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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

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

#71

Post by adrian_b »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #23
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…

Many dos programs with a gui had all the same menus and fields before Windows. They just ran one at a time.

I still believe that the file manager XTree for MS-DOS had the best user interface of any file manager that I have ever used, in Windows, OS/2, Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux or MacOS, allowing one to perform any task with a minimum of key presses. It already had separate histories for each text field of the user interface, in which items could be made persistent. Even today, most programs with GUIs have much more poorly implemented histories, if they have them.

Also for MS-DOS, the BRIEF editor for programmers used tiling windows and (optionally) a menu-driven interface that was better designed than that of most later text editors. It also allowed the redefinition of what happens when any key on the keyboard is pressed. The default action of inserting in the text the associated character could be replaced by an arbitrary script, which made easy the implementation of things like auto-completion or syntax coloring.

Nevertheless, even if some important applications in Windows 95 were still regressions from the point of the user interface in comparison with what was available for MS-DOS, Windows 95 looked much nicer than anything using the standard VGA text modes and it was the version to which I have switched from MS-DOS.

Even if I had previously tried Windows 3.0, 3.1 and 3.11, those had felt too much like useless toys, in comparison with the professional programs that I was using under MS-DOS. The Windows 95 taskbar was definitely a very important improvement over Windows 3.x.

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

#72

Post by Arainach »

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.

I don't understand.

Ctrl+S gives you a document where the biggest UI element is a box labelled "Choose a location". Clicking on it shows a bunch of locations on my PC (such as my local documents folder) and has a button that says "More Locations".

This "More Locations" button takes you to the same Save As dialog that you would get to from clicking on File -> Save As, same as in every program of the last 30 years. In its left menu it has two giant buttons for "This PC" and "Browse".

What part wasn't obvious to you?

If you're talking about the web apps (who aren't designed for editing local files), File -> Save As has a button called "Save a Copy" that explicitly says right below that "Download a copy to your computer"

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

#73

Post by Kwpolska »

kristopolous wrote: post #66

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…

The next build after 90c had the task bar at the bottom. The start menu was redesigned a few times after that build (which is from early 1994). Why would Microsoft leave shut down in the wrong position? Why did it take them until XP to put the programs option closer to the bottom?

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

#75

Post by 411111111111111 »

Arainach wrote: post #72
rvba wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't understand. Ctrl+S gives you a document where the biggest UI element is a box labelled "Choose a location". Clicking on it shows a bunch of locations on my PC (such as my local documents folder) and has a button that says "More Locations". This "More Locations" button takes you to the same Save As dialog that you would get to from clicking on File -> Save As, same as in every program of the last 30 years. In…

I haven't used it in a while but I've got to admit that I've missed a lot of extremely obviously placed buttons in the Microsoft office suite.

They've designed it in a way that makes my brain go into advert-mode, which basically filters half of the interface until I'm really paying attention and go through it several times.

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

#76

Post by SebastianKra »

vintagedave wrote: post #26
cardanome wrote: post #12

Back then you could test your UI on people that were a completely blank slate, having possible never used a computer before. You could focus on making the best possible UI there is. Now, users come already with certain habits and expectations developed by years of of computer use. This means, even if you really cared about the user experience of your customers you would only be able to make incremental improvements t…

> Back then you could test your UI on people that were a completely blank slate, having possible never used a computer before. You could focus on making the best possible UI there is. This is a really great point. Like many others on this thread I miss "old" UI design, and like many posters can explain why. There's been a large transition to hiding UI, not marking interactable UI, and not spacially locating related U…

> And I think that designing such that it can be used only by those who already know how to use it is a failure.

Why? Cars aren't a failure because they need to be learnt, neither is reading, 10-finger typing, math, ...

We teach these things because they make other tasks more efficient. Similarly, interfaces are converging to a somewhat complex, but actually quite consistent, set of conventions that allows you to accomplish an infinite set of tasks.

You might argue that we could achieve the same thing with less complex conventions, but I disagree. According to the article, subjects struggled with nested folders, yet now, hierarchies are a hugely important concept.

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

#77

Post by Kwpolska »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #31
trap_goes_hot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few people are trying to claim it back! My current favorite - https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar

I wonder what the differences between Classic, 2000, 95/98 themes are when put side by side.

Fonts and colors, matching the original OS.

On Windows 11, the System Classic skin is a very light gray and uses Segoe UI. 95/98 uses a darker gray and Microsoft Sans Serif. 2000 uses a slightly lighter gray and Tahoma. ME uses the 2000 gray and Tahoma.

On Windows XP, the 95/98 theme was "Windows Classic", and the 2000 theme was "Windows Standard".

Or if you want a visual comparison of the original UIs, https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/running#win95

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

#78

Post by warning26 »

pdntspa wrote: post #32
nvrspyx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the main problems is that a surface-level argument can easily be made that user engagement represents the quality of the user experience (i.e. "users that spend a lot of time in the app clearly like it"), despite falling apart if you dig deeper than the surface. The allure of short-term profits makes such an argument attractive to upper leadership. It also makes it more difficult for a lower-level empl…

I suspect a lot of that is because designers aren't often technology lifers, rather seemingly entering this field smelling profit and riding the wave as it were. I don't know what the solution is here other than firing them all and replacing them with engineers and passionate tech nerds who remember their history. Which won't ever happen, and the situation is hopeless. The world we could have had...

Nonsense; plenty of people in UX, myself included, have tech backgrounds. Software engineers aren't immune from the "higher metrics == uSeRs lOvE iT" trap.

Consider early Google, when they infamously A/B tested 50 shades of blue for a button. Did that actually improve anything? Of course not.

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

#79

Post by Arainach »

411111111111111 wrote: post #75
Arainach wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Ctrl+S gives you a document where the biggest UI element is a box labelled "Choose a location". Clicking on it shows a bunch of locations on my PC (such as my local documents folder) and has a button that says "More Locations". This "More Locations" button takes you to the same Save As dialog that you would get to from clicking on File -> Save As, same as in every program of the last 30 years. In…

I haven't used it in a while but I've got to admit that I've missed a lot of extremely obviously placed buttons in the Microsoft office suite. They've designed it in a way that makes my brain go into advert-mode, which basically filters half of the interface until I'm really paying attention and go through it several times.

What part of this triggers "advert mode"?

https://i.imgur.com/AIPcXVd.png

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

#80

Post by LarryDarrell »

snarfy wrote: post #47
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…

> I make my living with .Net/C#/WPF, so great job Microsoft, I feel trapped rather than valued. I'm in the same boat. Do you get to design your WPF UIs, or are they dictated to you by a UX designer? I hate the UIs I have to develop. I would never use them, but some PM insists they are good design, citing metrics from a broken feedback system that's been gamed to give PMs promotions over honest feedback. The designers…

We get to design the UI ourselves, but we use MahApps[1] to make WPF look Metro-ish (which sort of pushes you into a certain direction). Our product is for engineers and scientists who tend to be very opinionated. We do our best, but we end up redesigning based on feedback now and then. We don't have many users, so we don't mind bending over backwards for them.

I will say that the constant feedback is how that they love how "modern" our application looks compared to our main competitor. So I try to never ignore the power of that perception, even if it is just a bias.

[1]https://github.com/MahApps

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