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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?

#221
The single most "oh, Microsoft" moment I had when updating to Windows 11 is actually glossed over in this article without comment. Context menus are restyled, and also now have a "show more options" entry[1] -- if you press it, what happens? The pre-Windows-11 context menu appears.

That's right. There's archeological layers of UI design in context menus now.

[1] https://ntdotdev.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/image-4.png

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

#222
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! So much this! What's the point of having a taskbar that only groups by app...This has been one of the major pain points of me using Mac OS and it is immensely sad that Windows 11 has also taken this approach. At least some Linux DEs still let me keep my app windows ungrouped...

Luckily with macOS there is the way of expose (renamed) and hot corners that allows switching based on various logic by a swing of the mouse both lightning fast and visual (easy and quick to locate things and trace what is happening), very natural to me from the very first time I tried. (this allowed Mac + VM products like Parallels with coherence mode to work superior to any Windows practice in this reagard - better…

Probably different use cases but I've never found tools that show the window contents to be useful over the window title.

I almost always have many windows that would have thumbnails essentially indistinguishable from each other (think text editors, file managers, terminal prompts etc.)

So I use the task bar as almost like a system wide "tab" interface. Grouping stuff into the app icon is terrible because I can't easily tell if I have a window of the type I want already open. I don't click on the taskbar items to navigate, rather I use them to check what is already open so I can quickly keyboard switch to them.

The Win11 UI completely breaks this workflow so now I either need to do a linear search to flip through all windows, or pull up either the task view or hover menu above the app icon, and pray I can tell apart the huge grid of identical window thumbnails.

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

#223
post #174

What's more embarrassing than UI is that after 10+ years Win10/11 Settings still don't have the functionality parity with Win7 Control Panel, evidenced by the fact you find links everywhere in Settings to officially ask you to open their equivalent in Control Panel to adjust "advanced" settings. And even at the places they do, arguments can be made about if their UX/UI are actually better; but that's kinda subjective…

This is now my major gripe with windows with tool versioning (since i admit that IIS is now more than usable, unlike in 2012). The settings are a pain to go through. When i find a powershell command or a regedit/cmd action that can avoid me the pain, i take it (and i'm always bummed that those are often the last proposed options). Also, i think spotlight in mac is way better than Search, and i dislike that it is Win+…

Try MS PowerToys, enable Everywhere search in the Run utility. Win+space will be nearly as good as Spotlight.

Edit: I think this is now called Windows Search or File Search. Sorry been a while since I've used windows full time. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run

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

#224
Windows 11 is getting worse not better. I went to type Windows Fax in the start menu since Windows Fax and Scan used to be included. It showed up as an app in the latest Windows 11 but then tried running it and they removed it but left the shortcut.

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

#226
post #221

The single most "oh, Microsoft " moment I had when updating to Windows 11 is actually glossed over in this article without comment. Context menus are restyled, and also now have a "show more options" entry[1] -- if you press it, what happens? The pre-Windows-11 context menu appears. That's right. There's archeological layers of UI design in context menus now. [1] https://ntdotdev.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/image-4.p…

They also hide some of the most useful options while keeping the most useless. Rename is now one of the ones hidden by default.

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

#227
post #221

The single most "oh, Microsoft " moment I had when updating to Windows 11 is actually glossed over in this article without comment. Context menus are restyled, and also now have a "show more options" entry[1] -- if you press it, what happens? The pre-Windows-11 context menu appears. That's right. There's archeological layers of UI design in context menus now. [1] https://ntdotdev.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/image-4.p…

That new context menu is garbage (for me). I use advanced functions regularly to the point that after a day of being on 11 it bothered me enough to figure out how to revert to showing the “advanced” (old) context menu.

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

#228
post #221

The single most "oh, Microsoft " moment I had when updating to Windows 11 is actually glossed over in this article without comment. Context menus are restyled, and also now have a "show more options" entry[1] -- if you press it, what happens? The pre-Windows-11 context menu appears. That's right. There's archeological layers of UI design in context menus now. [1] https://ntdotdev.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/image-4.p…

That new context menu is garbage (for me). I use advanced functions regularly to the point that after a day of being on 11 it bothered me enough to figure out how to revert to showing the “advanced” (old) context menu.

How?? How can one achieve this power?

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

#229
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how the huge silent majority get on just fine with GNOME but the vocal few act like the devs have poked them in the eye and called their mother fat.

As I recall, the UI designers didn't even ask for feedback. It was a case of "we know what you want better than you do". That design approach is basically always a mistake.

What do you mean as you recall? Did you follow the project updates on their issue and bug tracker? If you're not happy with it you know you can fork it and create your own derivative, right? Oh, so you just like to complain about how people spend their free time and want them to work for you for free?

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

#230
post #221

The single most "oh, Microsoft " moment I had when updating to Windows 11 is actually glossed over in this article without comment. Context menus are restyled, and also now have a "show more options" entry[1] -- if you press it, what happens? The pre-Windows-11 context menu appears. That's right. There's archeological layers of UI design in context menus now. [1] https://ntdotdev.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/image-4.p…

They also hide some of the most useful options while keeping the most useless. Rename is now one of the ones hidden by default.

The default list is created at the marketing department, not the usability lab.

Actually it does follow the faux usability trend where ”options confuse user”, and the perfect UI is just an uniform off-white screen with no controls

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