Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

socket3.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 402 posts

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#41

Post by pjmlp »

netsharc wrote: post #14
wiradikusuma wrote: post #4

"not understanding how folders could exist inside of other folders" -- My mom is 70 years old now, and I easily get frustrated whenever she's stuck with seemingly simple tasks with her computer. I usually scold her and yell at her, "This is so obvious, how come you don't know?" -- I always regret doing that afterwards. After I'm calm, I ask her why, trying to understand it from her perspective. Every time I do this,…

The term "folder" already annoys me. It's a (filesystem) directory...

The term folder was already common in other systems, before being adopted on Windows 95.

Directory is a UNIX thing.

On AS/400 (now IBM i) there are no directories or folders, rather catalogs.

Similarly other systems also had other denominations for group of files.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#42

Post by k__ »

vadimberman wrote: post #36
russellbeattie wrote: post #26

It's hard to remember, but even though Windows 3.11 was extremely dominant at the time, it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that it was. The very first version missed wildly in some big ways (MSN was a folder integrated into the desktop, for example, and no TCP/IP support [*Edit: yes there was - I misremembered.]), but the core, underlying redesign of the GUI was so profoundly good it prop…

> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?

I have no idea...

I'm came from ~18 of Windows & Linux usage and everyone always told me macOS is THE OS with the best usability.

But I can't confirm this.

Minimization of windows is shitty and maximization even more.

When I maximize, often just the height is changed, when I go back to "normal" the height and the width is changed, so I always have to adjust the width manually.

When I minimize a few windows, it's impossible to get back the right one without luck.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#43

Post by xedarius »

unicornporn wrote: post #40

I think it's beautiful. And, compared to Windows 10, Windows 95 was at least somewhat consistent design wise. After 12 years of macOS I recently got a Windows 10 machine. There's plenty of Windows 10 bling on top of the OS, but you don't have to dig deep before you encounter the embarrassing remnants from very early versions of Windows. Running the latest version of 10 it still feels very unfinished which I hope Micr…

That problem increases when you throw a 4k monitor into the mix.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#44

Post by krylon »

ogdoad wrote: post #8
amiga-workbench wrote: post #2

When actual thought and reasoning went into UI design. Nice to see the methodology.

Have we actually reached the point where we idolize something that was equally mainstream to bash when it came out? Remember "Winblows" &c? Suddenly, faced with hyper-spy mega-corps, the dumb simplicity of the evil-yet-cute Windows 95 is desirable. Like the lesser of two evils, or the evil you know. Any day now, a post will come up extolling the illumined joys of mainframe COBOL programming.

> Remember "Winblows" &c?

There were many, many things wrong with Windows 95 (and its successors). But the design of the Shell was solid. (Also, considering how hardware requirements have skyrocketed, it might seem remarkable to some that it could run on a computer with 8 MiB of RAM and a CPU that makes today's low-end mobile phones look like supercomputers and still feel snappy.)

I know people used to joke about using the "Start" button to shutdown the computer, but I never understood what is so funny about that.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#45

Post by russellbeattie »

vadimberman wrote: post #36
russellbeattie wrote: post #26

It's hard to remember, but even though Windows 3.11 was extremely dominant at the time, it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that it was. The very first version missed wildly in some big ways (MSN was a folder integrated into the desktop, for example, and no TCP/IP support [*Edit: yes there was - I misremembered.]), but the core, underlying redesign of the GUI was so profoundly good it prop…

> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?

No idea... And a few versions ago Apple changed the maximize button to go full screen, which made it useless for the 95% of us who don't use one app at a time. Minimized windows also used to show up at the bottom of the screen when using "Expose", but then Apple changed the name to "Mission Control" and removed them. Just one more example of them slowly but surely driving its Mac customers away.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#46

Post by krapp »

dTal wrote: post #38
krapp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The term "folder" already annoys me. It's a (filesystem) directory... You don't like the metaphor of a folder, but you'll accept the metaphor of what goes into a folder?

The two metaphors are not as tightly coupled as you suggest. Even pre-computing, a "file" meant a collection of information and a "filing system" was a way of organizing it - that didn't neccesarily involve paper folders. In fact, card files, from which we ultimately derive our computer term, were more usually stored in boxes. I too prefer the term "directory". Apart from all UNIX tools using this terminology, it als…

>Apart from all UNIX tools using this terminology, it also more accurately reflects what it actually is - not a physical container for information, but a list of references to it - an association of names to addresses.

Yes, but "directory" doesn't describe the way the UI appears to behave in a way that's more intuitive to the average non-technical end user than "folder." A "directory" could also describe a map or a phone book for most people.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#47

Post by leadingthenet »

russellbeattie wrote: post #45
vadimberman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?

No idea... And a few versions ago Apple changed the maximize button to go full screen, which made it useless for the 95% of us who don't use one app at a time. Minimized windows also used to show up at the bottom of the screen when using "Expose", but then Apple changed the name to "Mission Control" and removed them. Just one more example of them slowly but surely driving its Mac customers away.

> which made it useless for the 95% of us who don't use one app at a time

I'm actually willing to bet good money that it's the other way around and it's you who is in the minority.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#48

Post by smoyer »

russellbeattie wrote: post #26

It's hard to remember, but even though Windows 3.11 was extremely dominant at the time, it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that it was. The very first version missed wildly in some big ways (MSN was a folder integrated into the desktop, for example, and no TCP/IP support [*Edit: yes there was - I misremembered.]), but the core, underlying redesign of the GUI was so profoundly good it prop…

I'm predominately a Linux user and I switched away from Mac OSX specifically because of the underlying file system. I'll admit that it was annoying finding windows sometimes but the case-preserving, case-insensitive file system made no sense.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#49

Post by boomlinde »

ogdoad wrote: post #8
amiga-workbench wrote: post #2

When actual thought and reasoning went into UI design. Nice to see the methodology.

Have we actually reached the point where we idolize something that was equally mainstream to bash when it came out? Remember "Winblows" &c? Suddenly, faced with hyper-spy mega-corps, the dumb simplicity of the evil-yet-cute Windows 95 is desirable. Like the lesser of two evils, or the evil you know. Any day now, a post will come up extolling the illumined joys of mainframe COBOL programming.

There was even a parody song about how much Windows 95 sucked, but the criticism seemed more popularly aimed at its resource requirements than the UI design.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#50

Post by analogic »

k__ wrote: post #42
vadimberman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?

I have no idea... I'm came from ~18 of Windows & Linux usage and everyone always told me macOS is THE OS with the best usability. But I can't confirm this. Minimization of windows is shitty and maximization even more. When I maximize, often just the height is changed, when I go back to "normal" the height and the width is changed, so I always have to adjust the width manually. When I minimize a few windows, it's impo…

After using a mac for ~6 months now, I finally understand what happened to gnome3/unity, clearly designed by mac users.

I mean it's perfectly usable once I got the basic gestures down and installed the app that let me independently set the track pad and mouse wheel scroll directions, but will go so far as to say that both xfce and MATE are objectively better at window management.

Partly I think their hands were tied by the too late to change decision for the always there contextual top menu bar. Or this is just 25 years of using win95 clones talking and I'm set in my ways.

Post reply on HN