Evandro Giovanini writes: > This all is a really minor point, of course, hardly worth > attention, if there was not the persistent issue of user > interface changes implemented seemingly in pursuit of a grand > artistic mission, but with very little thought of how the thing > is actually going to be used by the broader public. > > That's not fair or correct, the Gnome developers put a great deal > of thought into the hundreds of decisions they make. The evolution > of Gnome 3 throughout its 6 releases also shows that they take user > feedback quite seriously. My experience differs from yours in this regard. First, I resent the publicly documented mindset that imposes a certain work model to the exclusion of all others. I have commented on specific aspects in the past and will not repeat this here. Second, there is the simple fact that changes in the UI always cause friction. We learn to perform most simple tasks subconsciously, and any change of the routine will be distracting. So changes should only be introduced when the benefit clearly exceeds the cost of transitioning. Three very trivial examples where I think this balance is at least questionable: 1. In F20, the text "Session" on the login screen has changed to a small cog wheel icon and moved from the left hand button to the right hand button (maybe these swapped functions as well, I don't remember because I always press enter after typing the password, so I don't know where the login button used to be). Sure, it looks nicer, but it breaks all documentation which says "you can get a list of available user sessions by clicking Session". It's also less self-explanatory, and moving it to a different place from where it was before also breaks the spatial memory between the previous and the last version. 2. Some versions ago, Gnome developers apparently decided that right-aligned pull down menus are better than left-aligned ones. Evince consequently moved all the pull down menus to the right, but left other dialog boxes left-aligned, leading to a horrible UI experience as one would have needed to travel across the entire width of the window for a simultaneous change of magnification and view mode. I had filed a bug right after this appeared, which only got fixed with F20. (In the mean time, I dropped using evince altogether realizing how much better an application okular has become.) 3. Starting with F20, certain system applications don't display a window title bar any longer. That's probably not a change for the workflow imposed by default Gnome, but breaks workflow in Gnome Classic (and cinnamon for that matter), where suddenly one has to use the panel to minimize applications like System Monitor. Again, a change with no obvious gain (except minor aesthetic value which I do see), but putting up hurdles for well established UI habits. (With System Monitor, minimizing is logically different from restarting as the former keeps the last minute of history, so it's possible to raise the window if something is funny and look at the most recent activity record.) I have intentionally not commented on the bigger picture of Gnome 3, which I see as a very mixed blessing. I am talking about trivial stuff where the change as such is neither clearly good nor bad, not very important, but does cause irritation and seriously begs the question WHAT IS THE POINT? --Marcel -- desktop mailing list desktop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
