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“I made an operating system UI within Unity”

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Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#82
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type-to-search is significant— Ubuntu has it, MacOS sort of has it (Spotlight), Windows 10 definitely has it. It wasn't until it mysteriously broke last week [1] that I suddenly realised how dependent upon it I had become; I felt like a caveman manually paging through the list of installed software or seeking out the proper icon on my desktop. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2020/02/09/windows-...

Why does MacOS only "sort of" have type-to-search?

It seems like an inaccurate statement, I would argue OSX was the first one to do type-to-search properly... Not a huge Ubuntu user admittedly.

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#83
post #2

Looks really cool! Unfortunately it looks like there is only a Windows version available to play around with. If this could run on Linux and have support for running arbitrary x11 apps then it would be very interesting! I don't have a lot of personal knowledge about Unity3d, but I do hope the creator puts this up on github or something. I'd love to take a closer look.

[deleted]

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#84

Looks like a generic Linux distro. Am I the only one getting "visual fatigue" over seeing flat design? I just feel like we need a trend change. Its been way too long. I find myself looking at the old Windows Vista, Windows XP, early Mac OS X, or even Windows 3.1 designs and longing for that simplicity.

> Looks like a generic Linux distro. Am I the only one getting "visual fatigue" over seeing flat design?

I have `comment fatigue` over flat design complaints.

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#85
The animations are just amazing. It's the exact field in which I still find modern applications lacking, but games exceptionally good (including game UI).

I think UI frameworks should take more from game engines, which I think has happened over the last 2 decades, albeit slowly. My best examples of it is probably currently QtQuick, which builds completely on OpenGL and uses a bunch of game engine terminology in its documentation - but I have also found that it's possible and not too hard to make working application mockups using Godot.

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#86

Looks like a generic Linux distro. Am I the only one getting "visual fatigue" over seeing flat design? I just feel like we need a trend change. Its been way too long. I find myself looking at the old Windows Vista, Windows XP, early Mac OS X, or even Windows 3.1 designs and longing for that simplicity.

> I just feel like we need a trend change.

Why would you like a change? So you want to see the common UIs constantly redesigned every few years?

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#87
post #19

Am I the only one who hates most animation? If the animation doesn't serve a clear purpose in signalling something to the user, I want it gone. I'm not convinced that we've seen any meaningful advance in OS UI design since Windows 95.

Lots of animations do serve a clear purpose. Humans are not used to things popping up into existence immediately out of nowhere. Yes, you may argue that you and me are tech savvy and trained our brains to not care as much. But that leaves everyone else. I think a bunch of animations shown in this piece are over the top. But quick animations can help immensely with usability. The best ones are so subtle that most peop…

> Humans are not used to things popping up into existence immediately out of nowhere

I'm not convinced of this, humans come with some impressive visual diffing hardware and we rely on this to detect animations in the first place. We also know that the more animation going on the more likely we are to miss things.

We also seem to be stuck in the notion of animations happening before something is shown, a slide in or a fade in or something like that. If animations are really necessary why can't the action be instant with a subtle post animation to highlight what's changed?

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#88
post #19

Am I the only one who hates most animation? If the animation doesn't serve a clear purpose in signalling something to the user, I want it gone. I'm not convinced that we've seen any meaningful advance in OS UI design since Windows 95.

Transition animations do serve a purpose. It's a lot less jarring to have something move away than it just disappearing (for most people, I reckon).

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#89

Looks like a generic Linux distro. Am I the only one getting "visual fatigue" over seeing flat design? I just feel like we need a trend change. Its been way too long. I find myself looking at the old Windows Vista, Windows XP, early Mac OS X, or even Windows 3.1 designs and longing for that simplicity.

I don't know why you mentioned Linux when it has a ton of window managers which provide real alternatives to any specific UI design. Window Maker looks different from fvwm95 looks different from IceWM looks different from looks different from TWM... and all of those window managers are usable, to the extent applications don't care what they're running in and the OS itself doesn't care about window managers at all.

So you can have the UI of your dreams, or at least a UI which is honestly different from what you're railing against, if you just open your eyes a little and see beyond the defaults.

Re: “I made an operating system UI within Unity”

#90
post #80

Looks like a generic Linux distro. Am I the only one getting "visual fatigue" over seeing flat design? I just feel like we need a trend change. Its been way too long. I find myself looking at the old Windows Vista, Windows XP, early Mac OS X, or even Windows 3.1 designs and longing for that simplicity.

Flat design is more simple than skeuomorphism, almost by definition. What you seem to want is complexity.

Complexity is good if it allows you to see affordances more easily.

Maybe buttons should look different from non-clickable icons. That requires some complexity.

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