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.

Re:General usability should be one of the choices

[InsightIn140Bytes]

So if they want something premade, why would they choose Linux instead of OSX or Windows? What else than customization, tweakability and programming the system does Linux offer over those two? It's a good question to ask, especially for Gnome/KDE/Ubuntu/Linux developers if they want Linux to become mainstream.

Re:Determining the best turd

[lakeland]

Windows does not score very well in usability tests - generally worse than Linux. Last I heard 7 scores better than Gnome 3, but I don't follow these things closely.

However you alluded to an important point "my home/personal machines have always been running Windows". People find it much easier to use something they're familiar with, and anybody who uses Windows fairly regularly at home or work will almost certainly find that easier than Linux.

Re:KDE the replacement for Gnome 2?

[KugelKurt]

KDE still feels overly complicated whenever I go to configure things.

If there is anything that's hard to configure, it's GNOME. GNOME has lots of options -- most of them hidden somewhere in GConf. It's hard to get more complicated than that. ;-)

As for "KDE"... you're both wrong and right. What you described is the KDE3 attitude. In the 4.x series many config options have been cleaned up. See Dophin (compared to Konqueror 3.x), Gwenview, or Okular. In fact, I'd argue that new applications and components written for the 4.x series are among the most clean and usable applications available for Linux -- including Plasma Desktop itself.
However, there are a few black sheep: Usually applications simply ported over from 3.x like KMail whose GUI barely changed over the years because the developers were busy with back-end renovation.
That said, that article is about the desktop environments themselves, not applications usually used together with them.