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Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

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Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#271

Post by bostik »

white-flame wrote: post #211
tomc1985 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think animations, as most program them, slow down the UI exactly as you say. But when their timing is tight, and the whole thing happens in under, say, half a second, you get the benefits of that context association and it still feels really cool and high-tech. People jsut set their animations too slow. (Seriously, nothing should ever take longer than 500ms)

I don't have a link, but in referencing interactivity tests for some remote software development I did some years back, the maximum time between pressing a button and perceiving its effect to be considered "instant" is around 200ms. You don't want to go slower than that if you want it to "feel" fast & responsive.

You're talking about Nielsen thresholds, and the limit for "instantaneous" is actually ~100ms.[0] Anything slower is considered to have taken some time.

Now, if that wasn't depressing enough - the Nielsen research is from early 90's. In the intervening 25 years, the users have certainly not become any less impatient.

0: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-...

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#272

Post by vikramkrishnan »

The front end developer at one of the companies I was working for nearly fainted when I told him I like Craigslist's web interface. The only criticism he could muster was "But it looks like the 90s". And then he proceeded to tell me off "because you don't want to learn how to use a new interface". Of course I don't want to, it is a skill with zero transferability. Learning how to be productive with an interface that only works with 'a' given app, for 'a' duration of six months until some bozo changes the whole UI, because some focus group decided that "it would look so pretty if ..." (and that is the best case scenario, mostly it is because some UI/UX guy was inspired while sacrificing chickens to a graven image of Steve Jobs) is bunk. The two most hated things that came out of Redmond in the last 20 years were the 07 rejig of the Office UI (so you had muscle memoried a bunch of key strokes that made you super productive, well the F U buddy, we are going with this weird ribbon thingie for no discernable reason - fixed that by recording a bunch of macros that did what Office 03 did) and the Win 8 UI. I mean which diseased mind thought that it would be a good idea? And if that was not retarded enough, to force it on server users.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#273

Post by thoae55tbuoe0 »

This rant has some good points, but completely misses other very important points. The main one being that those "really fast interfaces" were only fast or even useable if you spent months to years learning how to use them. They were also horribly limiting. (For example, with no mouse and no way to change where the input is focused, you can't re-sort the lists by a different field.)

I worked for a major cash register manufacturer writing DOS-based software for point of sale (PoS) systems in the 90s. One thing our customers (big stores) constantly reiterated was that training costs were very high and retention very low, so they wanted simpler-to-use systems, but with no less functionality.

The big wins tended to be combinations of hardware that made the process easier (think grocery store scanners), and better UI on screen that was easier to understand and use. We ended up making a graphical (but still DOS-based) UI along with some specialized hardware (an LCD screen with function keys around it so the command name was right next to the key, but could change per screen). It's been used for the past 20 years by the likes of Walmart, Target, and the USPS, so I guess it worked. (I haven't worked on it in 20 years, so I'm sure it's changed from how it was when I was there.)

It may very well not be as fast to load any given screen or respond to any given command. But it costs less to train people to use it, and it's easier to understand. I believe that it also helped improve checkout speed, as well, which was important to some of the bigger stores.

I feel the pain the OP has, but I don't think their rant is entirely justified. There are good points (especially about maps!), but they're also seeing the past through rose-colored glasses.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#274

Post by spc476 »

danaliv wrote: post #96
sp332 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you counting shared memory multiple times? Try hitting shift-esc in Chrome and checking the memory usage there. My heaviest tab (Gmail) is only around 250M. Edit: I mean most computers don't even have 30 GB of RAM, but if you do there's an easy way to check. Open a bunch of tabs and note your system's total RAM usage. Then close Chrome and see how much gets freed up. If it's 30GB then you have a problem :)

Only 250M. ONLY 250M. Gives up and dies I don't mean to be dramatic but this is a huge part of the problem. How is it that the exact same application (email) ran perfectly well on systems with 1M of RAM (and no virtual memory!) and now it takes two-hundred-and-fifty-fucking-megs?

I'm running mutt, and right now it's only consuming 8.5MB (out of an image size of 12MB). That still feels large to me, but my first computer had only 16K of RAM (I've written larger emails) so I might still have a bias.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#275

Post by dredmorbius »

digi_owl wrote: post #214
dredmorbius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I find myself increasingly reaching for tools to remove that complexity: Outline.com, Reader Mode, Pocket (despite its many, many flaws). Not infrequently: stripping out content, running it in Markdown, and generating a static document (PDF, ePub, text) that I can just fucking read .

Noscript or Umatrix?

Neither of those are an option on Chrome/Android, and I don't think they apply on Firefox/Android (not sure about disabling JS).

Firefox does offer uBlock, at least, which is a massive relief. I also run (on the router) a large, and after significant modularisation by me, flexible dnsmasq blocklist that addresses another large set of issues.

On desktop (Linux, MacOS), I have and use: NoScript, uBlock, uMatrix, and Stylish, as well as Reader Mode.

It's still often less aggrevating to grab source or rendered text and create a standalone Markdown text, for various reasons.

I'm looking into the notion of a browsing mode that presumes the website designer is an idiot and that the HTML markup is at best a hint at what the semantic structure ought to be -- see concepts such as POSH (Plain Old Structural HTML), and ... a few other things. Work in (very slow) progress.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#276

Post by vikramkrishnan »

finchisko wrote: post #182

I think what guy is actually experiencing strong feeling of nostalgia for older times. And I understand that. I see it on myself more and more with coming years too. We were simply born in some era, which holds strong memories in us. We hold sentiment to old things (programs), because somehow they're connected with best memories from time we were much younger. And the best memories are usually bounded to age around 2…

Well the only way a 20 year old is getting weirded out by a Win 95 interface is (1) he has never seen a Windows machine because Win 10 basically reverted to the same Win 95 interface or (2) never worked on a desktop/laptop with KDE, Cinnamon or the other DEs inspired by Win 95. And Win 95's UI rocks IMHO (and I say that as a person closer in age to those annoying pipsqueaks in that video). You go to a button labeled "START". It has clearly labeled folders called "Accessories", "Programs", "Internet" etc and then you get to where you want to. For 90% of the UIs, a tree like that is a perfectly good data structure. The more annoying thing is why is it that software like Office etc take two orders of nagnitude more RAM while being essentially 90% similar in functionality to Office '97

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#277

Post by yason »

tomc1985 wrote: post #203
ambrosite wrote: post #15

I wonder how much of this is a result of UI designers deliberately putting tiny delays/animations into their UIs to make them more "usable"? For example, it was a common piece of advice that if clicking a button opens up a dialog box, there should be a brief animation showing the box expanding from the direction of the button, so the user would associate the clicking of the button with the appearance of the box and u…

I think animations, as most program them, slow down the UI exactly as you say. But when their timing is tight, and the whole thing happens in under, say, half a second, you get the benefits of that context association and it still feels really cool and high-tech. People jsut set their animations too slow. (Seriously, nothing should ever take longer than 500ms)

People jsut set their animations too slow. (Seriously, nothing should ever take longer than 500ms)

They could start with 500ms and subtract 100ms from each UI activity after each time it is used until the delay is 0ms.

The user would learn the interactions on the screen first and then not be bothered by the animations later. As a bonus the user might actually thing the program "speeded up after a 'break-in' period".

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#278

Post by peatmoss »

vikramkrishnan wrote: post #276
finchisko wrote: post #182

I think what guy is actually experiencing strong feeling of nostalgia for older times. And I understand that. I see it on myself more and more with coming years too. We were simply born in some era, which holds strong memories in us. We hold sentiment to old things (programs), because somehow they're connected with best memories from time we were much younger. And the best memories are usually bounded to age around 2…

Well the only way a 20 year old is getting weirded out by a Win 95 interface is (1) he has never seen a Windows machine because Win 10 basically reverted to the same Win 95 interface or (2) never worked on a desktop/laptop with KDE, Cinnamon or the other DEs inspired by Win 95. And Win 95's UI rocks IMHO (and I say that as a person closer in age to those annoying pipsqueaks in that video). You go to a button labeled…

> You go to a button labeled "START". It has clearly labeled folders called "Accessories", "Programs", "Internet" etc and then you get to where you want to. For 90% of the UIs, a tree like that is a perfectly good data structure.

The strict hierarchy of the start menu was admittedly pretty nice, right up until (I think) Windows XP, where they started having the weird bifurcation at the parent level.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#279

Post by gmueckl »

squarefoot wrote: post #248

The corporate culture to release a product in time rather than having it perform fast ruined the IT world and is infecting the FOSS ecosystem too. Just throw away all VM-constrained or interpreted languages (or use them only for prototyping) and the problem is almost solved. Then make everything work offline unless it is absolutely necessary to do the opposite (backups, updates etc). Rediscovering the lost art of opt…

This does not work. The economic incentives are biased towards fast releases of mediocre software. Whoever delivers faster and cheaper tends to win.

Quality is detrimental to the business. Good software does not require support. Paid support earns money.

An initial release that is stuffed with features takes longer to develop (the competition gets the customers) and has fewer incentives for later upgrades (less income after initial release).

Software cannot really improve unless quality standards become mandatory. The liability disclaimer should go. Engineers don't get a free pass if their products don't work. Why should software be treated differently?

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983

#280

Post by vikramkrishnan »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #255
Declanomous wrote: post #29

This could be a copy-paste of rants I have written. I think marketing has ruined pretty much everything. Everything has a subscription now, and it's in the cloud . My experience is that everything is slower than when I first started using computers as a child in the 90's, and it does it worse. You don't own anything anymore, upgrades routinely take away features, and nothing interfaces with anything else. There are a…

> This could be a copy-paste of rants I have written. I think marketing has ruined pretty much everything. Everything has a subscription now, and it's in the cloud. Well, shrink-wrapped software only needed to be purchased once to have something , and it was amenable to piracy. It also didn't let companies collect, expropriate, and sell off your private data. Hell, once upon a time, people even wanted to take EULA pr…

I would blame Scrum and the culture of storyboards. Go and take a look at any storyboard. 99% of it is feature addition. Not speed improvement, not security. It is some "scrum master" who comes up and says 10% of our customers have said that feature X on our app would be awesome and based on this POOMA-ed projection we will have a 10% improvement in retention and 100% improvement in some other random statistic, completely ignoring the fact that you are negative impacting things like speed and responsiveness that the other 90% of the user base gives a crap about, which was not captured in this random survey of yours
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