[hoary] initial usability reactions

[Eric Dunbar]

> maybe it's naive  of my part, and like you said earlier, I'm really
> not a newby at computers and graphical interfaces, but I think that
> this decision to put icons or not on the desktop is up to the user, in
> the same category than the colour of the background, the window theme,
> etc. Ubuntu provides something neutral and simple  and it's up to the
> user to add more as they wish, when they wish.

The design philosophy (for a distro that strives to be "for the rest
of us") should be that the default setting is also the one that is
most useful to the most people, or, does the least damage.

> With that said maybe the example of KDE is a nice one: at least on KDE
> 3.1 on Mandrake, you have a setting, easily found in the desktop
> background preferences,  to turn on and off icons on the desktop.
> Maybe in Ubuntu it could be on (or off) by default, and one right
> click would give access to that setting. And everyone could switch
> from one mode or the other very easily.

Ugh. Right-click. One of the worst interface crutches ever devised (I
love it but I'm also not your typical computer user). Right-click is
the single-worst design flaw in GUIs since it obviates the need for a
good GUI design plan (i.e. to access settings/commands). I have seen
SOOOOO many new and also EXPERIENCED computer users completely baffled
by right-click commands. It was the experienced computer users that I
found interesting to watch -- when I noticed last year that
experienced users seemed to have problems with right-click, I spent a
few weeks watching computer users around me and discovered that _most_
experienced computer users didn't use right-click. Now that I'm in a
100% Windoze environment at work (100s of idiot boxes) I've watched
people ... that Windoze requires the use of right-click is a major
deterrent for people using their computers effectively.

Eric.