Comment 68 for bug 407621

komputes, the gconf key does not apply to entire menus, it applies to individual items. For example, when on, "Places" > "Connect to Server" and "Bookmarks" > "Organize Bookmarks" have icons; when off, they don't.

Jean-François, testing this would be difficult but not impossible. Take a representative sample of computer users (which OSNews + Slashdot + Digg + Ubuntu Forums readers emphatically would not be!), sit half of them in front of a default Ubuntu installation, and half in front of an installation where only the icons-in-menus setting has been changed. Test their speed at performing particular actions that involve the relevant menu items (e.g. "print this Web page"), and afterwards ask them to rate the aesthetics of the overall interface, all *without mentioning icons to them at all*. Testing how people actually work and how they feel would be much more accurate than polling how they think they might work and feel. It is because testing small issues like this is so difficult that designers sometimes have to make decisions without testing.