Comment 459 for bug 532633

>Pako wrote:
>450+ are not majority, 30.000000+ are.
>"How about that explanation about the reasons for the button order change"
>Well, the time is running and there is still no particular reason and argument, why should be the right buttons retained.

I have yet to hear a compelling reason why to move the buttons to the left, other than "Mac does it", and "There is some cool (currently) vapourware coming out for 10.10". I'm dealing with a cranky 55 year old wife, 30 year old daughter, 80 year old father-in-law, and 80 year old father as it is for support. All of them go into "who moved my cheese" mode when flipping UI items around. Small UI changes that I don't even notice, and they go into some sort of fit on it. Then if it's for no discernible reason like this is, then I can't really explain it, other than there it is and I get grumbles back from them. If there is a cool feature that requires moving buttons around, then by all means bring it out, and maybe it'll be worth retraining for. At least then I've got a legitimate and visible example to explain this change in defaults. A carrot of enticement as it were. Although with both my father-in-law and father, I CAN'T allow their buttons to move regardless... They're easily confused and baffled by these "electronic typewriters" as they call them. Me personally, I CAN use it, but I find it just as counterproductive as the Mac interface so I switched it back. If I liked Mac, I'd have a Mac and I'd be the worlds biggest snob about it and frown on "free OS Mac wannabes", and not likely to move to Ubuntu even with an interface change. Ubuntu's big selling point is getting people off Windows almost without them noticing too much thanks to the current Gnome UI, Firefox, and OpenOffice's familiar interface coming from Office 2003.

With that said I think what is being (almost mistakenly) applied to both sides of the argument though is logic. For UI issues like this, much of the time logic has no place. I've dealt with these before at work with around a million users affected. Move around something on the screen, and let the anger begin. If something is to be moved around, it has to be clearly understood beforehand, evaluated by a larger focus group and not done on what seems to be a whim, and "that looks cool". if people understand it, and the need to move things around, they go with it and accept it without getting so cranky as they are getting here. Personally I see plenty of room on the left side of the titlebar for features. Just right justify the text and VOILA! OK, I'm trying to apply logic to it as well... The emotional element of peoples attachments to UI appearances has to be taken into account, in spite of it largely being an intangible for datapoints.

Mark - I'll address this bit directly to you, and understand I applaud everything thing you are doing here. You're on my most admired list. Understand I'm not against changing the UI. Some major UI changes are called for as this isn't the 1980's anymore and we're still not that far away from Xerox's original interface. Big UI changes are called for. Paradigm shifts even. Small changes where buttons are just moved without a good, easily understood, tangible reason (ala the feature carrot)? It just ticks people off and makes everyone a little irrational... Once that irrationality starts, it picks up steam as is demonstrated in this thread... good luck stopping it.

My reasons for not changing this little bit of UI?:
1) Standards: Most UI's are Min, Max, Close on the right. Unveiling this *single* change right now doesn't seem like a good idea without something to back it up.
2) Ease of Use/productivity: Most of us I think are bouncing between Windows, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Redhat, SuSE and others. When using VM's as well on the box - Windows (or other OS) in that VM window starts getting confusing when rapidly bouncing between them. Moving back and forth now takes some effort that it didn't take before, even with no mistakes.
3) Judging from comments, the folks that like the buttons on the left seem to be power users who'll change them on their own, and the ones who like them on the right range from computer illiterate to power users. (possible generalisation on my part there, but Ubuntu's raison d'etre I thought was to be ultimately usable for all)
4) The new feature that the button move belongs to isn't cooked or released yet. Wait for new feature to integrate and test usability with said feature before rolling out theoretical interface advantage tied to that feature. It might not work as expected, causing all this churn for nothing. Actually I've noticed no feature ever goes as anticipated in the early design prototype stages. Patience isn't a bad thing here.
5) Gnome 3 seems to be casting a shadow over where/if those buttons will be anyway. WAIT for Gnome to finish their 3.0 UI improvements and tack on there where there is a longer runway. Putting improvements on Gnome2 is probably a waste of development time at this point. No need in putting fresh paint on a house marked for demolition. In other words, this change just isn't big enough to cause warrant the kinds of frustration it is already causing. Drop it and come back to it when the UI REALLY changes.
6) LTS release: Putting an experimental change on an LTS seems strange to me. This seems like an excellent thing for 10.10, and even then as a voluntary test, UNLESS there is a new feature tied to it.