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How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

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Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#71

As a 25+ year user of windows none of this stuff bothers me. What ticks me off is just the abysmal quality of windows 11 compared to the past. It’s like no one working on it has any pride in their job Example: - hate the new notification area. The action center was so much better - dumb stuff like a window update notification that shows a c# class name instead of windows update - clicking said notification does not b…

[deleted]

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#72
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- calendar of task bar became useless - swipe from the left is unchangeably wasted for trash news - touch interaction (especially in Edge) is worse than Windows 8: I am dependant on a virtual touch pad to do certain stuff (e.g. selecting text and copying it via context menu) - start menu customization possibilities are ridiculously low

Swipe from left can't be disabled? I haven't found it anywhere. Awful on a tablet (surface go 3) with local account - W10 gives me Win+Tab overview. Start menu suggestions cannot be removed. The start menu settings allows you to make it use less space. Disabling it in group policies reserves the space for a message that it has been disabled.

> Disabling it in group policies reserves the space for a message that it has been disabled.

This is outright user-hostile.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#73
post #4

I would be curious for a similar dissection of modern macOS. My intuitive sense is that it is a little better though there are probably still at least 5 layers of stuff. So to some extent, does doing this better at the scale of a modern user-facing OS provide enough return on investment?

Apple's design changes over the years have been much more subtle, mostly changing textures, fonts, line widths and control outlines. Meanwhile they've kept all the software on the same UI toolkit so they can update these things universally.

This means that even the little-seen parts of the OS that have never been redesigned (like DigitalColor Meter, the Bluetooth file receive dialog, ColorSync Utility, Keychain Assistant) still look pretty much at-home in the latest design.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#74
post #60
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 8 with Metro and Start Screen was practically unusable, with the desktop in a /desktop computer/ relegated to third-rate citizen status. Any other Windows UI even as far back as Windows 1 is better than the piece of hot, useless garbage that was Windows 8.

This is exactly the mindless vitriol I had in mind. Flow A: hit a button, a menu with text input and pictures shows up Flow B: hit a button, a full screen with text input and pictures shows up A is perfect, and B is "practically unusable".

Note how one flow literally erases everything else on the screen, disrupting whatever it was you were doing and disorienting any lesser-skilled users.

On a desktop computer. More than likely with (a) monitor(s) big enough to occupy an entire desk.

The Start Screen was fucking horrible all around, and its horribleness was proven with the immediate resurrection of the Start Menu and demise of the Start Screen in Windows 8.1.

Metro also met a similar demise because it forced a black-and-white, no delimiter UI upon desktop computers. Computers equipped with GPUs and monitors capable of rendering billions of colors with huge screen real estate.

Some of Metro's baggage is still with us, but I welcome Windows 11's slow move back towards a colorful Windows UI.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#75
post #60
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 8 with Metro and Start Screen was practically unusable, with the desktop in a /desktop computer/ relegated to third-rate citizen status. Any other Windows UI even as far back as Windows 1 is better than the piece of hot, useless garbage that was Windows 8.

This is exactly the mindless vitriol I had in mind. Flow A: hit a button, a menu with text input and pictures shows up Flow B: hit a button, a full screen with text input and pictures shows up A is perfect, and B is "practically unusable".

A keeps the context of what you were doing on screen.

B can yield a minor mental context switch, with no good reason for doing so.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#76

To be fair, I think some examples, and specifically those from 95/NT and then 3.1 times, are too far-fetched. I agree that consistency is important, but it doesn't mean that every screen needs to be redesigned altogether. For instance, I don't think that examples of Screen Saver Settings or File Properties are relevant, as long as their styling is in line with the rest of the OS. One thing that surprises me a lot, th…

I agree, but I do want to point out that some of these "not updated" things are still heavily used and offer a bad user experience.

For example the Services (or any mmc based) UI with no filter/search integrated is absurd. Heck they just "redesigned" Task Manager and none of the tabs have filter/search functionality which is annoying to say the least.

I suppose you can start typing with the inner tab having focus, and it SOMETIMES finds the correct thing, but it isn't reliable and is hidden functionality that people just need to know is a thing.

Props to them adding an address-bar to RegEdit though (in the W10 Creators Update) and multi-tab Powershell terminal. Very welcome and positive improvements. Wish we had more stuff like that.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#77
post #67

As a 25+ year user of windows none of this stuff bothers me. What ticks me off is just the abysmal quality of windows 11 compared to the past. It’s like no one working on it has any pride in their job Example: - hate the new notification area. The action center was so much better - dumb stuff like a window update notification that shows a c# class name instead of windows update - clicking said notification does not b…

On top of that, I am having issues with external monitors. It's like Windows forgets the secondary monitor from time to time. And I have to extend the primary again. Then the pop-up for witching to the monitor audio out comes up. And I have set it to "Disabled" in control panel->sound a million times.

Curiously, users of my Lunar app (https://lunar.fyi/) always lament about how Windows handled monitors so much better than macOS for them.

Are some monitors that bad on macOS but better in Windows, or viceversa?

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#79
post #63
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ncpa.cpl cuts a long way to get there.

It looks like Windows is heading towards Linux in this matter- having to know weird commands to get things done effectively. I only use Windows occasionally, but when I have to set up a printer (shared from another computer) or file sharing, I often have to resort to either creating obscure registry entries based on random internet tutorials or use command line to figure out what exactly the GUI wizard means by "the…

> It looks like Windows is heading towards Linux in this matter- having to know weird commands to get things done effectively.

I'm pretty sure Windows has always been like that. Magic registry keys and underdocumented mmc panels, mystical cmd commands and some COM/WMI poking vbscript. This is also why powershell is such improvement in windows world, it attempts to reset at least some of the management madness.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#80

To be fair, I think some examples, and specifically those from 95/NT and then 3.1 times, are too far-fetched. I agree that consistency is important, but it doesn't mean that every screen needs to be redesigned altogether. For instance, I don't think that examples of Screen Saver Settings or File Properties are relevant, as long as their styling is in line with the rest of the OS. One thing that surprises me a lot, th…

>>Do all these examples demonstrate that different applications are compiled with different UI Frameworks that are all in use and supported?

yes, examples include win32, mfc, wpf, winui 2, winui 3 are all UI frameworks that MS has released over the years, all of which are still in active use, some more than others.

For example, WPF is probably one of the most widely used, even though MS keeps trying to kill it.

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