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Examining the Usability of Gnome, Unity and KDE
gbjbaanb writes "TechRadar has gathered a few users and subjected the 3 main Linux desktops to some usability testing for both experienced users and some new to the whole concept." I'm glad to see such ongoing comparisons; they encourage cross-pollination of the best ideas. On the other hand, it's a little bit like trying to determine the "best" dessert; even the most elaborate attempts to find statistical consensus won't answer the question of what's best for any particular user.
The site's punishing you for using an ad blocker. I just tested Chrome with adblock, Chrome without adblock, Aurora with adblock, Aurora without adblock, IE9, Opera 11, Safari 5 with adblock, and Safari without adblock. In every case, when adblock was turned off (or not available), the page rendered correctly*. When adlbock was turned on, it rendered like a steaming pile of shit.
The remainder of your points are completely valid. Fixed-width, fixed-font size, ad-spattered, split-for-the-sake-of-page-views "design" doesn't really inspire confidence about their ability to validate usability testing. At least they don't have an always-on-top floating toolbar like so many other sites are doing. But I probably shouldn't be giving them any ideas ...
* It's worth noting that the page is still a steaming pile of shit when rendered "correctly". The only difference is that it's centered.
Configurability is nice, but defaults are very important. A good GUI has good defaults.
You could use GConf to configure ANY aspect of the interface, anything at all.
Not helpful to most users. And in theory you could use the source code to configure any aspect of the interface too.
1) Most people instead of making 1000 decisions to get a GUI that's 99% suitable for them, will make one decision to get a GUI that has defaults that are 80% suitable for them.
2) If you deviate too much from the defaults, you may have difficulty getting support. This may not be a problem for slashdotters but it is a problem for the rest of the world.
That's kind of the route taken by KDE. It's *hugely* configurable. Want a stock ticker widget in your task bar? Fine, just unlock it and drag one in there. Want the task bar on the right side? Just drag it over. Want to make caps an additional control? It's just a checkbox in the preferences. By and large, you don't even have to use obscure registry-style editors either.
KDE 4.7 FTW.
They did fork Gnome, it's called Maté.
Circumcision is child abuse.