Im mostly talking out of my ass here, but here goes: Stop trend following with UI paradigms. Being smaller and accept that you're smaller; Stop worrying about converting people and new user adoption. Is it /really/ a priority for the target market of new and current users to have as low a learning curve as possible for UI layout and functionality patterns? It seems to me most Ububtu users are A) at /least/ slightly more sophisticated than the average user B) /actually/ looking for an alternative, as in a new paradigm.
Why not??
I personally love the convenience of the CLI, but remembering all of those commands takes up a lot of mental space. Some sort of visual guide, or better, a way to make the CLI experience mesh with the GUI experience would be totally be the cat's meow.
Again, don't try to be the next mac or windows (at least not by mostly copying their paradigms). Doing so can easily damage a niche product's ability to fully serve its core users.
It's a better idea, rather, to look at the size and profiles (5 is a good number) of Ubuntu users as a source of users who are probably willing to experiment and even actively contribute to experimental UI, navigation, and command input design models.
This type of active and collaborative participation at a higher level of abstraction (at the design and use level) is great for allowing active users to contribute more than a few lines of code in a network driver. I would definitely reconsider using Ubuntu if I this sort of activity started. That would open your user base to a whole new class of technical users, process and user-interface designers.
Who knows, maybe you guys will stumble upon something interesting! If the user-touching design innovations catch on and increase visibility for Ubuntu or better, if they are adopter by maimsteam players, then you would further cement Ubuntu's position in the OS ecosystem, but with meaningful connectivity to major players-- as a place where reallty cool things happen in terms of design innovation. Big companies like windows can't make these kinds of changes very easily, almost any amount of testing is too little for a company with such a large user base, most of whom are less tech sophisticated and solidified in their usage patterns and expectations. Large companies are by nature more calcified. Small companies like Ubuntu can try new usage patterns (like what windows tries and inevitably always fails at), see what works, then, furthermore, can help establish those design patterns in a reasonable number of mainstream users (there are strategies for that) and after a critical mass had been reached in terms of familiarity and proper market-fit, the larger players will put those ideas at the top of the list when it comes time to think about modernization.
Why not??
I personally love the convenience of the CLI, but remembering all of those commands takes up a lot of mental space. Some sort of visual guide, or better, a way to make the CLI experience mesh with the GUI experience would be totally be the cat's meow.
Again, don't try to be the next mac or windows (at least not by mostly copying their paradigms). Doing so can easily damage a niche product's ability to fully serve its core users.
It's a better idea, rather, to look at the size and profiles (5 is a good number) of Ubuntu users as a source of users who are probably willing to experiment and even actively contribute to experimental UI, navigation, and command input design models.
This type of active and collaborative participation at a higher level of abstraction (at the design and use level) is great for allowing active users to contribute more than a few lines of code in a network driver. I would definitely reconsider using Ubuntu if I this sort of activity started. That would open your user base to a whole new class of technical users, process and user-interface designers.
Who knows, maybe you guys will stumble upon something interesting! If the user-touching design innovations catch on and increase visibility for Ubuntu or better, if they are adopter by maimsteam players, then you would further cement Ubuntu's position in the OS ecosystem, but with meaningful connectivity to major players-- as a place where reallty cool things happen in terms of design innovation. Big companies like windows can't make these kinds of changes very easily, almost any amount of testing is too little for a company with such a large user base, most of whom are less tech sophisticated and solidified in their usage patterns and expectations. Large companies are by nature more calcified. Small companies like Ubuntu can try new usage patterns (like what windows tries and inevitably always fails at), see what works, then, furthermore, can help establish those design patterns in a reasonable number of mainstream users (there are strategies for that) and after a critical mass had been reached in terms of familiarity and proper market-fit, the larger players will put those ideas at the top of the list when it comes time to think about modernization.