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Windows 95 UI Design

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Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#211

Post by blattimwind »

csomar wrote: post #177

Here is something else: The interface was "responsive". And I don't mean the responsive designs we have today for HTML but that when you click a button, you get a "response" very fast from the monitor. Now, with these new interfaces and stuff, most of them are so lag-y that you can notice them with your eyes. It's very frustrating. I tried Bisq a couple days ago. The application was apparently made with Electron and…

Many applications take longer to respond to a button click than it takes to send data around the entire globe.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#212

Post by criddell »

est wrote: post #70
k__ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: if it was so much better, why is it gone now?

For the developing perspective it's so much better, but consumers needs fancy login buttons and infinite scrolling instead of UI consistency and accessibility. Also deliver binary executables has a huge attack surface of virus. Web is considered "safer"

One of the reasons I dislike WebGL is because it takes us back to delivering opaque binaries. No thanks.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#213

Post by nickjj »

HNthrow22 wrote: post #103
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a theme creator for a few decades now, and modifying how programs looked is what got me into development in the first place 30 years ago. The constant stripping of user definable visuals in modern computing is a legitimately depressing thing for me to see happen. It's just another step along the "you don't own the device or the software, we're just letting you borrow it" path. The constant push with SAAS an…

agreed man, have fond memories of tweaking themes for daily drivers like irc client, winamp foobar2000, compared to like spotify or discord now feels so neutered and limited in terms of customizing appearance.

Yeah and with Windows 10 you can't even set the title bar color to be black unless you either download 3rd party tools or hack around in your registry.

On the bright side, with native Linux you can customize everything. It's so fun to customize your window manager, status bar, etc. and have everything look and work exactly how you want.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#214

Post by egeozcan »

GeekyBear wrote: post #195
redwall_hp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has the same problem: invisible, undiscoverable UI driven by seemingly random gestures. Who cares if you long press or press harder? You still can't tell it's an option unless you try it on everything.

So exactly like right clicking on items to see if a contextual menu pops up in Windows 95?

It's easy to discover when there are only two buttons on your mouse. If it had one and pressing strongly did something else, you'd be right.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#215

Post by vsareto »

perl4ever wrote: post #74
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compounding this frustration (on iOS at least) is stuff like "force touch" and hidden toolbars. Depending on how hard you press a button you might get a totally different UI interaction. Are others good at knowing exactly how many newtons of force it takes to follow a hyperlink instead of triggering this horrid mini-preview window? Maybe that's why Jonny Ive made millions of dollars while I work like a stiff for a li…

This made me think, how long did it take for cars to acquire basically their modern standard interface, and have personal computers been around that long? Apparently, the Austin 7 popularized what are now standard controls for cars in 1922 (although it wasn't the very first example), and the IC auto was patented in 1886, which means it was about 36 years before people mostly settled on one interface. By comparison, m…

It's funny you mention cars, because there's definitely a new trend towards touch screens, and it happened fairly recently.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#216

Post by barrkel »

andrepd wrote: post #101
divbzero wrote: post #94

I forgot how nice it was to have underlined alt keyboard shortcuts. We got so much right so early in the age of personal computing. Goodbye to all that, hello Ribbon and flatness everywhere. It’s as if we’re in the Middle Ages now looking back at the great ruins of ancient Athens.

The ribbon is actually a good interface, for me at least, much more pleasant to use than toolbars. The flatness and whitespace everywhere though, that can die in a fire.

Ribbons are far harder to scan than menus; text is easier to scan for new semantic associations (actions you've never performed before), and menus have a regular aligned layout, while ribbons inconsistently mix text and icons and use inconsistent action sizing requiring an irregular scan pattern.

If you're a repeat user, icons start becoming easier to find than text, and the inconsistent grid starts having a geographic element that helps with muscle memory. For a new user, I reckon menus are easier, especially if combined with status bar help text (remember that?).

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#217

Post by dangus »

spectramax wrote: post #67
egdod wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Force touch at least seems to be on its way out. I hope. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/05/29/3d-touch-2019-i...

It is out in hardware, but not entirely in the UI. The UI for force-touch is replaced by long press on the icon or widget.

The UI is totally new in iOS 13, it’s descriptive and more explicit about what’s happening, looks a lot like a right click menu. Try holding down on an app icon in the home screen to see.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#218

Post by S_A_P »

TuringTest wrote: post #180
thrower123 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say the one thing that MS Office always did really well in comparison is the format paster. Cmd-alt-c/v just isn't as intuitive and discoverable Office products have the worst copy/paste of any software I use. Somehow their rich-format copying never does what I want it to do, despite fussing with setting default paste options and learning the advanced keystrokes.

> Somehow their rich-format copying never does what I want it to do, despite fussing with setting default paste options and learning the advanced keystrokes. I was like you, until I learned what each of the pasting modes are meant to do, and in particular that it works different if you copy/paste within the same document or from an external source . https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2012/02/1... http…

I just wish that the default was to copy/paste the text and not text, style info, multimedia and who knows what else.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#219

Post by Touche »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #35
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compounding this frustration (on iOS at least) is stuff like "force touch" and hidden toolbars. Depending on how hard you press a button you might get a totally different UI interaction. Are others good at knowing exactly how many newtons of force it takes to follow a hyperlink instead of triggering this horrid mini-preview window? Maybe that's why Jonny Ive made millions of dollars while I work like a stiff for a li…

Force touch is the best evidence we have that designers have lost their power at Apple. The best thing Steve Jobs did was hire serious designers and defend their ideas against the rest of the organization. That’s clearly not happening anymore. My guess is that “Designer at Apple” became such a desirable title that the design roles have been taken over by wannabees.

I'm pretty sure invisible UI started very much while Jobs was in power. Hiding the scrollbar, for example.

I think it's quite a myth that Jobs knew good design. Jobs had a fetish for minimalism. For simple, single use, UIs that's often a good choice. I think that's what made iPods and the first generations of iPhones so well designed. But as smartphones have transitioned into being primary use devices with greater abilities, hidden UIs and extreme minimalism because a worse choice.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#220

Post by stuartd »

egeozcan wrote: post #214
GeekyBear wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So exactly like right clicking on items to see if a contextual menu pops up in Windows 95?

It's easy to discover when there are only two buttons on your mouse. If it had one and pressing strongly did something else, you'd be right.

Originally of course there was only one mouse button, and you would ctrl-click for the context menu
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