Ubuntu Is Doing A UI Makeover To Their Installer / Setup Process

[Iksf]

It, like most other things, requires a combination of approaches, and moderation go those approaches. Let the designer take it to the extreme and it will be over-engineered. Let the developer have full control and every single control knob possible will be exposed and it will have the UI of a pre-CSS webpage.

I still don't get why this is a problem. What the hell is wrong with an advanced button, or a suggestion I've heard before of having a simple environmental variable passed that turns off the training wheels and exposes all the options.

[kaprikawn]

Sounds like they're trying to polish a turd

[yzsolt]

Windows 10 scaled back on the metro on the standard PC because of the same issue - they let designers do the decisions and then users told them they're morons because they fucked up usability in favor of fashion.

Windows 10 scaled back on the metro side? Did you use Windows 10? It's the most "metroed" Windows version of the last three. Yes, they got rid of the big flat tiled start screen (which wasn't nearly as bad as people bashed it), but overall they're heading into the metro direction with all of their apps - like that terrible gray Settings application.

I rarely use Ubuntu, but I think they're going into the right direction. This new design seems modern and elegant. If you replace the font and change some colors, it's almost metro, but the flat design is the trend now and I think their sizing of font and UI element (buttons, etc.) is much more sane than metro's.

[mao_dze_dun]

Even Microsoft pedaled back on the Start Menu.

Exactly. And they're MS - they never cave on anything unless there is a federal court order. I've yet to meet one person who likes the unity bar, it's extremely limited functionality or the inability to move it.

[Ericg]

I still don't get why this is a problem. What the hell is wrong with an advanced button, or a suggestion I've heard before of having a simple environmental variable passed that turns off the training wheels and exposes all the options.

If its under advanced or done via environment variable that's fine, but by default it shouldnt be seen. The general rule with settings from a UI design is "If the average user would just hit "next" (or its equiv) anyway... Don't show it. If the user shouldn't have to care about it... Dont show it."

That was one of my big complaints with KGPG, when you made a key pair it would ask you questions that the average user would have no idea about, even with their descriptions, and then started to ask you for settings for the key pair (size, bits, algorithm, etc) that could have very easily been handled with sensible default settings and kept out of sight. The worst part was they HAD an advanced setting where they could've put all this stuff... And they did, so now they had the same settings in two places. Also the "advanced" button actually just spawned an automated terminal window that would go through and ask you the exact same questions again *facepalm*

[jagoly]

Exactly. And they're MS - they never cave on anything unless there is a federal court order. I've yet to meet one person who likes the unity bar, it's extremely limited functionality or the inability to move it.

Hello there, I'm jagoly! Pleased to meet you!

[profoundWHALE]

I've yet to meet one person who likes the unity bar, it's extremely limited functionality or the inability to move it.

...

Do you get out much? The only people that I know of that are running linux as their main OS are running standard Ubuntu. Not saying that there aren't others, but the average person really likes Ubuntu and will often ask if it's a Mac, looks nice, easy to use, works well. The average person also won't talk about it too much or care too much about it as long as it works for them.