LXDE is an acceptable substitute for Gnome 2

[Michael Ekstrand]

On 09/17/2011 07:56 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
> On 09/17/2011 05:21 PM, Craig White wrote:
>> First of all - a taking a poll is fine but it has little to do with a
>> project like GNOME since it is the developers of GNOME who get to decide
>> what it does and how it does it.
> 
> You're right, as far as you go, but that's not all there is to it. 
> Unless the developers are only interested in creating something for 
> themselves, they need to take the opinions of the end users into account 
> at least enough to make sure they're creating something that other 
> people will want to use.  If, for example, a poll were to show that most 
> people who currently used Gnome wanted to be able to specify which 
> workspace a window would open on, it would be foolish to implement a DE 
> that didn't allow that.

Polls only go so far. Users often don't know what they want, or think
they want X and really want Y (or would have their actual needs better
met by Y). It's the user experience designer's job to sift through that
and give them what they need to do their work, which is not necessarily
what the users would tell you they need/want if you ask them.

Polls (or, better yet, interviews) can be a valuable tool in figuring
out what to build & how to build it, but they are just one input point.
 Further, a visionary designer can come up with good solutions that the
people polled couldn't have imagined and therefore couldn't have said
they wanted.

I don't know that the Gnome designers and developers have achieved Steve
Jobs quality-of-vision when it comes to user experience design. But
they're trying a bold new concept (and yes it's new - Gnome Shell
predates both Metro and OSX Lion Dashboard), and that can pay off.

All this to say, I think this idea of "polling the users" is very
misguided. Should more user input have been sought? Probably. But let's
stop talking about nonsense ways to get it.

For those saying "if people liked it, we'd here", let me add my voice: I
find Gnome 3 to be a very fluid and productive experience on my laptop.

- Michael