IMHO @keiaa.07.05.00 quite reasonably asks how community might help. And @ericmarceau quite reasonably proposes to collect and distil community's opinions.
IMHO the problem is that we have not been explicitly asked for something by somebody. In other words, where a message has to be delivered to? And what the message is expected to be about? Who is willing to take burden of collecting and distilling community opinions, compose message(s) and delivering them to proper person(s)?
I am not brave and strong enough... That is why I can only thank FOSS developers and the community.
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Just to clarify, I proposed a mechanism for the what and how of collecting.
I am not in a position skill-wise, or because of my own, and my wife's, health issues, time-wise, to actually perform the cycle of
- compiling lists,
- formulating questionnaires,
- compiling questionnaire responses, or
- distilling and transforming responses/statistics into clear view of state of needs/desires.
I am "asynchronously" available to review and provide, if such is desired, my opinion/feedback on the work of others, or to assist with the sense-making from the consolidated data, either directly or indirectly.
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I have used both Mint Mate and Ubuntu Mate. I am a casual user and a GUI user. I didn't see much difference in the two operating systems when it came to the GUI. One big one is Clem is not a fan of snaps so you don't find them on Mint . Why I chose Ubuntu Mate is the forum. The forum here is way better than Mint's where the three different desktops confuse people and many questions just go unanswered. Many OS's focus on the GUI for people coming from Windows. Zorin is one that does that. It was the reason I quit using Zorin back about release 10. It is now to much like Windows 10 and 11. But many Windows converts still prefer more XP and Win 7 type desktops. Mate fits that preference.
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The superficial similarity to Windows 7/8 is why I gravitated to UbuntuMATE. Hoping to convince my wife to adopt it as well. That, however, is still a work in progress!
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Same here. Win8 forced me to Linux for good, though I used it as a dual boot and on a backup computer before then. My wife screwed up her laptop so bad Windows couldn't be recovered and I put her on Ubuntu Mate, which she liked. But then her motherboard went so I bought her a new HP computer and she was afraid to wipe it and install Linux. But like your wife it is a work in progress, knowing her she will screw up her computer so Windows cannot be restored and Linux will be used again to save the laptop!
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It may be difficult but it is doable - I mean there are ways to survey your community - there could be community poles and like @ericmarceau stated - questionnaires for example, like engagement with community in a way that somebody that works for Canonical asks in "AskUbuntu" or on some other forums a question "Would you want the option xyz in next version of Ubuntu and which option would you prefer - x, y or z" - then you see how many people voted - set the timer like two weeks and then you get a better sense of what most active members of community vibe with
Thing is - you can only know your community if you have meaningful engagement - community cannot help if it isn't asked questions - asking meaningful questions gives one a meaningful answer in most cases
Some poles could be for the broader community, some for developers, some for veteran members etc
Thing is - if you ask your community how they perceive certain things you may not fall into trouble like with amazon fiasco they had which is remembered and mentioned here and there even today
What I mean by questionnaire is - ask in a sense "hey we are thinking of implementing these few things what the priority of those things you, the community think, should be the first on the list and also "do majority of you even want/need things we are thinking of implementing" just to get on the same page and not later be "hurr durr they removed this and did that why did they do such a thing" and such
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I think we may have been caught in a misunderstanding. I am asking you what do you personally think they should do to give ample attention on the desktop side of things.
On the other hand, yes. Questionnaires would indeed be helpful for identifying the community insights. I'd like to come up with one in my free time and see what I can do about it personally.
Finally, I'd like you to reflect on this statement of yours. Don't you think that's quite a stretch?
Thing is - you can only know your community if you have meaningful engagement - community cannot help if it isn't asked questions...
Cheers, have a good one!
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Jill, I actually think that quote you referenced seemed on point, unless there is a nuance there that I didn't catch. Maybe you could clarify where/how in that statement you thought something was "off-key"?
I would really appreciate you offering that clarification and additional insight which, maybe, we might be missing or not recognizing.
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The one that made me think that it's quite the stretch is this phrase:
... community cannot help if it isn't asked questions...
Regardless of considering the context or not, that seems too naive and/or dismissive of other community efforts that aren't necessarily like that. My apologies if I implied something seemingly rough.
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Well I don't think it is a stretch - if you don't ask any questions you don't really get much information out of people unless they are willing to share - I mean if you don't really know what your community wants if you don't ask them "hey what is it you think you need - see we got this and that, will any of that work and why not?"
Because if you don't have meaningful engagement you get pushbacks as you have them with snap and such so you are on the shaky bridge, I mean if you ask questions you get answers but also new questions may arise and with them new ideas for solutions - that is why I stated that quote - because in the end we are all social beings that need communication and the more we talk the less misunderstanding we have to deal with 
I personally would ask questions and if I was any more knowledgeable I would do presentations to people in real life or online at gatherings/seminars about importance of developing easy-to-use GUI on Linux because I do believe it is possible and that it will make GNU/Linux based OS-es more approachable to everyone because today when I talk to my colleagues they are not really interested in switching because "it's not noob friendly enough" and such similar arguments that somewhat are true still
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Ok, I think I got it now.
So ... are you suggesting that Developers probe the Community at an earlier stage, that of weighing the trade-offs, to get Community feel and input at that level, early on?
After all, if we are not aware, as they certainly would be, then we can't step forward to offer an comment/perspective/opinion ... especially since we don't have the awareness of the subject matter to even begin to think about those matters, let alone having "tasted" the topic enough to formulate an opinion on those!
Is that what you and @Alarik are trying to say?
If so, is there any trace of Developer discussions regarding interactions at their level, and did they consciously choose to pursue whatever approach they are currently using (for interacting with Communities at large), or have they simply fallen into the rut of communicating only with those who are pursuing solutions to the same challenges they themselves are facing directly?
... thereby overlooking the benefits of "out-of-the-box" thinking that including "outsiders" into a discussion can bring, usually by their acting as catalysts in crystallizing the issues/enablers/trade-offs ...
... because, in their mind, it isn't perceived to be worth the effort?
Or is it simply the most basic of reasons: they have a low opinion of the value that such Community interaction/input could contribute to their efforts?
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Well that is my thought exactly - early and in regular intervals just to make people develop a habit of "hey this is this time of the month - lets see what Canonical has to say"
And then for example, hypothetically speaking, in May of this year we get a discussion "we were in communication with Ubuntu MATE community and we talked with MATE team - these are new ideas we think you may like..." - and for new ideas I don't know on the top of my head - "We saw that Linux Mint team had a system restore as default installed via Timeshift app and we are thinking of implementing it in the next full install so you can easily make snapshots"
Here is a nice discussion about Timeshift as of recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/1anmm3i/do_you_guys_make_system_snapshots_with_timeshift/
Here we can see that many people do love using it and really I don't know if it can be made easier to make a snapshot backup of the system than via Timeshift and I personally wouldn't ever even think of it were it not implemented from the get-go when I first used Linux and started with Mint years ago
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