(The introduction to this series can be found HERE. Have a read.)

Okay, so today is Sunday, so I am not spending a lot of time on the laptop. I decided to test Unity with the SaGeek 25 Part test to see how it fares.

Let’s see how it did?

What are we testing?

The interface, as if it were part of Ubuntu today. Now Netbook Edition users will be experiencing Unity as part of their everyday environment, so this test should reflect their computing experience right now.

Since Unity is part of a released environment I am not going to cut it the same slack I would Gnome Shell since it cannot be considered beta any more.

I added a new criteria: “Open Program Accessibility.” This indicates how well the interface presents open programs to the user, feedback on program events like notifying of needed action, and ease of going to an open window that is hidden. In this area Unity does the best of all because it integrates that information in one area – the Unity Launcher.

MacOS would do very well here too, with the dock providing great feedback to the user. The only thing that would keep the MacOS dock from giving OSX a 100% score here would be that it can get VERY cluttered. Unity Launcher comes very close to MacOS in this test.

Two areas where Unity really fails, and scores a 0 is setting up, and accessing network shares. If the user does not know how to access regular nautilus he would have no way of doing either. (If I missed an obvious way to do this I really want to know.)

25 Part Test Scores

Have a look at the scores below:

Tests	G-Shell	Mint 9 KDE	Win7	Ubuntu	Unity
Join Wifi Network	100	80	80	100	100
Join Wired Network	100	100	50	100	100
Set Proxy	50	70	57.14	66.67	66.67
Get Network Info	50	80	25	50	50
Change Desktop Background	100	100	80	100	75
Change Theme	100	75	100	100	75
Set Screen Rez	66.67	80	100	80	80
Set Up Network Share	100	66.67	80	100	0
Access Network Share	100	100	66.67	100	0
Get Hardware Info	50	66.67	100	66.67	66.67
Get System Usage Info	50	66.67	100	66.67	66.67
Open Program Accessibility	25	85	80	85	90
Play Audio CD	100	75	100	100	100
Access USB Drive	100	100	50	100	100
Play Youtube	50	100	33.33	80	80
Play MP3	50	100	100	80	80
Open PDF	100	100	33.33	100	100
Look For Specific Software	75	100	28.57	75	90
Check For System Updates	75	100	50	66.67	66.67
Supported Architecture	100	100	100	100	100
Shut Down	66.67	66.67	66.67	66.67	66.67
Battery Life	75	80	90.91	75	85
Atheros Support	100	100	100	100	100
Codec Support	75	100	100	75	75
WEP Support	100	33.33	100	100	100
Totals	1958.34	2125.01	1871.62	2133.35	1913.35
Percentage Score	78.3336	85.0004	74.8648	85.334	76.534

So there you have it. Surprisingly Gnome Shell outperforms Unity. I think part of that is because I have no way currently to test the presentation of information to the user over some areas. I will work on that and get it ready for a future review.

The two zeros also hurt Unity in the final score. If it had scored perfect 100’s in both like Ubuntu did it would get an overall score of 85.534 – outperforming Gnome Shell. Just something to think about.

Summary Day Five

I am warming to Unity. Regardless of the scores I prefer it to Gnome Shell – it is easier to interact with, and does not hide my information from me like Gnome Shell does.

I am also working on some themes for my personal entertainment – I now have a nifty snakeskin Unity Launcher, looks really wicked. I’ll see how I feel about them and maybe share them with you… (Tonite I am going to snakeskin my Top Panel and Ubuntu Icon Area too… just because I can…) UPDATE: Look at the day four post to see my new snakeskin theme.

DAY Six is up. Updating as the day goes along. Read it HERE.

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