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State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

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Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#161

Post by andyjohnson0 »

azinman2 wrote: post #106
meowkit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on the core OS. This is the answer. Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on (such as making the OS work/build in such a way that there won’t be inconsistencies in the future).

> Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on You state that as fact, but I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. It’s not just the way things look, but uniformly communicate a single experience. Microsoft used to be very integrated and had…

> I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share.

I'm having a hard time believing that. While some Mac users who are used to a more integrated user experience might be deterred, I'm not sure that the os's ui esthetics really affect windows adoption. My feeling is that most people who use Windows do so because they're either (a) told to use it or (b) they choose to use it because it's the shortest path to doing what they want to do.

I'm sure Microsoft know this and understand the tradeoffs very well

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#162

Post by webmobdev »

azinman2 wrote: post #106
meowkit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on the core OS. This is the answer. Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on (such as making the OS work/build in such a way that there won’t be inconsistencies in the future).

> Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on You state that as fact, but I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. It’s not just the way things look, but uniformly communicate a single experience. Microsoft used to be very integrated and had…

    I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share.
I hope you jest. Windows has far bigger problems than the uniformity of their UI - there's the whole forced update thing, the whole "we really need to spy on literally everything you do on our OS" approach, online advertisement built and integrated with the OS (based on the spying) ... these are the major issues that they need to fixed urgently if they wish to retain their userbase. Windows has been a continuing shitshow since Windows 8 ...

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#163

Post by shados »

akersten wrote: post #6

I like the Run dialog and the folder properties menu and others that have been untouched since the early days. Their utility has been proven and so much muscle memory has been built up. I can not possibly imagine a revision that could be done to them that would have more benefits than simply leaving them be. All of the Fluent/Metro designs have made things markedly worse. For example, check out the Metro control pane…

This. I would forgive the inconsistencies if the new stuff was better. But it's worse. Its not a "meh I'm used to the old and hate change" situation.

It's a "holy shit fire the UX design and product manager leads in charge of this asap". The audio tab is another good example. It's so hard to do anything with the new one, you almost have to know how to get to the old UX to make any kind of change.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#164

Post by MillenialMan »

refactor_master wrote: post #124
forgotpwd16 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't old code remain underneath but UI elements replaced?

UI and logic are probably not as decoupled as we’d like to think.

So decouple them. Microsoft has annual revenue of $143 billion. Their flagship product should not be a neglected mess.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#165

Post by flohofwoe »

meowkit wrote: post #45
neelc wrote: post #36

Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows (and I deal with a SaaS at MSFT). I am a FreeBSD committer and help maintain FreeBSD's GNOME packages and (very recently) the graphics drivers. The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) because of one thing: backwards compatibility. While backwards compatibility has it's perks, it also means having lots of old code in Windows that can't be to…

I work on the core OS. This is the answer. Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on (such as making the OS work/build in such a way that there won’t be inconsistencies in the future).

Asking the obvious question: why aren't the UIs in newer Windows versions not "just" different themes over Win32 widgets? Instead the UI theme seems to be tied to UI frameworks which seem to be created and discarded annually at Microsoft, so each time some genius decides to overhaul the UI, a completely new sediment layer is created instead of letting some UI designers tinker with a theme editor.

I don't get it. Functional UI changes should be different from visual fluff, yet Windows seems to the only OS where the two aren't separated.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#166

Post by MillenialMan »

neelc wrote: post #36

Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows (and I deal with a SaaS at MSFT). I am a FreeBSD committer and help maintain FreeBSD's GNOME packages and (very recently) the graphics drivers. The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) because of one thing: backwards compatibility. While backwards compatibility has it's perks, it also means having lots of old code in Windows that can't be to…

>The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely)

...completely unjustifiable?

Come on, why does this mean we need 5 different sound dialogues to do 5 different things? That's ridiculous on every level. It used to all be in one place anyway, so it's not even like it needs to be spread out in the first place. Make the old dialogues inaccessible, hide them, and create a new one which does all of those jobs. Then get rid of the old, now unused ones at the first opportunity.

Is the explanation really backwards compatibility, or is it lack of organisation?

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#167

Post by forgotmypw17 »

vsskanth wrote: post #9

How is MacOS able to maintain such a consistent UI even with massive changes in their design language ? Is Windows UI not a separate layer or something that they can update ? Or is it that the UI elements somehow get baked into the program at the time you build it, so if you didn't update you are just stuck with that particular version of UI you built the program ?

I think it is because breaking API changes are introduced often, and most apps only work across a narrow window of 2-3 major releases.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#168

Post by ismayilzadan »

golergka wrote: post #143
exoque wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way of MAYBE having a consistent experience on linux is to only use applications written for the DE of your choice isn't it? Use firefox on KDE and the consistency is already gone.

Android had a pretty consistent UI experience.

No it hasn't. Just buy a phone from let's say Samsung and install any Google app. Google app will have a different UI look and feel than rest of the system.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#170

Post by chaos_a »

curiousmindz wrote: post #14

This issue is way overblown here on HN. In day-to-day usage, I have rarely been annoyed by these "inconsistencies". The best example to illustrate this article is: Installing a driver with the Windows XP layer. That's probably something that will only happen to people installing very old hardware with drivers from over 10 years ago. I consider that a backward compatibility win: It is great that it even works in Windo…

Try right clicking anywhere. Almost everything has it's own fancy right click menu design for no good reason. Personally I don't find it annoying, but it's just silly that such a large company can't just stick to one design.
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