Ubuntu 10.04 will bring panel overhaul, social network menu (ars technica)

You want a reference with regard to Mark's past experience at user experience design? I give you this: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8752

"Apparently Mark originally wanted, given that Ubuntu is Linux for human beings, the first release of Ubuntu to carry a tasteful, artistic picture of a naked woman. This caused everyone in the company and community to offer some version of "this is a very bad idea". So, the community got Mark to step away from that in stages. In the end Mark backed down."

"When you clicked on a folder in Nautilus, a new window would pop up on the screen. People complained about how the screens would become full of windows. Mark thought it would be a great idea that when one window opened the previous window would close. This feature, at Mark's insistence, was shipped but caused an even greater number of complaints, as users wanted to know why the Nautilus window seemed to dance all over the screen."

-jef