I've been exposed to Unity since the Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and while I can comfortably use it to do everything I need to, I had been convinced by the number of naysayers to give the latest Mint a spin. I was as surprised as anyone that to find that I still prefer Ubuntu, and that has to some degree reinvigorated me, but the fact that I had been tempted to look elsewhere after all these years convinced me that there is a problem to be addressed.
Canonical has been accused variously of going its own way, or alienating existing users, and we've had anecdotal evidence of people frustrated at a loss of control over their desktop, or at least being forced to learn a new way of doing things, or a new way of achieving that customisations that they previously enjoyed. Similarly we've had reports of people who like Unity and have no serious problems using it, with I suspect the unspoken belief of many that these must be almost uniquely new users, with simpler goals and lower expectations. There is a problem of language and discoverability in Unity which is making it difficult for people to help each other by explaining their problems and solutions in the language that Mr Shuttleworth wishes us to adopt. The bar on the left is apparently called Launcher, but that name does not reveal itself on screen at all, no matter how you hover or click. In the same way, the first icon on the launcher says 'Dash home'. If you click it, you don't see the word 'Dash' anywhere. (Given that the former contains icons that reveal information about the status of various applications and the latter allows the user to start applications by typing their name, you could argue that the two names make just as much sense the other way round.) To take this problem to its logical conclusion, it is possible to change the behaviour of the Dash by clicking the icons at the bottom to display different Lenses. The icons have no labels or tooltips, and there is no reference to the word 'Lens' anywhere. There is a fairly useful help document available, but to benefit from it the user has to work out how to access it, which, you've guessed it, involves navigating from the launcher to the dash and typing 'help', by which time, the user has grasped the basics. I installed a custom ROM on my Android phone today, which took me through the Android first-run experience for the first time in ages. On the home screen was a carousel of 8 basic tips for flying the UI, with the final tip being how to hide the tips. With 12.04LTS on the way we desperately need to consider the different experiences and needs of first time users and users who upgrade, to ensure that every user who sees Unity for the first time gets to see some sort of Unity primer like this. At a minimum we need yelp in the launcher by default for new user profiles (if it isn't already). Crucially for the LTS we need a transitional package or something that detects an upgrade from an Ubuntu version that didn't have Unity, and ensures that yelp is inserted into the launcher for upgraders too. I have to upgrade my parents' machine from the last LTS soon, and I'm dreading it, not because I think that Unity isn't fit for purpose, or easy enough to use, but because Canonical have not done enough work on the documentation to support users through changes which in many cases they'd rather not have to make. Regards, Steve On 24 February 2012 12:37, Andy Braben <andybra...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I will also add that I get on fine with Unity, as do people I support. It > is something completely different, but I find it intuitive and simple > enough to use. I rarely go searching through the dash for anything as all > apps I use, including terminal are located immediately on the left hand > bar. Simple. > > I have also looked at Gnome 3 on Debian Testing and can get on with that > OK but prefer Unity. > > Revert to Gnome 2 or change to something else? No thanks. > > -- > Regards, > Andy > > > -- > ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ > > -- *Please reconsider sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html* https://launchpad.net/~bouncysteve
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