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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

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Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#51

Post by layer8 »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #14

I would love to see a similar paper by the Windows 11 design team. The 95 group seemed to be very responsive to how users were using or failing to use the OS. I've been on Win11 for a few months, and I'm confused who these changes are for. It could be that the Eternal September means things have to be dumbed down and locked down, catering to the least capable users. Or maybe design decisions are being made at a highe…

> Desktop, Laptop and Tablet users

The crazy thing is that Windows touch-screen users are a tiny minority of all Windows users, and will remain so for the foreseeable future (if not forever). Yet a lot of the design compromises since Windows 8 making things worse for non-touch users are made for the single reason of catering to touch screens.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#52

Post by LarryDarrell »

PraetorianGourd wrote: post #29
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #15

I think windows 95/98 era was the peak of UI discoverability. As a kid, I and my friends could learn and explore how a program worked just by expanding all the menus and opening the various dialogs. Dialogs which were filled with fields and their descriptions! Before then, it was the world of DOS and you had to know what you were doing ahead of time. And now, UIs are dynamic, initially hiding stuff from the user and…

I think the big key in your comment is "As a kid,..". Maybe you think this is the easiest to learn/discover UI because it is the UI that you used to learn and discover. I see "kids these days" navigating around flat, touch-based interfaces with ease, in the same way that I found the desktop paradigm of the late-90s to be incredibly natural. I think a lot of us came of age during that time, and as such see it as the u…

But I don't touch Windows, I use a mouse & keyboard and a 38 inch/3840x1600 monitor. Why is MS designing Windows based on how some kid is using his thumbs on an iPhone/iPad?

I'm half-joking. I know what you mean, but I think a larger picture is that touch-interfaces have their own problems/solutions that the traditional Desktop doesn't have, and vice versa. I think that the desire to have One-Interface-To-Rule-Them-All leaves a lot of people (and possibilities) behind.

It would be a lot of work, but I think Microsoft needs two entirely separate Desktop Environments. One for touch-based devices, one for Desktop. I'm not holding my breath, we've been debating this since Windows 8. And I'm fully aware that as a middle-aged Windows Application developer that my opinion matters less with every year that passes... but I can't help but feel that maybe we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#53

Post by forgotmypw17 »

I'm working on an Any Browser framework for making websites, and this means testing with IE 3.0 and up.

After installing Word 97, I have found it such a pleasure to use that I've started doing a lot of my writing in it.

From inside of a VM, it is still more responsive and accessible than most other things I have to use today.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#54

Post by layer8 »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #41
LarryDarrell wrote: post #14

I would love to see a similar paper by the Windows 11 design team. The 95 group seemed to be very responsive to how users were using or failing to use the OS. I've been on Win11 for a few months, and I'm confused who these changes are for. It could be that the Eternal September means things have to be dumbed down and locked down, catering to the least capable users. Or maybe design decisions are being made at a highe…

This is not exactly the document you’re asking for, but I think the clearest explanation of the origin of modern Microsoft flatness back in the Windows Phone 7 days is “How print design is the future of interaction” (2011) [1], by the late Mike Kruzeniski. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120314071640/http://kruzeniski... , seemingly missed by HN at the time in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3301723 (6 points,…

The argument seems to be about visual design, which is just one facet of UI design. And one thing the argument is missing is that a clear distinction between content and UI controls is critical for usability.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#55

Post by paulryanrogers »

Kranar wrote: post #36
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #15

I think windows 95/98 era was the peak of UI discoverability. As a kid, I and my friends could learn and explore how a program worked just by expanding all the menus and opening the various dialogs. Dialogs which were filled with fields and their descriptions! Before then, it was the world of DOS and you had to know what you were doing ahead of time. And now, UIs are dynamic, initially hiding stuff from the user and…

My daughter does the same thing with modern UIs and doesn't have much of an issue. I don't think many kids these days are struggling to identify various functionality of the multitude of apps available. Sure UIs are different today and maybe to us older people it's byzantine, but the newer generation of users seem to be able to pick up quite easily. I wouldn't be surprised if when we were kids, there were older peopl…

How is condensing with menus worse than undiscoverable gestures and button rituals?

IMO it's far worse when the cow paths are so heavily paved you have to pay tolls to access anything else. Or even explicitly hidden capabilities requiring Konami-code-esque incantations in some misguided effort to give the kids something to brag about to their friends.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#56

Post by LarryDarrell »

layer8 wrote: post #51
LarryDarrell wrote: post #14

I would love to see a similar paper by the Windows 11 design team. The 95 group seemed to be very responsive to how users were using or failing to use the OS. I've been on Win11 for a few months, and I'm confused who these changes are for. It could be that the Eternal September means things have to be dumbed down and locked down, catering to the least capable users. Or maybe design decisions are being made at a highe…

> Desktop, Laptop and Tablet users The crazy thing is that Windows touch-screen users are a tiny minority of all Windows users, and will remain so for the foreseeable future (if not forever). Yet a lot of the design compromises since Windows 8 making things worse for non-touch users are made for the single reason of catering to touch screens.

One of my theories is that organizationally and culturally they are still mourning the loss of the Windows Phone.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#57

Post by rvba »

_trampeltier wrote: post #25
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #15

I think windows 95/98 era was the peak of UI discoverability. As a kid, I and my friends could learn and explore how a program worked just by expanding all the menus and opening the various dialogs. Dialogs which were filled with fields and their descriptions! Before then, it was the world of DOS and you had to know what you were doing ahead of time. And now, UIs are dynamic, initially hiding stuff from the user and…

Now every step is full of dark pattern. Just like you wanna save a file in office. If you don't want store it in the cloud, there is always a step more. Also with the free One Drive and store it automaticly somewhere, I helped recently a friend (no computer guy), there are files just everywhere, some in the cloud some there and some somewhere else. Todays Windows is just hostile to non tech people, even to tech peopl…

I still dont know how to easily save files on local computer in MS Office without pressing F12.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#58

Post by rvba »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #14

I would love to see a similar paper by the Windows 11 design team. The 95 group seemed to be very responsive to how users were using or failing to use the OS. I've been on Win11 for a few months, and I'm confused who these changes are for. It could be that the Eternal September means things have to be dumbed down and locked down, catering to the least capable users. Or maybe design decisions are being made at a highe…

Why the taskbar groups same programs (you can still turn it off) but then does not allow you to have them ungrouped completely - and shown in the order you opened them.

They dont understand that someone can have few spreadsheets and few PDFs open?

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#59

Post by walrus01 »

_trampeltier wrote: post #25
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #15

I think windows 95/98 era was the peak of UI discoverability. As a kid, I and my friends could learn and explore how a program worked just by expanding all the menus and opening the various dialogs. Dialogs which were filled with fields and their descriptions! Before then, it was the world of DOS and you had to know what you were doing ahead of time. And now, UIs are dynamic, initially hiding stuff from the user and…

Now every step is full of dark pattern. Just like you wanna save a file in office. If you don't want store it in the cloud, there is always a step more. Also with the free One Drive and store it automaticly somewhere, I helped recently a friend (no computer guy), there are files just everywhere, some in the cloud some there and some somewhere else. Todays Windows is just hostile to non tech people, even to tech peopl…

Look at the atrocious consumer abusive workflow to trap a person into signing up for a microsoft cloud-everything account in the new installation workflow for a brand new Windows 10 or 11 install. Or the out-of-box first user experience upon opening and using a new windows 11 laptop.

You literally cannot even complete a fresh windows 11 install without a live internet connection now, if you're an ordinary non technical end user. It demands to be connected to some form of wired network or wireless with internet access to report home to microsoft and make a cloud based account.

They clearly decided that getting people to sign up for a forever-recurring monthly paid cloud service plan in perpetuity was the best way to go for revenue. Or at least bait them into it by methods like "oh, here's your free 5GB onedrive account, you can totally back up your whole system and use onedrive for everything. What's that, you're out of storage space on your free account? Sign up now for this $12/month account for (some_large_number_of_GB)!"

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

#60

Post by phcreery »

rvba wrote: post #57
_trampeltier wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now every step is full of dark pattern. Just like you wanna save a file in office. If you don't want store it in the cloud, there is always a step more. Also with the free One Drive and store it automaticly somewhere, I helped recently a friend (no computer guy), there are files just everywhere, some in the cloud some there and some somewhere else. Todays Windows is just hostile to non tech people, even to tech peopl…

I still dont know how to easily save files on local computer in MS Office without pressing F12.

Oh wow, I just tried this and it bring up the Save As.. dialog! I have been so frustrated that MS Office apps don's have a Ctrl+Shift+S Save As.
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