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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

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Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#171

Post by lloydde »

jvzr wrote: post #108
garblegarble wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even though I've used a Mac daily for the past decade or so, I still miss the task bar, and window-oriented GUI of Windows. I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it. I wouldn't switch back because of the underlying crap that is the Windows OS and file system, but I still miss the interface. OT but have you tried Witch[1] as a task switcher? It switches between windows, wh…

I find Contexts ( https://contexts.co/ ) a better application to do exactly that

Wow, looks like a very polished Witch and then some. The addition to the search looks interesting. Any area or use case thst witch is better? Is it as snappy? I like that Witch is instant.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#172

Post by c3833174 »

kk_cz wrote: post #138
jcadam wrote: post #129

Ah, remembering Win95 makes me yearn for a simple, clean GUI again. All of the major operating systems have been in a downward slide in terms of UI/UX since the early 2000s. As far as UI/UX is concerned: Windows peaked with Windows 2000. MacOS with OS9 (Why didn't they just throw the classic GUI on top of Darwin)? At least with *nix you have choices and can go with one of the several variants of Gnome 2 (Xfce, et al)…

Just curious: why Windows 2000 and not Windows 7? Win7 was still internally consistent (as opposed to the newer tablet / mobile / pc / washing machine UIs of later versions) and provided few additional UI enhancements over 2k.

Windows 7 adds some nice things like search and the explorer shift+Rclick menu, but it also hides some settings panels that haven't changed since 2k behind more clicks.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#173

Post by smashingfiasco »

rahoulb wrote: post #115
sodapopcan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing I don't understand that Mac has never adopted is being able to use open and save dialogues as mini file explorers (move stuff around and rename, specifically). Having to switch to Finder to move or rename a file that has the same name as the file I'm trying to save is ridiculous. Of course I never need to do this anymore since I only work on text files under revision control, but it still seems odd to m…

OSX Finder is horrible. Classic MacOS Finder was far better - but still had open/save dialogs. RiscOS had it right - the Open dialog didn't exist - you would open the folder and double-click the file. And the Save dialog didn't exist - the document would reduce to an icon which you would then place into the correct folder. (You can sort of do this on the various versions of macOS by dragging the icon from the title b…

You could always replace your usage of the modern macOS Finder with my poor and very incomplete clone of the classic Mac Finder. :)

https://classicmacfinder.com

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#174

Post by rocky1138 »

This is a perfect use case for using microformats to make the document more semantic, especially since archival for future reference is the author's explicit goal.

An easy win would be to use h-entry categories[0] for the tags in the document.

If you're writing stuff on the web, please consider adding some microformats to make your stuff more accessible and archivable.

[0] http://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#175

Post by Klathmon »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #135
Klathmon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, whenever I design UI/UX for an app, I ask my mom to test. I have an informal rule that I will try to get someone at my job that has never seen or used the application to be the one to test out new features or UI changes. Generally just asking when they have some time, handing them a phone or laptop, and asking them to do a task in the app (with a small amount of background about the task if needed). There has ne…

Because you can't "formalize" humbleness. In fact, a lot of the tech culture, today, is anti-humble.

I don't think it has anything to do with "humbleness".

It's that there isn't really a way to formally gather and have people that haven't really ever used the application before, but know enough about the problem domain to be useful in testing. Not to mention that it's a non-renewable resource, once I've done it with someone for a specific part of the app, they are "burned" (at least for a few months). (that last sentence came across really... shitty sounding, but I can't figure out how to reword it to get the point across without sounding like I'm treating people like old computer parts, so I'll just add this disclaimer...)

Any kind of "formal" process ends up just looking like QA, and they end up making the same kinds of assumptions that the developers and designers do since they work and know the application just as good if not better than them.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#176

Post by lou1306 »

dm319 wrote: post #85
_mrmnmly wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, this is something I do to on linux, and it's great particularly when you're doing something that gets quite messy with lots of windows open - when you're working with lots of files, or you the program (like GIMP) opens up several windows. If you need to do something else it's so nice to just leave it all and move onto a nice clean workspace without having to minimize everything.

You do have multiple workspaces on Windows 10... Though if you mean "automatically assign application X to workspace Y", which many Linux WMs are able to do, you're out of luck.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#177

Post by rocky1138 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #134
sigzero wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that is extremely non-intuitive. It's an "Open" and "Save" dialog. That is what it should do. Joe Public is not going to know it does anything else, yet it does.

"Joe Public" is a strawman people who make crap software prop up as the reason their software has to be crap.

I am going to print this and put it on my wall.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#178

Post by sysbell »

eadmund wrote: post #152
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…

> Compare it to other GUIs at the time, like CDE, IBM's Presentation Manager, or even Mac OS 8 and there's no comparison. Well, I agree that there was no comparison with System 8, but not in the sense you mean. I think that the Mac back then was head-and-shoulders a better system than Windows. It might still be, but they're both so painful to use now that it's very difficult to pick a winner. The Macintosh system was…

> The window system itself was better-thought-out and less-confusing than Windows's was

I miss window shades so much.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#179

Post by [deleted] »

kk_cz wrote: post #142
michaelmrose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

OP didn't want to remove the functionality, just provide a way to disable it for users that often perform drag & drop operation randomly. Especially older people have problems with their motor skills so instead clicking on a file they often perform drag & drop instead (they can't hold the mouse steady enough, so the system recognizes movement and at the same time their "click" is too slow, so OS recognizes it as hold…

[deleted]

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#180

Post by sysbell »

kk_cz wrote: post #132
mmphosis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different ways of working, mostly stuck in our own ways of doing things. I rarely, if ever, use Minimize on the Mac. Minimize comes from Windows (and other windowing systems) where the window minimizes to an icon or button on the task bar. "Maximize" also comes from Windows (and other windowing systems.) As others have noted, in newer macos (which I don't use,) I think it oddly makes the window go full screen. Full s…

maximized window ≠ full screen in Maximized state the window is set to maximal available size (so you are not wasting any part of the screen) while you are still provided with fast and easy access to relevant OS UI elements in full screen you explicitly tell the system that you don't want to be distracted by OS UI elemtents (typically in situation when you know that you won't need them for extended period of time, or…

I feel your pain. I was using BetterTouchTool to remap the default behavior of that green +, but eventually decided it was silly to use an add-on for something I should be able to change via `defaults`, so I just trained myself to hit Option when I wanted to maximize.
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