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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

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

#61

Post by lucb1e »

willnonya wrote: post #50
lucb1e wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the task bar grouping in Windows 7 that I've found most people actually don't prefer when you reveal that it's optional. A lot of people also like it, maybe as much as 40% or so, but when I look over someone's shoulder (who had been using 7 for ages already) and I wondered out loud how they manage to work with that task bar, they were usually happy to learn of a way to just see open programs instead of having this…

Wi does 8 made sense to me the first time I picked up a surface pro or a windows phone. I cannot think of anything good to say about it in any other context though.

Sure, I'm not suggesting we install unmodified ubuntu or windows 7 on phones either. Similarly, win8 on a desktop...

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

#62

Post by lucb1e »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #37
lucb1e wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the task bar grouping in Windows 7 that I've found most people actually don't prefer when you reveal that it's optional. A lot of people also like it, maybe as much as 40% or so, but when I look over someone's shoulder (who had been using 7 for ages already) and I wondered out loud how they manage to work with that task bar, they were usually happy to learn of a way to just see open programs instead of having this…

> except now the settings are all over the place On Windows 11, it's very rare to have to use the old Control Panel. It still exists for some uncommon settings, but nearly everything has been moved to the new settings. And everything is actually intelligently grouped. I only wish you could have multiple Settings windows open at once.

They seem to be good at undoing mistakes in the next version five years later. The newly introduced issue in 11 was said to be taskbar grouping, idk I haven't used it myself (yet :( ).

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

#63

Post by qubex »

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…

> Eternal September

Now there’s a term I haven’t heard in aeons…

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

#64

Post by butz »

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…

Not to mention all "online" help included in help file and even context sensitive help available from "question mark" icon in title bar.

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

#66

Post by kristopolous »

I've long suspected the start menu was intended to be on the top of the screen.

In all other applications when you want to shut it down, it's the last option on the list. If you move the start menu to the top, then shutdown does indeed become the last on the list and the most common option, "Programs" becomes the closest by Fitts Law standards.

Even in the Program Manager in Windows 3.1, the Run and Shutdown options were the same place but the menu was at the top. From the beginning (of public releases) in Windows 95 you could in fact move the start bar to the top.

Having it on bottom was legally much cleaner, especially on the heels of 6-year saga of the classic Apple vs. Microsoft "look and feel" lawsuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros....

Anyway, this is 100% speculative - there is a few builds with it on the top, such as Windows 95 build 90c https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_95_build_90c but it starts on the bottom and quickly moves back there: https://betawiki.net/wiki/Category:Windows_95_builds

But really, menu bar on the top, colorful rainbowish icon on the left, clock on the right, it's very System 7.5 (https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/System_7.5)

Reminds me of McDonaldland vs Sid & Marty Krofft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_%26_Marty_Krofft_Televisio....), and I quote: "We do not believe that the ordinary reasonable person, let alone a child, viewing these works will even notice that Pufnstuf is wearing a cummerbund while Mayor McCheese is wearing a diplomat’s sash."

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

#67

Post by layer8 »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #56
layer8 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Microsoft tries to compete with Apple’s integrated hardware-software experience with their Surface line, but in the context of general wide-spread Windows usage, that’s really more like vanity hardware. As long as Microsoft hardware, along with the marketing, remains touch-focused, they can hardly change their UI design trajectory. Yet the vision of Windows as a touch-heavy user interface remains a wishful-thinking fantasy, and works against what used to make Windows a productive UI. It’s really a tragedy.

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

#68

Post by 13of40 »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #39
PraetorianGourd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Very true - I'm a little bit older, so I view the Amiga user interface as superior (at least in some ways - I describe it as "the feeling that you have the computer's full attention". Windows doesn't give me that even today.) - and also recognise how much Windows 95 borrowed from other systems. (RiscOS in particular) It came as quite an eye-opener to me recently to realise younger people now entering the workforce vi…

> mouse

I was looking at Reddit the other day, on one of those r/flippingamazing type subs, and someone posted a picture of a disassembled mechanical mouse, to show off the wonders of 1900s engineering. I tell you I nearly spat out my false teeth. Had to take a Geritol to calm myself down.

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

#69

Post by Baeocystin »

bojan wrote: post #43
Kranar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Precisely. As a kid you have time to go through all the menus, read the hints, and experiment. Kids today have time to try out all the gestures on all the apps they care about. They might end up having issues adapting to desktop enterprise UI when they enter workforce, but that's another story.

FWIW, I've started to see this with some of the younger hires, across many different companies. They grew up with iphones and ipads, and their underlying models of how mouse/keyboard-style interactions work are poor. It's a real problem.

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

#70

Post by russellbeattie »

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 it should be mentioned that during this era, the whole idea of a GUI was still a relatively new concept to most people. It had been less than a decade since the Mac popularized the idea. It's akin to how long it took for cars to standardize on the accelerator, brake and clutch configuration. It didn't happen overnight. When I went to college in the early 90s, most of my fellow students had dedicated word processors or, less commonly, DOS PCs (and one Amiga), as an example of what was the norm. The only reason I used a Mac was that I was in the design program, where Desktop Publishing was experiencing its heyday. But I could never have afforded one.

In 2022, the idea of an average person not understanding what a mouse is for is almost inconceivable. But in 1992-1994 when "Chicago" was being developed? The majority of the planet still hadn't seen one, let alone used one. Discoverability wasn't a nice-to-have, it was paramount to Windows 95's success.

Amazingly, Gates and company realized this and put a ton of effort into UX research as a result. They could have easily dropped the ball transitioning from 3.1's GUI (think Windows 8 as a counter example), so they deserve a lot of credit for getting it right.

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