Comment 274 for bug 532633

Mark:

I did not make any assumptions about intent or motivations on the behalf of anyone at Canonical.

What I am saying is that maybe...just maybe the Canonical design team isn't communicating enough about intent and motivation so that the external community can see individual changes in context of the long term vision. I've sketched what the consequences of a lack of communication can look like...but I've not spoken to what I think Canonical's motivations are in failing to layout a bright roadmap for externals to use to put changes into the correct context. But man, I'm so hoping its revenue generating Google Adwords in window titlebars...but I haven't actually said that yet.

What I am suggesting is that there is a lack of communication from the Canonical design team outward into the larger community. Did I at any point question the fact that Canonical cares about usability and design? I know very well Canonical sponsored the Gnome event. But sponsoring a small team event, is not the same as communicating the vision created in that event. I saw a lot of people making an effort to really communicate a larger vision of what is going on in an effort to prepare the wider community for the UI changes that are going to result of that peer-expert meeting. And because of that effort to communicate, its going to be much easier for externals to understand how each individual change fits into a broader context. Did any of the Canonical participants at that Gnome hackfest blog or any other way communicate their experience of the Gnome hackfest? Sure Canonical sponsored it...but did any of the Canonical attendees "communicate" to the wider Gnome community outside that room? Its effort to communicate expert opinion to non-experts that aids in the acceptance of the larger vision...not the simple fact that the experts are in fact experts.

What I am suggesting is that you and your team need to be mindful of a pattern of behavior that disregards the power of external proactive communication to set the context of a discussion over individual changes. I'm not speaking to what is motivating that pattern of behavior, what's motivating the lack of discussion about the benefits opening up the right side of the titlebar. I'm just pointing out its a deficiency in your communication strategy in that you haven't laid down a roadmap where this change makes sense in context. If individual design decisions continue on like this, communication is going to become more shrill which each such change.