LWN: Comments on "GNOME, Fedora, and login-screen logos"

Good grief!

mathstuf — 2013-04-06T15:31:18+00:00

> Had she gotten used to Gnome 2 first? (sounds like no)

She had used it before (see below).

> If she had, then did she ask why you needed to explain anything at all? Isn't Gnome intended to be discoverable and easy to use for everyone?

The top-left corner is definitely *not* discoverable. If there were an intro "Welcome to GNOME" video like Windows has these days, I would have left it at that, but it doesn't. I do think it's easy to use, but discoverability is not it's strong suit (I assume things have changed since 3.2, but I haven't touched it since). To be fair, there were other explanations about the netbook[1] at the same time, so it wasn't like I was explaining *just* GNOME3.

> Just curious because your experience supporting other peoples' Gnome desktops has been very different from mine. :(

Likely. My family has used at least GNOME2, GNOME3, KDE3, KDE4, Android, and Windows XP. I think my sister is the only one other than me to have used Windows other than XP on her new college laptop (Windows 7). I don't think there are any Windows machines left in the house. A history of machines at home:

My family has had experience with Fedora since Fedora 6 or 7 (I forget when the XP install finally decided that the motherboard didn't have Ethernet ports). That machine is still on Fedora 10 today (it's been KDE the entire time, so it's probably 4.2 now). Dad still uses it occasionally to my knowledge. At some point a Windows XP laptop was acquired for free from somewhere. It was used for games and browsing by Mom and my sister.

After I graduated college, I left my laptop at home (replacing the XP laptop) with Fedora 14 or so with a stock GNOME install on it. My sister mainly used it to play KShishen, KPatience, the web browser, and the occasional assignment (OpenOffice.org) rather than the desktop. I think Mom used it for email, Dad didn't really use it. I'd get a call every now and then whenever the printer was acting up or a refresher on how to get files between a flash drive and $HOME.

A year later, I gave a netbook I replaced to my sister for taking to classes at college while her larger laptop sat in the dorm room[2]. This got Fedora 15 and the explanation. Since she basically needed LibreOffice, Firefox/Chrome, and KDE's games, she really just needed to know how to open things and navigate between apps. There might have been questions about flash drives for file transfers, I don't remember. The only support calls I needed to field were related related to installing LaTeX (for a math class) since Kile isn't exactly the obvious search term and TeXLive doesn't show up in Package Kit without knowing package names (since there's no .desktop file) and Eclipse (for a required programming class).

The laptop is now a stock Fedora 17 or 18, now mainly used by Dad instead of the desktop while Mom has a Nexus 7. Now that I think on it, I don't think I explained GNOME3 to them, so maybe things are better with 17/18's GNOME3 (3.6?). I have been able to walk them through a fsck recovery in the systemd recovery shell (the battery for the laptop is aging very poorly), so maybe I'm just lucky :) .

My parents have been open-minded about the computers ever since Fedora 7 or so (I started experimenting with Fedora 5, using around Fedora 6). When I left for college, I told them that getting Windows was either going to involve a new computer (unnecessary) or buying a license straight up (not worth the price). Plus, my Windows support calls usually involved frustration on both ends of the call.

[1]One USB port had the habit of hard powering down the machine when one (but only one) of my flashdrives was plugged in, so I told her to try to avoid that port in case there was another drive out there that did the same. To be fair, it has since happened with other machines and the same drive, so maybe it needs replacing now :( .
[2]Though this seems to have been swapped around and I may get the netbook back. I haven't gotten a specific reason, but don't think it was out of frustration (I heard no complaints in particular), so I suspect disuse. I suspect that juggling two machines wasn't worth the hassle compared to just taking the larger laptop to class.

Good grief!

bronson — 2013-04-06T14:30:15+00:00

Had she gotten used to Gnome 2 first? (sounds like no)

If she had, then did she ask why you needed to explain anything at all? Isn't Gnome intended to be discoverable and easy to use for everyone?

Just curious because your experience supporting other peoples' Gnome desktops has been very different from mine. :(

Good grief!

mathstuf — 2013-04-06T01:15:36+00:00

More anecdata: it took me about 15 seconds to explain GNOME3 to my sister and the only question was "how do I change the background?". Key pieces of information:

- Where the suspend/shutdown menu is
- The top-left corner is "magic" (also the Meta key gets you here)
- Type in the overview to find applications and whatnot

She had used KDE and GNOME2 before and I believe is currently using her main laptop (GNOME3 was on a netbook I replaced) with Windows 7 at school (for various reasons).

possible solution, and question

mathstuf — 2013-04-06T01:11:25+00:00

> 1. How about put the Fedora logo across the whole screen, but kind of faded

+1. It'd be nice to get this for TTYs as well.

> 2. Why does Gnome get to have any say at all?

Fedora tries to be as close to upstream as possible. If upstream doesn't provide hooks such that Fedora can make a non-tiny logo addition, the maintainers would have to try to get upstream to allow that to happen.

possible solution, and question

yodermk — 2013-04-05T18:17:45+00:00

1. How about put the Fedora logo across the whole screen, but kind of faded, and have the user list over it with a transparent background? (I would tend to agree that prominent Fedora branding is desirable.)

2. Why does Gnome get to have any say at all? It's free software. Fedora can do what the heck they want with it! (Not that I advocate trying to keep Gnome from having the credit they deserve.)

Good grief!

cortana — 2013-04-01T01:40:43+00:00

Not even in fallback/classic mode?

Good grief!

jmorris42 — 2013-03-31T20:59:37+00:00

I have GNOME3 on this laptop. It isn't the default desktop but I have fired it up for a few random 'typical user' types just to see what happened. So far zero have been able to figure it out without assistance.

Staff I could retrain if I saw the value in the effort. But I also want to keep the same user experience for the public computing labs in our libraries because if staff uses the same thing I'm not the only one who can help patrons. Right now they all use CentOS with GNOME as the default. Members of the general public come in and have little problem using the workstations. There is no way I'd dump random members of the general public in front of GNOME3.

Good grief!

dowdle — 2013-03-29T13:13:18+00:00

You might just try to deploy GNOME 3 to an end user (assuming the video hardware is happy with it)... because many people without years of Linux desktop experience actually like it. I've seen a lot of newbies really impressed with it and actually prefer it over everything else.

I bring this up just to remind you that there is not one opinion that fits everyone... and you should acknowledge that... and that some people actually like and prefer GNOME 3. Am I trying to sell you on GNOME 3. Absolutely not.

Good grief!

jmorris42 — 2013-03-29T05:06:55+00:00

Lets ask the questions that nobody seems to be asking. Are the Gnomes a bunch of emo goth kids? We already knew they have the worst case of tablet envy... outside of Microsoft. But that gray text on a solid black screen with the only non-greyscale pixels the few in the Fedora logo (that they want to eliminate of course) is depressing! They should go ahead and add some trance music in the background to complete the experience.

Every time I think the GNOMEs have bottomed out, that they can't get worse, that they can't possibly do something more perfectly crafted to drive any remaining users away... they reach deep within and surpass themselves yet again.

Bottom line, I know I won't deploy GNOME 3 to an end user. I'm waiting to download CentOS 7 to find out if it can be made usable with GNOME 3 ripped out. If it can, great; if not a decade & a half of deploying RH based desktops comes to an end when Centos 6 becomes impractical to maintain. (And Google Chrome is already splashing a "Your OS is too old for our hoopy coderz to bother with releasing updates for." banner. The detail that there isn't, in point of fact, anything newer bothers them not at all.)

The even bigger question is how much time is left before the crap RH is pushing out (GNOME3, systemd, etc) infect the others? Ubuntu is already unusable for it's own equally stupid reasons. Debian is great for a server or a knowledgeable UNIX person, but putting out a complete user experience for normals? Haven't tried it yet but might have to try. But the suck is already lapping at the edges of their repos as well.

Credibility

rahulsundaram — 2013-03-28T22:00:17+00:00

Yeah. Some of the most useful features seem to lack discoverability which is indeed a problem. Hopefully they fix that in subsequent revisions.

Credibility

josh — 2013-03-28T20:54:37+00:00

> with 3.8, you can just start typing your password.

Perhaps, but the most recent visual designs I've seen give no indication that you can do so, because they don't look like a thing that accepts typed input of a password.

Credibility

mjg59 — 2013-03-28T20:48:42+00:00

Hitting enter at the lock screen on Fedora 18 gives me the password prompt.

Credibility

rriggs — 2013-03-28T20:30:41+00:00

So you are saying the new version fixes the behavior the poster describes, which those using Fedora 18 have to currently endure? That there was a version of Gnome Shell released with this behavior seems a legitimate complaint against Gnome.

Mystery

rriggs — 2013-03-28T15:30:19+00:00

At this point the design decisions are so bad I am convinced that the Gnome designers are just trolls, trying to see how far they can push the users.

It's like "Whack-a-Mole" -- one just wonders what they'll come up with next.

Mystery

ncm — 2013-03-28T08:42:29+00:00

Why is GNOME so prone to problems like this? It's easy to see the contempt, but is it a product of the structure of the organization, or is it traceable to one or a few individuals, or is the project in the grip of poisonous ideology, or groupthink, or corporate meddling?

This is not meant to be provocative, I really would welcome insightful analysis. If the root of the problem can be identified clearly enough, it should be fixable. So much good code has come out of the GNOME effort, and so many very smart people are involved, it feels absurd to see its typical response to minor problems so frequently make the user experience measurably worse.

Unobtrusive non-functional graphical elements can be found in every app. They rarely cause confusion. Designers have a wide range of techniques available to suggest non-functionality, including muted contrast, indefinite boundaries, transparency, and off-center placement.

Why does GNOME find it so hard to apply simple, well-known, mature techniques in its products? This is not a rhetorical question. I ask in all sincerity.

GNOME, Fedora, and login-screen logos

boudewijn — 2013-03-28T08:36:48+00:00

I don't know about fedora -- but the login screen of OpenSUSE 12.3 is just drop dead gorgeous, with the curl and the geeko on the right. As a user, I have been known to wait a few moments typing my password just to enjoy the design.

GNOME, Fedora, and login-screen logos

bosyber — 2013-03-28T08:00:02+00:00

I have to say, with a multi boot system, having a logo show at boot/before login is quite useful at least, preferably somewhere not too hard to find.

That seems even more so with live cd/dvd/usb boot systems - did I plug the right medium? (No, I don't always label that usb key, or even the odd dvd.)
Seems like an odd case to miss for the gnome design team.

Credibility

grahame — 2013-03-28T06:22:21+00:00

Great if they've fixed it, was definitely a problem. The 'press enter' option wasn't terribly obvious - thanks for pointing it out.

Credibility

rahulsundaram — 2013-03-28T05:27:28+00:00

Err, you don't need to drag anything. Just pressing escape or enter works fine. Also, IIUC, with 3.8, you can just start typing your password. There are valid complaints about GNOME 3 but this doesn't appear to be one of them.

Credibility

grahame — 2013-03-28T05:25:20+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if the idea to remove the vendor logo space comes from the same people that decided to require me to click and drag upwards with the mouse to be able to type my password into gnome-screensaver (Fedora 18).

I've no idea how that's supposed to improve my productivity. Simply typing stirs a little animation, indicating that I must pointlessly click & drag.

Máirín Duffy is right, UX in GNOME needs to be backed by research, not feelpinions.