Re: [Usability]GNOME main menu and panel

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

> Thus far my 6-month after surveys (6 mo. after having a GNOME desktop,
> "switching" (usually complementing, actually) from Windows or MacOS) are

surveys? please send a link

> showing most people sticking with the two panel layout. Not a big pool
> of people right now (5), but thinking of most of the people I know,

oh, nevermind i thought you meant something more official and with a
broader scope than that.

> probably more than half of them use a two panel layout.

Again i dont like to guess too much but of those who did not change the
panels how much other customisation did they do?  I am guessing not much.

> As far as a more theoretic defense...
>
> 1) The space is fairly minimal on a system with equal to or more than
> 1024x768

You should try 800x600 (i upgraded everthing bug my monitor), many
applications design their default dialogs, windows too big to work
properly on 800x600, let alone 640x480.  I am used to not having huge
amounts of space for my window list and it does not bother me.  I try no
to have too many windows open at once, running Mozilla, OpenOffice and the
Gimp at the same time nearly killed my machine (slow slow death).  It is
not just about being tidy nor is is just about performance.

> 2) It gives a lot of room to the window list, which is particularly nice
> for people who don't use workspaces (which many of these people are

I dont use workspaces, many many years of using Mac OS or Microsoft...
I do use a big panel though which make much more room for the tasklist
(but it is harder to target, Fitts law, etc).

>  Dave Bordoley wrote:
> Not to mention that it is physically easier (hence less fatiguing) to

yeah, i agree but ...

> Jeroen Verhoeckx wrote:
> The problem with the top panel is that if you have your window
> maximised, the top of your screen looks disorganized.

... Fitts law comes into play again, the X to close a window is in the
extreme top right corner and if you have top panel you cannot swing the
mouse blindly into the corner and click, a habit i dont want to unlearn.

There are definately pro's and con's to all this, you cant please all of
the people all the time, there are too many different ways that people
prefer working.

Later

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/