Fwiw I set my mom up on 11.10 a few months ago. She was coming from OSX and immediately took to and came to love Ubuntu.
I think part of it is that with Unity, there are never overwhelming amounts of options on the screen. Once you understand that Super Key = Search for Application, that's pretty much all you need to know.
In the past, I think the "Start Menu" style application-chooser would have been overwhelming for her - I know it was sometimes for me. I'd click then start reading through the menus "Uhh, wait, what did I want? Where is that again?"
Even with the occasional Unity glitch (which doesn't seem to be an issue at all in 12.04) her system is still much more reliable than ever.
I was really impressed and excited to see that Linux was at the point where she could use it with very little coaching - so, worth considering that much at least.
Yes - super key is like the predecessor of saying "computer:" in Star Trek. That is nice. It is part of why tools like Gnome-Do, Launchy, Kupfer, Synapse (not to mention Vim plugins like Fuzzyfinder, Command-T and CtrlP) have taken off. It's like shell auto-completion except you kicked off the search before typing anything, and it is easy to set different contexts to guide the search.
And even if Unity is doing some things wrong, it is well worth refining this launcher concept. Flying up to a 'File' menu to (say) exit an application, or Edit to search a file, is about as stupid as dragging a floppy disk onto a garbage can. Harder to decide exactly what to do instead.
I'm also quite happy that FINALLY some GUI designers are putting elements like quick keys and fuzzy searching at the foundation rather than kludging them on to an interface which is fundamentally hostile to people who have specific actions in mind and/or know what they are doing.
I complete agree with you, as I had the same experience with my family. My parents feel much more confortable having the icons of the couple of apps they use everyday right in front of their eyes; and everything else hidden, but still available.
I think part of it is that with Unity, there are never overwhelming amounts of options on the screen. Once you understand that Super Key = Search for Application, that's pretty much all you need to know.
In the past, I think the "Start Menu" style application-chooser would have been overwhelming for her - I know it was sometimes for me. I'd click then start reading through the menus "Uhh, wait, what did I want? Where is that again?"
Even with the occasional Unity glitch (which doesn't seem to be an issue at all in 12.04) her system is still much more reliable than ever.
I was really impressed and excited to see that Linux was at the point where she could use it with very little coaching - so, worth considering that much at least.