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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface (2018)

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

#111

Post by yoyohello13 »

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…

It is kind of crazy that Microsoft collects more Telemetry data than ever, yet their software and interfaces are more broken than ever.

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

#112

Post by noisem4ker »

matsemann wrote: post #17

Too bad they didn't read these notes before gutting the taskbar in Win11. It's so unusable, so slow when you can't "ungroup" stuff. Made me actually reinstall and go back to Win10.

Microsoft might be reimplementing a non-grouping option. It was spotted in a recent development build.

https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/15929816173412474...

> Windows 11 is going to get a "Never Combine" taskbar item setting after all. It no longer features window titles like in Windows 10 & older releases, but retains the icon per window mechanic which some might still find useful. New in build 25246, hidden behind feature 29785186

> This feature is forcibly disabled and even if you do manage to enable it (regular ViVe commands won't do) its code is partially broken. You can notice WinDbg running as a few small patches were needed. No UI for enabling this exists in Settings yet.

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

#113

Post by causality0 »

_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…

Turning a drop down menu list for saving into a full screen pop up is just so bizarrely user-hostile.

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

#114

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

trap_goes_hot wrote: post #4
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #2

Some of the greatest UX of all time. Shame how far we have fallen in the current flat world.

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

This is amazing. Instant install. I wish there was a way to theme all of the UI to be like 95.

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

#115

Post by wmf »

russellbeattie wrote: post #109
int_19h wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, Windows 3.1 came with a 7-minute tutorial activated from the installer, about half of which is on using the mouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXKEnYQu-oM If I remember correctly, this part wasn't there in Windows 95, so presumably they decided that users mostly don't need it anymore.

Hah! This reminds me of an old adage when teaching people how to use the mouse. Don't ever mention the right mouse button until the absolute last moment, if ever. Because from the second you mention it, every time you say, "OK, now click the [window, button, menu, etc.]" they will instantly ask, "Right or left button?". Every. Single. Time.

Apple discovered this problem and preemptively fixed it in 1984.

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

#116

Post by pfraze »

Arainach wrote: post #79
411111111111111 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The ribbon interface suffers from poor scan-ability. The problem is actually a common one with MS products since they introduced Metro: they use too much vertical space with irregular layouts. Your eyes just scan more quickly if there’s regularity in the layout and grouping along a single axis.

The trick I’ve found with the ribbon is to anchor against the labels at the bottoms of each grouping. Why they’re at the bottom and not the top, I can’t say, but those labels help me scan if I start from them.

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

#117

Post by Aeolun »

_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…

Honestly, I consider myself quite tech savvy (programmer right?) but I cannot for the life of me figure out all the different locations you can store files any more. Especially my iPhone is a horror in this regard, but over the years I’ve used so many different forms of cloud storage everything is just spread around everywhere.

I think I copied everything to my local disk as well, but it’s 20 years of my life, so I’m disinclined from finally trashing all those various services.

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

#118

Post by Aeolun »

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…

You mean you have to click through 3 buttons now for what was previously just ‘Save As’?

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

#119

Post by Aeolun »

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…

> seem to be able to pick up quite easily

I mean, I can figure it out too, but I have to agree that it’s a bit silly to get a new phone, and then immediately have to swipe up/down/left/right on every screen, starting from the extreme, starting from the center etc, to figure out what kind of hidden functionality this will reveal.

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

#120

Post by userbinator »

causality0 wrote: post #113
_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…

Turning a drop down menu list for saving into a full screen pop up is just so bizarrely user-hostile.

I verbally exclaimed WTF the first time I saw that. How did anyone think that ridiculous distraction is an improvement? Doubly so when the name of the file you want to open next is in the current one --- and helpfully covered up by that abomination.
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