Comment 207 for bug 532633

@Mark You honestly feel that this change of windows button to the left is best for Ubuntu? And the best time to make such change is in an LTS? Personally I am less concerned about the windows way or the apple way but rather that whatever usability decision the design team make should have usability impact on the users. Left for me There are many things that needs fixing on the Ubuntu desktop usability wise and windows button are just not one of them. But that is just me. The way I see this not one person had complained or felt that they was a problem with the window button being on the right. Even the people who claim to prefer it on the left or adjust to it that way many of them never had a problem with it being on the right. All I can say is that it would be nice if things like usability and design should be open more to the community. Canonical always have their veto but at least the community would have a sense of participation.

One thing I would love to hear is how the design team hopes to get round issues of breaking consistency with the rest of the Linux desktop. That is a issue that would need to be addressed. Many people on Ubuntu would be using emerald compiz window decorator will that be patched too to respect this new window button replacement?. others would be using openbox. some of us also have kde installed on our system. How is the design team going to get round the issue of consistency which if not sorted would lead to bigger usability issues than was created by the window buttons being on the right.

Also would this window button redesign be implemented in other ubuntu variants like kubuntu, Xubuntu, lubuntu? Because if design team is telling us that this change is in fact the best thing then surely there wouldn't wont to exclude ubuntu variant from the best usability experience.

Maybe there should be a check button that asks the user way he would like his windows button placed. (but that too would add more level of complexity to the install process and make it less human friendly)

Personally as a sysadmin in charge of a university where Ubuntu is used solely by all our staffs, students, and faculties. This change should never have come in an LTS release (if it most be made at all) and in my humble opinion is just a solution looking for a problem. It doesn't in anyway increase my workflow or that of my users and having to resort to gconf command or installing extra ppa everytime I install ubuntu for my users (and I do that alot) is not something am looking forward to. But then maybe am not as long sighted as Mark.