We recently conducted usability testing to see how users respond to Ubuntu on their first encounter.
Overall, first impressions are good. Typical remarks include:
“It is bold and different.”
“Ubuntu is fresh and accessible ….”
“This is good. People are getting tired of Windows.”

What we were looking for during these sessions, however, were things that could pose strong challenges to unfamiliar users — that could, in fact, be ‘show stoppers’ in the sense that they had the potential to keep such users from coming back.
Here is some of what we found.