Jo-Erland,

Great comments over all. I'm not quite a true "noob" anymore because I've been 
using Ubuntu since Gutsy, exclusively since Hardy, and I've even been 
iso-testing since about Hardy or Intrepid because I find the installation 
process to be of such great importance.

Being perfectly honest I found the Natty and Oneiric iterations of Unity to 
simply be too confusing. I'm not sure how much "dodge windows" had to do with 
that, I really never understood it very much. Now aside from some slight 
inconsistency with the global menu I'm finding Unity in Precise to be much 
easier and faster to use than the classic DE.

No need to learn new keyboard shortcuts, no need to jump through any hoops, 
searching for apps seems easy - whether by name or function, and if it's simple 
enough for me to understand that's a major accomplishment. I tend to think 
everything should just be understandable out-of-box by anyone, then tweaks can 
be added by those with more technical knowledge. Does that make sense?

Lance

--- On Thu, 3/8/12, Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schins...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schins...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Unity-design] No more dodge windows in Unity?
To: unity-design@lists.launchpad.net
Date: Thursday, March 8, 2012, 9:36 AM

Den 08. mars 2012 15:15, skrev nick rundy:
> Of course "new" users find this behavior "deeply uncomfortable" and "random."

Very good reason to drop it. First impressions are always important, but they 
are extremely important when people are willing to give something a shot in 
spite of their skepticism. And this will be the case for a large number of 
people. There is a lot of FUD surrounding Linux. But even if users are 
unaffected by that, they might be skeptical about anything that is given away 
for free. They might try it out of curiosity, but they'll be looking for flaws. 
Give them an opportunity to become confused by the launcher, and they will 
choose to be, because that confirms their initial skepticism. And that's 
comforting, as sad as that may be.

Of course, some people are truly open minded. But almost all humans are more 
interested in _not loosing_ than they are in a potential gain.
> 
> For over a decade all users have known is the taskbar hides or it doesn't 
> hide. Nobody in today's world is truly isolated from computers. People pick 
> stuff up unconsciously. And the Dodge behavior is unlike any taskbar action 
> they've ever seen on Windows or Mac. So of course it seems random.
> 

Are you serious? Most people today are truly isolated from computers. You're 
probably from North America or Europe. But we are a small part of the world 
when measured in the number of people. But whether or not people are "isolated" 
from computers, if you give them the impression that behavior is random, then 
they loose confidence. That means reduced ability to make decisions, and 
reduced will to learn something new.
> 
> If Dodge Windows actually stuck around long enough, I suspect the testing 
> results would have been very different.
> 

Seems like you're assuming that people have read up on Ubuntu or know someone 
who uses it. That is a severe limitation. It should be sufficient that you hear 
about Ubuntu, that it's a free system that can be tried without having to make 
any kind of decision in advance.

So you've convinced a user that Ubuntu is easy to download, safe to try, 
doesn't require any decision in advance and won't ever cost any money. A 
curious user downloads it and fires it up. How long time do you expect that 
user to give you? My guess is that they need to be impressed during the first 
ten minutes. If you survive one hour, then the user will have nice things to 
say, whether they decide to use it or not. That's important, because then they 
will make other people curious, and they will confirm that it is indeed 
completely safe to try.

If the launcher isn't completely understood after ten minutes, that user will 
probably not use Ubuntu. They will tell others that it is confusing or buggy. 
And then they will have made a decision not to use it, which means it will be 
extremely difficult to get a second chance.

We need to reach a tipping point, where casual users recommend other casual 
users to just try it. Most people who try Ubuntu should have nice things to say 
about it, even if they choose not to use it as their primary OS, or even at 
all. But they'll say nice things, and then others get curious, etc.

This is the effect we need. But that requires that after 30-60 minutes, the 
user will feel confident that this is something they will be able to learn if 
they choose to. There must be no confusion or negative surprises during that 
first hour.

To me, the dodge effect was cool, but it demanded way too much knowledge and 
understanding.

-- Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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