long on the stupidities introduced with osx. HCI didnt start at apple, but that is where the field really took off, and you will find alot of apple praise in most usability literature.
“IMO, some of the comments are just differences from the Mac. In particular comment 1 is something I absolutely hated about the Mac and would balk at GNOME if a global menu were the only option available. Just because Fitts Law is true, doesn’t mean that there should be no menus within windows, All it says is that items on the edges of the screen should be important because they are so easy to get to. My major beef with the global menu at the top is that it’s dynamically generated.”
Well, you are correct if you say that Fittes Law != Apple Menu. What Fittes Law proves is that the Apple Menu is more efficient then the the menu on every window. And the apple menu is generated based on context, its kind of like saying that you dont like the contextual menu because it gives different options depending on what you click.
In an interface, modes are bad. Todays operating systems are inhearently modal by nature, simply because of applications (or “modes in sheeps clothing”, great quote, dont remember where i read it). A large part of the apple design goes towards blending the operating system and applications together. While far from perfect, it is a step up from the MDI approach which is to use the os as a bucket to host multiple application “environments”.
The apple menu allows for a truely spatial environment. If you look at some of the gnome hybrid spatial/non-spatial applications (i.e. the gimp) you will see how much the menubar on each window idea sucks.
I have a similar beef with MS Window’s menus that only show you the last few items that you selected and hide the rest under “…”.
microsofts R&D into an “adaptive” interface is the HCI equivilent to that slow kid everyone picked on at school to make themselves feel better about themselves 😉
those menus fly in the face of everything we know about how to design a good interface, and not suprisingly, are pretty much universally hated by the end user. almost every book i have read about usability has a field day with word in general, but those menus in particular.
My second major beef has to do with the principle of locality which states that you tend to always work in the same are of the screens and do the same sort of thing, so it makes sense to group things close to where you work. That’s why Firefox or xterm tabs are so much better than the global windows task bar, even though they do the same thing.
Sorta, but not quite. Think of an MDI as a porthole into a mac environment only for that one application. Microsoft came up with the MDI to get around the fact that windows does not work well with spatial applications. What they ended up doing is coming up with an os inside an os type of deal, that noone really fully got, because windows doesnt use a menu to switch between windows, it uses a taskbar. All that tabs are is an MDI with a taskbar. Its a very simple change, but far more consistant with the overall paradigm, and users love them because of that.
(Note that tabs violate Fitts law).
Tabs dont violate Fittes law, but Fittes law proves that a taskbar at the bottom (or top) of the screen will be more efficient then inside the application. Tabs fix one of the big inconsistancies of the MDI.
If you’re browsing, your next task will likely be to keep browsing, if you’re in an xterm, the same is true. If you have multiple windows open (my own use case keep dozens of windows open, most of which are not maximized), you’ll likely stay in the same corner of the screen and not want to flick your mouse to the opt of the screen and then move your mouse back to the app.
Close, but not quite. Tabs are a better attempt at the MDI idea, which is the os is a host for multiple environments. The spatial paradigm is that the os is the environment.
Anyway, I know there’s a lot of emotion behind the global menu, so I wouldn’t mind if it were an option, just not the only option.
Terrific article. Not only coming from someone experienced, but also a great source of learning.
Rating: 10/10
And also, great fun to read too!
A bit of humility on the part of ubuntu staff, and a stop at their omipresent ubuntu spamming in just any thread would be welcome!
I dont have a problem with the Computer icon getting removed from the desktop, but something needs to take its place, and that isnt the Places menu. It would also help if the shortcut to the home folder (alt-home i think?) worked everywhere, not just when nautilus is the active window. the old adage “out of sight, out of mind” is what the menu is built on, it is a wildly efficient control for putting things that should be out of the way. but if I am looking at my desktop, chances are I want to do file management, and having to go menu trawling is a step back. of course, this is easily remedied on my box by sticking a link to home just to the right of the clock, leveraging the only corner not used in the stock setup (btw, kudos to ubuntu and gnome for being the only environment to use the four second most valuable pixels to their full advantage.)
A quasi-mode of some sort is needed for ejecting removeable media. (i.e. shift click, or ctrl click, or something along those lines). i remember on os classic, apple-Y would eject the disk (or dragging it to the trash, which is dumb for obvious reasons).
we need a more elegant solution for spatial nautilus + multiple workspaces. i open home in ws 1, switch to ws 4 and open home again, that will jump me back to ws 1. Personally, i would find it perferrable to
a) have the home menu move to ws 4, which is where i called it from
b) have a “spatial inside this workspace” type deal going on.
As much as spatial nautilus is enjoyable, it is totally ill suited for deep file trees (like unix). on the mac classic, the default install would have nothing more than three folders deep, even system files. This is why spatial finder worked so well on the mac, but more is needed for it to work in a unix environment, which is why they introduced list-view. After some reorginization of my home folder to a more flat directory tree, spatial nautilus works like a charm. however, if i need to edit xorg.conf, im going to fire up a terminal. ctrl-L defeats the purpose of visual file management. Nautilus as a browser does work fine for such things, but being forced to use two completely different applications for file management halves your efficiency.
the views in nautilus (just in general) need a serious overhaul. list should be able to display or hide any metadata i wish, and playing with the icon sizing/placement is about as much fun as trying to get the windows taskbar to work well with 20+ open applications. there are simply no configuration choices that i find even acceptable for a file manager.
maximize needs to go. there is no need for it whatsoever in nautilus. sure, this is inconsistant, but so is every other aspect of nautilus’ behavior. the mac “zoom” button would be far more appropriate, but removing maximize behavior is damn near nessicary.
——————-
im a huge fan of the spatial metaphor, but i think in the case of nautilus, it falls on its ass in all but a few scenarios. I would love if gnome because a fully spatial environment, but as long as it isnt, nautilus flys in the face of their own conventions.
The funny part was:
“61. Chat windows have a “Send” button, which will slow some people down by misleading them into thinking that they need to click the button every time they type something, instead of pressing Enter.”
what if your “Enter” key is broken?
what if you’re happy about your new mouse and want to use it?
there are too many reasons why it is there. Of course it’s rarely used, but it has to be there.
it’s like a spare key, it’s rarely used, but you need it when necessary.
I mean I tried and constantly try this and those distros, call ti a straneg hobby. Ubuntu is no different. So, when I read the stuff and see:
latest and greatest operating system built on the Linux kernel, Gnome, the GNU utilities, and the Debian packaging system
Well, if he means that on the Debian packaging system and on the uniqely large Debian package repositories, than for god’s sake, say it, don’t blur the lines.
Then, the above is the only place where Debian is at all mentioned all over the stuff. Ahem. Good boy. The give credit where it’s due line is so oldish, let’s forget it.
I recognize that Ubuntu is perhaps the most usable Linux-based operating system yet.
Again, … Linux-based, true, Debian-based, the truth.
One just gotta love when Ubuntu people despise Debian all over again saying it’s too old and too slow, then praise one based on it to heavens and back, and that twice.
I have nothign against Ubuntu apart from that I don’t think it’s the best distro out there. But I feel very bad when I see that credit is being lost.
you are probably one of those guys who gets upset when someone refers to linux, instead of GNU/Linux. Or spazzes when someone refers to linux+userland as linux.
mandrake is redhat based, but they dont even mention that on the site. suse is the grandchild of slack, and i dont see that mentioned either. takes some digging to find out that linspire is debian based.
theres a difference between pedantic to the point of idiocy, and taking credit for others work. when i go to “about ubuntu”(http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/) i find:
“Ubuntu is a free, open source operating system that starts with the breadth of Debian and adds regular releases (every six months), a clear focus on the user and usability (it should “Just Work”, TM) and a commitment to security updates with 18 months of support for every release. Ubuntu ships with the latest Gnome release as well as a selection of server and desktop software that makes for a comfortable desktop experience off a single installation CD.”
That is a good description of what it is, where it comes from, and its purpose for existance. I dont see not mentioning debian sarge in the same breath as ubuntu as trying to take credit for debian.
dang if this piece of work is considered an article i could write one of theese. i think i will go testdrive a ford truck, list everything that is different between it and my chevy. call them flaws. get it published somewhere. this ‘author’ is a joke.
what if your “Enter” key is broken?
what if you’re happy about your new mouse and want to use it?
there are too many reasons why it is there. Of course it’s rarely used, but it has to be there.
it’s like a spare key, it’s rarely used, but you need it when necessary.
well, those are two reasons, and the second one didnt make much sense. i would argue that at least on a unix system, if your enter key is broken, IM is the LEAST of your problems.
I think some of the points are right, but i think he has to think about some points again..
I mean, if you use Linux and don’t know the “Foot” stands for Gnome.. Why should anyone care there’s a foot there..
I mean, if you use Linux and don’t know the “Foot” stands for Gnome.. Why should anyone care there’s a foot there..
If you use Linux and don’t know the 4 colored thing stands for Windows why should you care?
That’s why Firefox or xterm tabs are so much better than the global windows task bar, even though they do the same thing. (Note that tabs violate Fitts law).
I agree completely although I could not have put it down so clearly.
now his is a little pedantic but…
you can’t “violate” fitt’s law. you can ignore it, maybe fly in the face of it, at best run entirely counter to it. but its not like it is a law in the legal sense. its more like a law in science a mathematical model of a phenomenon. in this case the bigger and closer something is the faster you can get exactly there. the closest thing to “violating” it would basically be to prove it wrong and good luck proving that a single pixel 20 inches away is faster to hit then a corner half an inch away
nothing about tabs disproves fitt’s law or anything they just work well (more or less) despite it.
Someone up a few posts wrote “(I just don’t consider many of these “showstoppers”)”.
All of the items in the article, even if taken separately, are show stoppers. Lack of consistency, misspelled words, arcane jargon I have no interest in, are all problems that plague the Linux distributions I’ve tried–and those items, more than anything else, has kept me wiping Distro A, B, and C off my drives.
If developers and designers (of any product) haven’t gotten to the point of ironing out the fine details, then their product is not ready for the masses.
I am not a computer techie, just as I don’t build cars in my garage as a hobby. If you want to build a car in your garage and then mass produce it and sell it to the masses, then it better not be any worse than the piece of crap I’m driving now. On top of that, if you can’t use proper grammer and punctuation, don’t be expect to be taken seriously–that type of BS is fine for your own Hot Rod you build for yourself, but don’t try and sell that crap to me. I’ll look at it, marvel at your wonderful paint job and your badass engine; just don’t expect me to give you any money for it.
From a non-technical viewpoint, the replies to this article make one thing perfectly clear: Linux has a long way to go to achieve mass acceptance. The quality of the finished product lay in the details. Very few people here seem to recognize that simple statement.
I just installed Ubuntu 5.04 (AMD64 DVD version) and noticed that the installer never asked for a root password. Apparently, you’re supposed to use sudo as a non-root user, which is all fine and good until your machine is switched off without unmounting a disk and an fsck is required on the next reboot…
…That fsck aborted out and said “type root password to perform maintenance” but a root password hadn’t been set! They either need to fix that part of the boot sequence or ask for a root password to be set during the OS install. I ended up booting an FC3 install DVD and doing a linux rescue instead 🙂 Needless to say, I’ve done a “sudo passwd root” now and reverted to “su -” like I do on other distros…
Another thing to watch out if you mix Fedora and Ubuntu on the same hard disk – Ubuntu destroys the partition labelling scheme (LABEL= entries in /etc/fstab) that Fedora uses, so I had to edit Fedora’s /etc/fstab and revert the devices back to /dev/whatever rather than their label names. Oh and the “hibernate” option on the GNOME logout dialogue (which I’d never seen on Fedora) just threw a complete fit on my machine (took forever and then just hung – explains why I had to power off the box without unmounting…).
“Also in this spurt is the Worple Guide which was worpled from the Ubuntu Worple to Worple and is now a permanent feature of the Ubuntu worple worple.”
I laughed myself silly when reading this.
Dialogs themselves are not modal: they let you continue to use the parent window. This allows such nonsensical situations as a “Save as JPEG” dialog for a Gimp image that no longer exists, and a Print dialog for a Web page that is no longer open or even still in Firefox’s cache.
1) There is rarely a good reason to use modal dialogs, they cause many more problems than they solve. E.g., I open up Find and Replace in a text editor, then notice there’s something in the document I’m working on that I want to copy-paste to the Find-Replace dialog. But I can’t switch to the document without closing the dialog, because it’s modal.
2) I can’t speak for Gnome as I haven’t used it extensively, but in BeOS (which also has non-modal dialogs), closing a parent window will typically any dialog windows that it spawned (now I’m curious to see if I *can* get a window to leave an orphan dialogue).
Sh*t! Do you really have to do this? I’d better inform my Dad, on whose computer I installed Hoary recently as an experiment. I know you have to “stop” devices in pre-XP versions of Windows, but I never thought it was necessary for digital cameras in Win XP or, I guess, Ubuntu. I just unplug my digital camera all the time and haven’t experienced any data loss.
Anyone care to comment?
Yep. You always have to manually unmount. Just like you should floss your teeth everyday and never run testing versions of operating systems.
I’ve used Ubuntu since Warty first came around, I never unmount and only once did I experiance data loss (after 150+ times). In that case a new file I copied didn’t show up. But I was running Hoary’s development version at the time, so it could have been that day’s bug…
Its not hard to unmount if you want to play it safe. Right click, unmount. I always eject my CDrom that way…
…
I’ve made a few comments about the UI of Gnome/KDE in the past (nothing like the criticism in this article) and I’ve either been
1. Flamed
2. Accused of being a troll
3. Told to go off and fix what I don’t like (but with a lot more colouirful language)
I was wondering why when an employee of Canonical makes these observations, he is praised as taking a stand/identifying UI failings.
Maybe developers can take criticism from ‘their own kind’ but not from an external source? Just a thought…
link to some of your comments and ill let you know 😉
1) There is rarely a good reason to use modal dialogs, they cause many more problems than they solve.
Wellyes that’s why some dialogs should be modal and others shouldn’t.
His point about Nautilus is spot on. How can one use ‘Spatial browsing’ when new windows line up on top of eachother and one will have to move them to some convienient position to copy/paste? That way, KDE’s/Konqueror’s double pane is a lot more usable.