Ubuntu UI and Usability team. What do you think?

[ihavenoname]

Hey I have this idea that Ubuntu should create a User Interface Usability team that comes up with new revolutionary ideas for the User interface, and tries to find ways to implement them, as well as taking these ideas/issues at hand, to the community to get suggestions.

Reason: Linux has a reputation for focusing on features first, and UI later. While this is not a bad thing it can sometimes lead to Linux being behind in the UI department.

Perhaps the team can even be expanded to being a sort of exploratory team that looks at solutions to common issues with using Linux. Like video editing and the like.

Please post your ideas/suggestions.

Personally I think such a team might be able to find some solutions to some issues. At the very least they could compile reports on those issues, determine what some of the causes maybe and list possible solutions and this could be helpful in the future.

The poll is deliberately vague, because I would much rather have users post their actual ideas.

[loserboy]

in before the flames.

I don't think you have a bad idea, but it costs money to have people do that sort of thing of course you could always offer your services for free with a group of like minded people, come up with some nice, well laid out ideas and present them to the ubuntu team.

On the other hand if you do some searching I think there already is an ubuntu supported team for this.

[rabid emu]

Not sure why there would be flames for this topic. I think it's a great idea. The thing is, the UI of Linux is composed of window managers and desktop environments like KDE, Gnome, and Xfce that are really 3rd party projects. Ubuntu can customize the default looks, and this is where your idea comes into play, but they can't change a whole lot without designing their own window manager unfortunately.

[sloggerkhan]

I think everyone has ideas about improvements to UIs even if we don't have the ability to implement them ourselves....

Practically, I think such a group would mostly be looking at tweaking button/menu layouts and such things rather than anything radical.

[loserboy]

Not sure why there would be flames for this topic

there is always the anti-opinion of anyones opinon, if I made a thread that said I think blue is a good color, there would be someone that said that i'm stupid and blue is a crappy color.
but i said it more as just a joke anyway

[Bloodfen Razormaw]

We already have OpenUsability, a project with actual usability experts who will assist developers. I fail to see people with much less experience in the field at Canonical will do much duplicating that work.

[sloggerkhan]

I think 'experts' are often not as knowledgable as users when it comes to usability and user interfaces.

[maniacmusician]

I think 'experts' are often not as knowledgable as users when it comes to usability and user interfaces.
Actually, they usually are.

Users will always give their opinions, which are based on nothing except for their own experience. And this will be different for every user. One user will think a certain type of UI is better, and another will dispute it. It'll just go back and forth with no solution.

The "experts" conduct actual usability research; surveys, demos, test runs of different UI's. they do experiments on certain features or aspects of the UI one at a time, and then test them in combination to one another in order to find the most viable combination. So, their opinions are actually based on facts gathered from research, not simply what they think will work best.

Of course, you'll get the cooks that pretend to be experts when in reality they're just promoting their own idea of a perfect UI without any research or coherent thoughts to back it up. You get that no matter what field you're in or what you're talking about.

[sloggerkhan]

I've had some systems engineering in school so I am familiar with the engineering approach to UIs/hospital layouts/etc, and agree that the approaches are valid so long as you are designing to fulfill system requirements. However, most of the 'experts' in usability and computer interfaces that I have ever seen comment or anything appeared to have been regular IT people or Business People turned 'consultants' or 'experts' and offered stupid advice.

If the admittedly small number of usability experts opinions/behaviours and such I've seen had come across as more scientifically and reasonably grounded, I might tend to agree with you more.
I am sure that it's probably a case of the loud idiots are the ones who get the publicity, which seems to be how things work in american media.

[maxamillion]

Its interesting this is being brought up because I am actually taking a "Human - Computer Interaction" course this semester where we discuss this very thing and read studies done by companies and universities alike about how people better interact with a computer, I think the idea of a team to do this would a positive one.

[mcduck]

I believe Gnome developers do spend a lot of time doing usability research and testing, and as they are the ones who actually do most of the desktop I don't there's much enough left for Ubuntu developers to do..

[Bloodfen Razormaw]

However, most of the 'experts' in usability and computer interfaces that I have ever seen comment or anything appeared to have been regular IT people or Business People turned 'consultants' or 'experts' and offered stupid advice.
In other words you haven't met a usability expert.

[ihavenoname]

We already have OpenUsability, a project with actual usability experts who will assist developers.

Wait, really? I haven't heard anything from them. Maybe we need to bridge relation between them and the community a bit better so that we can have better interaction with them. After all we are the users of Ubuntu.

I don't see anything wrong with heavily customizing window managers. That what we need, someone needs to push. Look at Novell. They got a team and designed Uslab menu and the rest of the community follows them. They also got the community started on Xgl and compositing (from what I know) and they also spearheaded mono. Not all of that has anything to do with usability but it shows that they are willing to innovate and it has had a positive affect on the community. I was just thinking that Ubuntu should also innovate in such areas. (Not that we haven't just that we should do more.)