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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

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Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#51

Post by cesarb »

michaelmrose wrote: post #6
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,…

How do you manage files in windows at all without drag and drop? Do you just never reorganize anything? Further what is the chance that anyone who can't drag and drop would be able to find the setting to turn off drag and drop?

> How do you manage files in windows at all without drag and drop?

Most people I've seen use Ctrl-X/Ctrl-V, or right-click-Cut/right-click-Paste. It has the advantage that you don't need both the source and destination visible at the same time.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#52

Post by smoyer »

einr wrote: post #35
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…

There absolutely was TCP/IP support in Windows 95 from the very beginning. It was not installed by default but it was trivial to add via the Network applet in Control Panel. SLIP/PPP was also supported and you had basic utilities like Telnet and FTP included so you could connect to the Internet right out of the box. No web browser, though. Internet Explorer 1.0 shipped with the optional Plus! pack.

Since a large part of my work involved building networks of pre-DOCSIS cable modems at the time, I can tell you that the first Windows to support TCP/IP was Windows 3.11 (Windows for WorkGroups). This was carried into Windows 95 and by Windows 98 there was even Internet Explorer.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#53

Post by bbrian »

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.

Hold option/alt as you click the green maximize button to get the old fill-available-space behaviour.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#54

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#55

Post by chrisper »

leadingthenet wrote: post #47
russellbeattie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You sure you are not confusing it with iOS? That's where you always have strictly only one app in fullscreen!

(Yes, yes. It is a lame joke. But who uses only one Window at a time? What is the point of that? Though I remember when I used OS X you could swipe left (or right) to switch back to all other apps. So I think that was good enough.)

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#56

Post by pwg »

Paianni wrote: post #16

I have a feeling that Windows 95's window minimisation was at heart a workaround for the fact that the architecture couldn't support workspaces and therefore they had to find a way to 'hack' Windows to hide windows at will.

For the user experience level they were designing towards, workspaces would have been a recipe for "I broke my computer, all my work is gone" support calls on a constant basis.

For users that can't grasp that minimized windows become icons on their desktop or that directories can themselves contain directories, having everything switch to a new workspace will look to them identically to either one of an "I just broke it" or "It just deleted/erased/destroyed everything I was working on" result (and which result occurs depends upon whether they blame themselves or the machine as the cause).

Sadly, the result is that us advanced users, who do understand workspaces and can make productive use of them, were left without them being available until win10.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#57

Post by frou_dh »

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?

macOS has Hide & HideOthers in addition to Minimize. I go weeks at a time without using minimize because of those.

IMO there's a whole generation of people who did their early computing on MS Windows (including myself) and so internalised that that is how GUIs are "supposed to work". When moving to something else later in life there's a feeling that it is "wrong", but it (e.g macOS)'s way of doing things is also correct and is just a divergent evolution to MS Windows. Research, open-mindedness and experimentation are necessary when using something different.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#58

Post by cesarb »

thanatropism wrote: post #20
Paianni wrote: post #16

I have a feeling that Windows 95's window minimisation was at heart a workaround for the fact that the architecture couldn't support workspaces and therefore they had to find a way to 'hack' Windows to hide windows at will.

Windows 3.1 had window minimization. Confusingly, programs became icons in your "desktop" (which you could only see when minimizing everything).

Even better, on Windows 3.1 a minimized program could draw to its "icon" (it's actually a tiny window). For instance, a minimized clock could still show the current time. That was one of the things lost with the Windows 95 UI changes.

And don't forget MDI, best shown by the Windows 3.1 Program Manager: a MDI program would have several inner windows within it, and each of these inner windows could be resized, moved, minimized or maximized, all within the boundaries of the main program window.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#59

Post by majewsky »

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…

> Running the latest version of 10 it still feels very unfinished which I hope Microsoft intend to do something about.

Might depend on what particular parts of the OS you come across. I use Win10 on my work notebook [1] and besides the long startup times [2], I haven't noticed anything "unfinished". In fact, Windows very subjectively feels more polished than macOS which I used before (until December).

Then again, I don't use much of it: I only run Firefox, Slack, Outlook, and VirtualBox where the actual work is going on in a Linux VM.

[1] Probably not the "latest" version though. I get to use whatever our corporate update server hands out.

[2] Compared to my private Linux machines. macOS also took several minutes from turning on the machine to everything having fully settled in.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#60

Post by _mrmnmly »

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…

Know what you're talking about. Since I've switched back to Linux I can't imagine working without workspaces - each one dedicated for specific task/app - and every time staying with specific order so e.g. 1 workspace: Browser, 2nd: Code editor, 3rd: Terminal, 4th: File explorers etc. I used to it so much that I automatically use shortcuts to access it immediately - switching between minimized windows using alt + tab keys is a nightmare.
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