Re: UI design [was Owen Taylor's paper]

On 17 Sep 2002 17:39:43 -0400, you wrote:

>Are you saying the gnome UI design is bad in and of itself..

No.  The Gnome UI is basically a direct copy of the Apple Mac UI,
complete with the menu bar across the top of the screen.

>is is it bad
>because its not like everything else.  Does the oppositeness of how
>GNOME's UI works solve some problems that the other more common way of
>doing things can't?  

Not really, it is simply a different way of doing things.

>Is gnome different because just to be different...or are there is there
>real design research that back's up Gnome's way of doing things? 

Both Microsoft and Apple have done lots of research on the issue.

>Since I've really noticed different UI functionality getting im my way
>trying to run something like opera or limewire in a gnome environment,
>so the whole UI inconsistant thing doesn't bother me so so much....but
>it would be interesting to know WHY gnome behaves differently if infact
>it does.  All i know is I prefer gnome.

The issue isn't what's best or worst but rather having a consistent
way of doing things on a platform.

Microsoft has realized this, Apple has realized this, the commercial
Unix vendors eventually realized it when they chose Motif (and to a
lesser extent CDE), KDE realized this and even Gnome realized this.
They have all created guidelines that should be followed so that the
user gets a consistent experience no matter what application they are
using.