Seven Minutes in Ubuntu: A Mac user's first impressions

The thing that I'm worried about though, similar to what you're pointing out, is that it feels like they're not making Ubuntu for the previous users of Ubuntu anymore. I still run 11.10 with Unity, but it's getting to a point where I'm noticing an increase of time where I am turning off a bunch of annoying things that Ubuntu have added over time.

I have XFCE on all my other machines that need a desktop environment and it looks like this sole Ubuntu machine will head that way soon.

I use Xubuntu on my netbook as my students can work out how to get a wordprocessor going or load a youtube video in class.

On the desktop pc I use dwm (large widescreen monitor) and I'm loving the efficiency. In fact, I install dmenu on all the computers and bind it to Super-Space.

People who haven't used Linux / Gnome before don't have those expectations and optimizations, so it's not surprising that they will have a more positive view of Unity. Also, Canonical is trying to make Unity emulate OS X to some extent, so the interface meets some expectations of Mac users. They will probably respond more positively.

http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html

"The steering law in human–computer interaction and ergonomics is a predictive model of human movement that describes the time required to navigate, or steer, through a 2-dimensional tunnel." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law

In Apple's case, the angle is wider, making it -- in his description -- easier to move the pointer from the menu header, after triggering the menu, onto the menu items. In Ubuntu's case, the angle is narrower. Further, in the Ubuntu case, since the menu text is justified against the far side of the menu, the pointer has to travel further to hover over it and, for the top few items, that travel cannot be a straight line because a straight line would cross the neighboring menu header and so trigger the neighboring menu to drop down. At least, that's how I interpret his argument.

Looking further at his image, I notice that he is including some horizontal space between the Apple menu header and the screen edge as being part of the Apple menu; however, that area carries a different coloration. Not having a Mac at hand, I'm unable to test whether that area also functions are part of the Apple menu header. If not, then he's calculated the Apple "angle of escape" incorrectly.

Also, on my installation of Ubuntu 11.04, running Gnome Classic (aka 2.whatever), in the menu under discussion, one does not have to hover over the text in order to activate a menu entry. In my view, this makes the "angle of escape" argument somewhat less important -- at least, under Gnome 2.x -- in that one can use menu items by moving the pointer in more of a "straight down" direction. Although, the inclination may still be to move the pointer over the menu item text, thus requiring the user to learn to avoid attempting such a straight line pointer movement for the first few menu items on this menu. I don't know whether Unity -- the Ubuntu desktop environment he is actually describing -- handles these menu entries and their activation differently (my Ubuntu machine's old graphics processor can't handle Unity -- to which I sort of say, yay!).

I've been a Ubuntu user for a few years now, and it generally ranges from cumbersome to downright difficult to upgrade to the newest Firefox version. There's a reason hacks like Ubuntuzilla exist.

I have grown very accustomed to the control-click motion for 'right' clicking. I don't think right-clicking is very alien, at least in the programs I use.

Best of happiness in your new Mac!

The author's screenshot hides the fact that the menu bar is hidden when the mouse is not over the top bar. When your mouse is elsewhere, the entire window's name (In my case "Hacker news | Add Comment - Mozilla Firefox") takes up the top bar.

Without hover it displays the title of the window (unless you have many, non-fullscreen instances, it which case it is just the application title). When you hover, it truncate/fades the application title to show you the menu. They opted for truncation because they want the leftmost menu to appear in a consistent location.

No, not in the least.

It's technically possible (indeed, trivial using Interface Builder) to remove all these menus (the application menu is probably the only one whose removal may lead to your application crashing), and move or remove just about all of their content. Neither OSX nor Apple forces anything (at least outside the AppStore, I do not know if there are imposed standards there).

On the other hand:

1. Apple provides extensive application templates in IB, they're generally used unless there's a good reason not to

2. Apple publishes extensive Human Interface Guidelines, the latest revision of the "OSX Human Interface Guidelines" document (2011-07-26) is 276 pages (a low actually, in 2009 it was more than 350 pages), as a PDF it weighs 26MB. And much like the IB templates, it is followed unless there's a reason not to

3. users care about consistency, when guidelines are broken for no good reason users will generally make their displeasure known. And because OSX has a thriving "indie" development scene (paid, low-cost software by very small teams) this generates an environment where interface care and consistency is taken pretty seriously.

That's not what he means. The "angle of escape" referred to is the angle at which you can move your mouse out of the target icon to a menu item after the menu is open. If you go too far horizontally first, the menu will close in favor of a different menu.

Highlighting was done with Omnigraffle. It took some time find a good way to depict the angle of escape. I ended up rotating a quarter circle and cropping the edges off. Hacky but does the trick.