Comment 51 for bug 160311

Ubuntu aims to be usable by ordinary human beings and accessible to the disabled. This issue is hurting those goals as follows:

(1) Usability: Windows (95 onwards), Mac OS and KDE all have the ability to change border thickness *because clicking on a thin border is a problem for some people*. Microsoft, Apple and the KDE team all added this feature for a reason, and don't require you to change theme to change the border thickness. Border thickness is not a problem for many people I'm sure, but Ubuntu is missing out on part of its target market.

(2) Accessibility: some people have motor control disabilities, e.g. tremor in the hand - it's important for them that it's *really easy* to set a larger window border, even on a smaller monitor. Ubuntu has relatively good support for visually impaired users - why not for users with motor control problems? Note that elderly people often have problem controlling the mouse (if they are new to computer), which is another accessibility issue - if you are struggling to accurately position the mouse pointer, a small window border makes it harder still.

(3) Look and Feel: People should be able to choose a nice theme that they like (or is accessible to them), and independently tweak the border thickness - what if you hate blue but the only theme with a thicker border is blue? More importantly, what if you are visually impaired *and* have motor control problems, so you need a high-contrast theme, yet the only themes with a wide border are low contrast.

The fact that "only" 30 people have commented here is misleading - only a tiny percentage of those experiencing this problem will bother to find the right bug and register on Launchpad. It's very likely it's affecting tens to hundreds of thousands of people, assuming Ubuntu's user base of 6 million is correct.

Finally, Ubuntu should be *better* than Mac OS, Windows, etc - this is one area where its GNOME flavour is behind the competition.