DuckDuckFedi, what kind of desktop environment do GNOME developers use?
I am curious because some of the design decisions feel as if they had been made by people who... don't use GUIs at all? Or maybe are new to computers in general?
Some data points:
- No way to adjust screen brightness out of the box.
- No solid color backgrounds, only pictures.
- At least the missing close buttons were just a temporary lapse of judgement.
TheEvilSkeleton
in reply to Autumn Kelp • • •I only use GNOME, on all my devices (desktop, laptop, tablet) except phone (Android, though that's not a desktop environment)
> No way to adjust screen brightness out of the box.
Hardware dependent maybe? Maybe it's possible with hacks and workarounds, but I'm no display/hardware person. I can adjust screen brightness on my laptop and tablet, but not on my desktop
> No solid color backgrounds, only pictures.
Yeah... I always found that weird, personally. I discovered gnome-control-center#3389, which was expected to be included in GNOME 49, but I suppose they forgot..?
Set solid color backgrounds (#3389) · Issues · GNOME / Settings · GitLab
GitLabTheEvilSkeleton
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •> I am curious because some of the design decisions feel as if they had been made by people who... don't use GUIs at all? Or maybe are new to computers in general?
Honestly, that's probably a fair assumption 😅
I believe all GNOME designers unconditionally prefer GUIs over anything else. A sizable chunk of GNOME users (including developers, designers, etc.) are neurodivergent (ADHD, autism, dyslexic, etc.), so we generally try to keep everything big, spacious, succinct, and not expose nonessential buttons and bars.
Despite all this, I think that GNOME does an almost-excellent job with keyboard navigation - "almost" because the shell and apps often lack proper keyboard navigation support; for example, as of GNOME 49, GNOME Calendar will finally accommodate keyboard users: tesk.page/2025/07/25/gnome-cal… - but despite that, I think GNOME does a much better job with keyboard navigation than macOS and Windows.
I try to go into details with GNOME's design philosophy on my blog post: tesk.page/2023/04/02/what-is-g… - but the summary is that we try to provide good defaults; but we also set the expectation that the user uses GNOME with a fresh mindset, and not with the mindset of someone who is familiar with macOS or Windows. We want to keep the desktop clean and distraction-free, so the user can get work done with minimal distractions.
GNOME Calendar: A New Era of Accessibility Achieved in 90 Days
TheEvilSkeletonAutumn Kelp
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •@TheEvilSkeleton
Oh, thanks for at link
In principle, I like the overall approach very much.
And hiding certain things makes sense if you are going for an "uncluttered" look.
But from a usability perspective, if I can't even enable "common" stuff in the settings (stuff that already existed in GNOME), at that point a design is throwing "discoverability" out of the window and going more for "write it yourself if you like it so much, noob".
TheEvilSkeleton
in reply to Autumn Kelp • • •yeah, it's a trade-off. I think it's important to highlight that most of these decisions are taken after a fair amount of exchanges between designers, developers, users, etc. Many of these discussions span for months, too.
Some vary from who's willing to work on it and who's willing to maintain it - in the end, GNOME is a community project full of volunteers.
Just a few years ago, there were a lot of considerations to remove more than half the network features in Settings, due to the lack of maintenance but increase in burnout: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-c…
Some functionality are removed due to accessibility reasons. Some are also purely philosophical, in that the underlying technology providing the functionality is severely lacking in many aspects. For example, system trays were removed due to accessibility and technological reasons: blogs.gnome.org/aday/2017/08/3…
Of course, not every feature removal is like that, but they're not removed "just because" and/or without discussion.
Status Icons and GNOME
Allan (Form and Function)Autumn Kelp
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •@TheEvilSkeleton
I have workarounds, and there are extensions that allow e.g. brightness adjustment.
It's more like starting a new operating system and discovering that there is no text editor. Or way to see how much disk space is left. Or a way to power it down.
"Did any of the devs ever try to use this?"
TheEvilSkeleton
in reply to Autumn Kelp • • •yeah. I can't speak for every single case, but it's pretty common to find bugs that are utterly broken on specific environments, like the infamous mutter#3362 😓
Often times, features are tested/targeted for specific combinations of environments, but will completely collapse on other combinations of environments, usually because the developers only have that hardware.
Desktop Zoom in a dual monitor setup places focused area of the cursor in the middle of both monitors, and causes ghost surfaces when content moves (#3362) · Issues · GNOME / mutter · GitLab
GitLab