Multitasking  – Multitasking on Unity is disconnected and difficult at times

Task flow is interrupted: While working on a task, participants wanted to have all the documents and websites they were using easily available to them.  For them, the task was the unit of organisation of all resources and tools.  Thus, while working on a task, participants expected that Unity would provide them with a representation or visibility of what was available to them and how to easily access what they needed at any given point.  Unity does not, however, make evident the resources and tools users have at their disposal — whether it be multiple documents, programmes or websites. In a word, while Unity relies on users to keep track of the resources they are currently using, users are habituated to relying on the software to “keep track for them,” by making the resources highly visible, for example, by means of tabs. With Unity, resources are hidden from view.

see Usability Testing of Unity | Ubuntu Design Blog.

Argghhh! What do you call activities where a person does something they know is wrong? Criminal? Insane? What were they thinking? It’s a fundamental truth of IT that one uses the best tool for the job and the best tool to keep track of twenty things going on at once is a true multi-tasking OS. Why throw that away? Why make users who do a lot feel handicapped?

There’s a reason most users of PCs like a few gadgets hanging around on the desktop… so they can find what they need when they need them.