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Windows 95 UI Design

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Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#281

Post by qwtel »

I think about windows 95 at least once a month, wondering why the web apps I work on still can’t match it in terms of performance and usability, never mind resource utilization.

One thing that has been a staple since win95 days is the ability to resize windows, sidebars, columns; almost everything, really. Rarely is this found on the web today, or so poorly implemented that it’s thrashing the UI thread when one or more resize callbacks are triggered. Even without that, layout + painting alone would probably lose the race against 95 UI tech.

Another “legacy” UI that stood out to me is blender. It looks decades old (until it was revamped recently), is probably a hodgepodge of C/C++ but stays smooth as everything can be resized even on dated hardware.

I can’t help but think that the UI engineers of old were a much more professional bunch, and that the field has mostly regressed since then.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#283

Post by yiyus »

daxelrod wrote: post #259
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?

Yes. That was one of the worst parts of Windows 95’s interface because it wasn’t discoverable. A context menu is fine when it provides shortcuts to functionality also discoverable elsewhere. Windows 95’s context menus were full of functionality only available through them.

I guess you love the extra menu items you only get with Shift+Right button.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#284

Post by bartc »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #263
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they didn't hide the scrollbar on desktop until Lion, at which point Steve was in quite poor health. On mobile, and particularly on screens the size of the original iPhone, hiding the scrollbar is a necessary tradeoff for screen real-estate. It also doesn't necessarily hurt usability if you know the exact screen size you're designing for, and can ensure elements are never fully cut off on your initial view.

It hurts usability in several ways. For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document. Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is.

I recently discovered that on iOS, you can press on the scrollbar to get direct control of the scroll knob. That allows you to quickly jump to any part of the document without having to thumb scroll through it page by page.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#285

Post by agumonkey »

mntmoss wrote: post #200
agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a crossroad of limited computing affordance and abstraction necessity. I grew up in CGI land, basically high end CGI programs were what the latest web app is. Reactive redrawing of free form geometries. I wanted this to be mainstream so bad. I got old and it became slightly true. Not keeping aside the drift of website content and pop overs.. something hit me. My brain doesn't want real time and free floating.…

I myself can't tell if this feeling is just me getting older. I liked the shiny dynamic stuff when I was younger. Gradually I found myself ignoring more of it and developing more specific rules for what I wanted out of the UX. When a recent thread on "calm computing" mentioned Fraidycat I took to it immediately. It's nearly the antithesis of the news feed - there's no repetitive rhythm to it, although there is a bit…

I do think it's both side of the getting old coin. In one way we're getting cranky. But we're also getting wiser. We don't want more data, we want better signal (quantity/quality).

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#286

Post by k__ »

goatlover wrote: post #51
k__ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By the time the web caught up, a new generation of developers took over who had little to no exposure to RAD tools from the 90s.

Don't know if this was a huge factor.

I know a bunch of people who started doing web stuff with the rise of Flash.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#287

Post by GeekyBear »

franga2000 wrote: post #276
GeekyBear wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Force touching an item to see if there is a contextual menu isn't a destructive action. That doesn't change the fact that neither interface gives you a way to know in advance which items have associated contextual menus.

But if you "hard-press" a button that doesn't support hard-pressing, won't it just detect a normal press? Depending on what the button is, that might be destructive or at the very least time-consuming.

Newbie Windows 95 users would quite frequently hide the entire start bar because they accidentally moved the mouse while trying to click on an item, and the system interpreted that as a drag intended to resize the start bar to a zero height.

At that point they could no longer use their computer at all until they got external help.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#288

Post by DanitaBaires »

flippyhead wrote: post #99
RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #4

A generation was raised on usable designs which clearly communicated interactability with a consistent visual language. It is only natural that they would come to think of computers as inherently ordered, understandable devices. Machines had always been this way. It was obvious to this new generation that the affordances of youth were purely redundant. Clutter. Overhead. Junk! Widget by widget, pixel by pixel, bevels…

Idk, my mom found windows 95 etc very hard to use but has no trouble with her iPhone, iPad or even a Mac (let alone the TV or can-speak-to appliance). Maybe part of is it is that a lot of problems that required UI solutions before just work magically now. Like file sharing, networking or dealing with different document formats. You don't need nearly as many controls for the most part so the UI can be simpler.

A device for consumption can have a simplified UI compared with a device for production.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#289

Post by Stratoscope »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #149
Stratoscope wrote: post #59

> The ellipsis hints that this button opens a dialog, instead of immediately executing an action. That's not exactly what the ellipsis is intended to communicate. Have you ever wondered why File/Open... has the ellipsis, but in a properly designed app, Help/About does not have it? Even though Help/About opens a dialog too? The distinction is that the ellipsis indicates that a command will take some action after furth…

According to Apple HIG plain confirmations did not require an ellipsis: "Don’t use an ellipsis character if the command displays an alert box to warn the user of a potentially dangerous action, especially if the command displays an alert box only sometimes. In this case you are simply giving the user an opportunity to cancel a potentially dangerous action (such as causing a loss of data), not asking for more informat…

Oops, thank you for the correction!

So the ellipsis is only when the user must actually enter or select some information, not if it's just a simple confirmation.

The Windows 95 guidelines seem a bit less clear about this, but I think they follow the same idea.

Re: Windows 95 UI Design

#290

Post by chii »

pjmlp wrote: post #205
chii wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is there no HTML tag for creating menu bar and nested dropdown menu? because HTML was never designed to be a application interface, and I don't see a menu-bar nor dropdown as necessary for a document display. What's needed for the web is a common and standarized (i.e., browser provided) library for application UI that's distinct from the existing HTML markup. They should not mix, and if you have a document (rat…

Just like XHTML was supposed to be, oh well. I think WASM will bring "Flash" back, just in a different form, and now everyone will be happy because it is standard.

flash was only bad due to the inherent vulnerabilities and capabilities that browsers werent expected to have (such as being able to write to disk directly).

WASM can be sandboxed properly, unlike flash.

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