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Love love these nostalgic takes, reminds me of this Windows 98 demo in a 3D simulation I recently came across. There is a real demand for 90s aesthetics https://twitter.com/PCBANGio/status/1493850712471527426
Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!
Both a more efficient use of screen space (at least, compared to the default themes of XFCE, crucially, but also KDE, GNOME, and others), and an aesthetically better visual design. I am surprised to have just written this latter observation, considering this came from Microsoft, but I suppose the era when it was designed demanded it, both as a result of the lower screen resolutions used, and the the contemporary mark…
Raymond Chen vaguely references it here https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120126-00/?p=84...
Also, back then, you had to make the best with the resources you had. Computers were slow so UIs had to be lightweight out of necessity. Yet here we are in 2022 and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s. And yes I'm looking at you, GTK and Windows 'Modern' apps.
Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!
Because we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000. Just about everything since then has been a step backwards in speed and usability. The Mac Finder is a hot mess and seems to get worse with every release. The 964 different desktops available for Linux are in general a hodgepodge of slow impossible-to-use disasters. A notable exception is XFCE but it's a bit of a second-class citizen and even things in XFCE don't…
I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…
At the same time, flat design is objectively worse. Barely any indication as to whether something is a button or a text box or a label. Personally, I really like the path taken by WinUI3, since it addresses the UX concerns with a fresh paint of UI
I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…
I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…
I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…
I am not familiar with MacOS styles. But from what I see on other platforms my problem with "modern flat" is not that it is in any way inferior by design. Problem is that the designers make for example clickable elements not any visually different than unclickable, make scroll bars that are impossible to locate, put light gray text on white background and lots of other demented things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because that desktop is honestly clearer and faster to understand that today's chromeless trends. Buttons look like buttons, and text boxes are obvious.
And there is just enough whitespace. Not waaayyyyy toooooo muuuuccchhh. And there’s consistency. Not eight generations of UI redesigns for each control. And you can actually tell which window has the focus.
Love love these nostalgic takes, reminds me of this Windows 98 demo in a 3D simulation I recently came across. There is a real demand for 90s aesthetics https://twitter.com/PCBANGio/status/1493850712471527426
Fun enough that reminds me of the smell in the computer room in our house.