[notatoad]

the only consensus i'm seeing is that everybody wants to hate ubuntu. a mainstream product is the perfect place to test new UI concepts, because mainstream users don't care about these things and they don't have any expectations. despite what you might think, being very similar but not quite windows is not a good thing for a mainstream user.

everybody i've tested unity on has adapted to it really quickly. the very basics need teaching (things like showing them how to open the launcher), but beyond that users are pretty good at discovering things for themselves. the problem with making things very like windows is that people expect it to be exactly like windows, and panic when something isn't where they expect it to be. unity removes expectations and the user starts off with a blank slate, and they can learn fairly quickly. also, mainstream users don't panic over change they way you imply they do. they just don't notice change. there's a presentation from google that mentions when testing google instant, many users didn't even notice anything different.

the people who are hating on unity and ubuntu are not speaking for the mainstream, they are speaking for the power users who have a library of learned behaviours that they don't want to unlearn. a mainstream user doesn't have a whole lot of learned behaviours to overcome, and they will benefit more from a UI improvement than any other because so many of them are essentially re-learning the system every single time they try to accomplish something. lots of people say they want ubuntu to be built for the mainstream, but what they actually mean is that they want is a distro built specifically for themselves.

[wvenable]

> mainstream users don't care about these things and they don't have any expectations.

You talk like a "mainstream" user has never used a computer before.

> the very basics need teaching (things like showing them how to open the launcher),

This is the reason why, in Windows, the start button is called the start button. After all these years, the start button doesn't have a label anymore because everyone, everywhere, now knows you that click the button in the bottom left corner to do anything.

[notatoad]

for all intents and purposes, it's pretty safe to assume that a mainstream user has never used a computer before. after a couple years of onsite tech support, the biggest thing i took away was that when the average user sits down at a computer, they don't remember any usage patterns they may have learned during their last session. the way to make your UI usable is to assume that every user is using your software for the first time, every time.

there was a good rant on the verge a while back about the condescending UI, but from everything i've seen a little condescension is an essential part of a good UI.