Unity Test on the public

[christopher.wortman]

I took a System76 laptop into the public with Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity to get reactions to the OS. Here are the results, I might travel to a different area and do a video review of it. When I presented it to them, I presented it as a brand new product, that I was doing market research to see if this would sell.

I tested this on around 200 people
76% of the people had an almost immediate response of being lost and not knowing what to do. They couldn't figure out how to use global menu, in some applications and how in LibreOffice it was in the application. They said it was "confusing". Actually:

83% had the immediate response that it was "confusing".

A small percentage said it reminded them of a cheap Mac knock off, and that it should research "copyright infringement". That they owned Macs at home and that Apple should see this.

About 20% had a non-plus reaction to it. It seemed to work fine, but why reinvent the wheel?

Almost nobody compared it to Windows, there were like 3 people who did. They are the type of people who wouldn't own a cellphone because landlines would suffice. Obviously not the intended audience for this.

While the responses were not entirely negative, people had an oddly positive response. Even the ones who thought it was "confusing" seemed to like it, but said it needed work.

"The menu up top should not disappear" seemed to be a ressurecting response to the global menu. They liked the side bar, but wanted to move it to the right as it felt out of place on the left, or the icons should auto-sort to the right for sake of keeping things neat and tidy.

When we interviewed the people who said it was confusing, they responded with how the bar was anchored to the left, the bottom/left would be a better place for it. The menu keeps dissappearing. The full screen menu, and scrolling through makes no sense for it to be that big. They wanted the icons to be smaller. They likened it to a cellphone OS on a computer.

Almost nobody became frustrated, however, and seemed to call it fun and inventive. That it was "a joy to use". The fact that it is still "in market research, some of the annoyances will presumably be fixed."

This was very informative and tought me a lot. Since this is driven for new users, keep up the good work I look forward to testing this on 11.10. I have a little more faith in those who developed Unity, and I had fun with this. I kinda can't wait to do this again.

[el_koraco]

The fact that it is still "in market research, some of the annoyances will presumably be fixed."

lol, that's sweet.

[Dry Lips]

My brother finally decided to install Ubuntu after I had been
telling him that he ought to give Linux a try. He also confessed
that he had trouble finding his way around, and seemed happy
when I showed him how to boot into the classic mode.

I'm no big fan of the shell of Gnome 3 either, but I think it is a
lot more structured than Unity.

[TheSuperSteve]

Good read. Canonical or whoever the big bosses over Ubuntu happen to be should see this. Or at least do this kind of research on their own, if they haven't already.

I always think that an OS should be tested with our parents/grand parents. If they can figure out how to use it or if figuring out how to use it is intuitive enough for them to not need help, then the thing is ready.

Of course this being the Linux community, such an OS as described above would be sinful. As if some people feel good about themselves if they know how to compile programs from the terminal or something. Its a computer, the simpler it is, the better. That's how we go forward. We make things simpler and faster. Of course, i do agree that much of Unity is different for the sake of being different. Its also buggy and slow in its current state. Which is the reason why i dont take too kindly to it. Not because i dont like new things.

Eh, i'm kind of going on a rant/ramble. Proceed with your thread. I enjoyed the results, such as how a small percentage called it Mac-like. That's the reason why i like Unity. XD

[Triblaze]

Very interesting results, more research like this should be done.


Maybe next time you could do a comparison? Maybe show them that and then either the default GNOME or KDE environment, just to see which design elements work best and which don't work.

[akand074]

These results are hardly interesting. It's a pretty obvious result. Every single Windows user there just tried to use it like it was Windows... and it wasn't the same. Obviously you should find it confusing when you first use it and you are used to something else. Takes time to get used to it and learn about it's pros/cons. When I first started using Ubuntu, I only had it on my hard drive but only logged onto it on occasion to play with compiz, and I generally knew what I was doing when it came to gnome 2 panels. It's not until I got so fed up with Windows that I booted into Ubuntu and swore never to go back to Windows on my desktop again that I used it for a little while and started really getting used to it and really liked it.

Point is, you can't judge it unless you have each person use it strictly for say a month and then get their response. Anyone generally who hasn't used any OS and then walked into Windows would be really confused and likely not enjoy it.

That said, Unity really needs work and is not ready for a large audience. 11.10 should be great but by the next LTS I'd expect it'd be better to get a better view of what people think. I think if Ubuntu became large enough that major manufacturers supported it seriously, that they would only install LTS by default.

[Copper Bezel]

These results are hardly interesting.

Indeed; intending no offense to the OP, what results? A majority of respondents were confused but oddly positive. I don't really know what that means. Oh, and 76% couldn't figure out how to make an operating system work when it was shoved in their faces on the street.

I think the information provided would be more useful if accompanied by the survey questions used and a little description of how these interactions went. Again, no offense, but 90% of respondents tend to support a ban on dihydrogen monoxide, when it's phrased the right way. = )

[tumbes2000]

Everyone is confused when they see something new. The first time I used Mac os 9 I was really confused coming from win 95/98. Yet I ended up liking it. Basically the same thing played out with Mac os x and anytime I switched oses (red hat linux for example back in the day). The good thing is that people ended up feeling positive about unity.

If apple can make it so my mother can use a unix in only one day, Ubuntu can do the same with linux and seems to be headed in that direction.

[Perfect Storm]

Good read. Canonical or whoever the big bosses over Ubuntu happen to be should see this. Or at least do this kind of research on their own, if they haven't already.

They have.

[Khakilang]

Recently I have converted 1 of my brother's friend when I show him my Linux. He seem happy about it and dual boot with Vista. The last time I heard he hardly touch Vista and plan to totally wipe out Vista and use 11.04. He seem to be comfortable with Unity and he is totally noob about computer. Unity is not at all that bad even for new user.