[ Thanks to James
Maguire for this link. ]
“Over the past year, Ubuntu has become one of the
centers for usability design on the Linux desktop. You might
criticize this effort because it takes place in the distribution,
rather than as contributions to the GNOME desktop, but at least it
is happening. Moreover, this effort is being discussed far beyond
the outer reaches of the Ubuntu community.“Part of the reason for this discussion is because Ubuntu’s
popularity automatically makes it influential.“Yet an even more important reason for the interest is that
Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has made usability his personal
obsession. Not only has he withdrawn from managing the business
affairs of Canonical, Ubuntu’s commercial arm, in order to devote
his full attention to it, but — what really matters — he blogs
about usability decisions as they are announced.“In these blog entries, Shuttleworth gives observers a rare
chance to see the rationales behind usability decisions, and to
measure the rationales against the results.”