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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?

#371

Post by torginus »

bayindirh wrote: post #170
hajile wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, yes, but if most people who is going to give feedback are tech-inclined Linux people and your aim is to build something which can be used by anyone at the end? Your initial design might land somewhere very wrong, but starting to ask for feedback from that point on will lead you better since it's wrong for everyone , no?

Thing is, people who are actually using Linux are almost exclusively tech people.

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

#372

Post by FatActor »

wtallis wrote: post #343
FatActor wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are exactly confusing UX and UI. Usability--what you are describing--is the UX or user experience, buttons colors composition affordance is the UI, connecting the buttons to the REST endpoints is frontend, servicing the REST endpoints is backend, making sure the backend is running and so is the gateway is devops. At least that's what it has been for 20+ years.

> You are exactly confusing UX and UI. > Usability--what you are describing--is the UX or user experience, buttons colors composition affordance is the UI, Considering these to be separate disciplines is just more of the same madness. They're inextricable. > At least that's what it has been for 20+ years. I think it's more that over the past 15-20 years there's been a growing trend of people forgetting that "look and…

> Considering these to be separate disciplines is just more of the same madness. They're inextricable.

Not if you've actually done both. ;-)

Here's an example:

UX would be: on beginning a customer purchase, do we use a funnel pattern (isolating the purchase experience from the layout template), or is there backout that allows the user back to the store instead of back through the path.

UI would be: how do we design the checkout template, what colors and fonts from the corporate palette do we use where

Totally unrelated.

Make sense?

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

#373

Post by bayindirh »

torginus wrote: post #371
bayindirh wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, but if most people who is going to give feedback are tech-inclined Linux people and your aim is to build something which can be used by anyone at the end? Your initial design might land somewhere very wrong, but starting to ask for feedback from that point on will lead you better since it's wrong for everyone , no?

Thing is, people who are actually using Linux are almost exclusively tech people.

Well, this is a very strong and wrong assumption. There are ordinary people who are using Linux because of various reasons (my dad being one of them), and we want more people to use Linux, too.

If we continue to cater to only technically inclined people, we have no right to criticize Linux for being for the knowledgeable people only. If we want to attract more users from a more diverse community, we need to make some changes to user experience.

There is no buts or ifs. There are plenty of desktop environments. Technically inclined people can tinker with gconf, or install something different (KDE, E17, or any of the TWMs).

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

#374

Post by npteljes »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #320
npteljes wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel so angry about that new context menu. It's also visibly slower than the previous one (which, in turn, is slower than the Win XP version was). The second WTF was the centered start menu, killing my decade old reflex of going to the bottom left with the pointer and clicking. This at least has a toggle.

>The second WTF was the centered start menu, killing my decade old reflex of going to the bottom left with the pointer and clicking. This at least has a toggle. Why do people even mention this? As you said, it has a toggle. How did it “kill your decade old reflex” when it literally takes 5 seconds to fix it?

Because if it's not a default, and it has toggle, they will take it away eventually. Second thing is, many people leave it on default, so if I sit down at anyone's, they will have it in the center.

At the end of the day, I don't care about it the slightest. The reason I mention it is because it's a small thing in a long chain of abuse that Microsoft inflicts on the people via its product. A reminder that you're not the boss, things will change, and you'll suck it up, because you won't have alternatives. And I really hate this reminder. I actually stopped using it as my main driver ages ago, and they can still relight the hatred in me so easily with things like this.

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

#375

Post by npteljes »

jaywalk wrote: post #348
anonymousab wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as the designers oft like to say: Defaults matter.

Does the default really matter in this case, though? It's not even like it takes a registry hack to move it back to the left. It's right there in the taskbar settings.

You know what does take a registry hack though? Moving the taskbar to the left, or right[0]. As the screens have much more space horizontally than vertically, it would make sense, at least for some people, right? Well no, according to Microsoft.

[0] https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-move-taskbar/

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

#376

Post by mdmglr »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #347
mdmglr wrote: post #301

It seems like every few weeks I see posts on HN criticizing Windows about privacy and it’s inconsistent UI. It’s getting a little old. It’s trivial to use Group Policy Editor to disable windows “spyware” as HNers like to call it. As far as the “inconsistent” UI goes, it’s funny to me how no one talks about Linux and it’s inconsistencies which are much more significant. Windows is an OS a tool to get things done. My c…

> It seems like every few weeks I see posts on HN criticizing Windows about privacy and it’s inconsistent UI. It’s getting a little old. It seems everytime someone points out the obvious flaws in Windows, Windows users seem to attack Linux even though they say "it's not for ordinary users". I could show you tens of posts that criticize Linux and they are posted way too often but no, we only dislike it when someone at…

It was not my intent to attack Linux in any way. My point was that these criticisms against the UI are stupid. If the tool gets the job done that’s all that matters.

As an example I’m building a flight simulator. I use Ubuntu to run the steam gauges and of course Windows to run the simulator. At the end of the day I’m flying and practicing instrument flight rules. The last thing on my mind when I’m using these computers is that the control panel is a remnant of Windows 8 or the Javafx app on Linux doesn’t match the UI style of gnome.

I was not criticizing Linux being hard for “ordinary users”. I’m simply pointing out the DE, WM, GUI toolkits are all fragmented and not very opaque to beginners.

I don’t know what the UI tells you about philosophies. What it tells me is that there is a large feature base in windows, worked on by a variety of teams, and there is limited time to ship and certainly more pressing issues to resolve.

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

#377

Post by Dalewyn »

whydid wrote: post #255
layer8 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it doesn’t hurt anyone to keep it around.

Yes it does "hurt" because it creates an inconsistent visual style. Windows is a mess because of the refusal to deprecate old APIs.

Windows is the practical behemoth that it is /because/ of Microsoft's refusal to leave old programs to rot. We use Windows so we can run the programs we want, and Microsoft will apparently move the Earth itself to make that happen.

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

#378

Post by mdmglr »

magic123_ wrote: post #304
mdmglr wrote: post #301

It seems like every few weeks I see posts on HN criticizing Windows about privacy and it’s inconsistent UI. It’s getting a little old. It’s trivial to use Group Policy Editor to disable windows “spyware” as HNers like to call it. As far as the “inconsistent” UI goes, it’s funny to me how no one talks about Linux and it’s inconsistencies which are much more significant. Windows is an OS a tool to get things done. My c…

> no one talks about Linux and it’s inconsistencies which are much more significant. Except that with Linux you actually get to choose the desktop you want to use, and it's very possible to customize it yourself if you don't like the baked-in design.

Yes I agree. It’s good to get to choose your display server, DE, WM, and whatever else.

I’m just conveying the complaint of an inconsistent UI is stupid. Considering these are tools that enable getting real work done. Icons reused from the 90s isn’t getting in anyone’s way to get work done same with Gtk themes don’t apply consistently across apps.

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

#379

Post by josephg »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #282
josephg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes in my career I wonder: Is this finally it? Have we finally hit the point where software will stop getting slower and chonkier every year? I can’t think of sensible sounding ways to justify making software run orders of magnitude slower than it does now. And yet, I don’t know how but every time … it happens. Java came out when I was young, with a huge JRE installation, slow startup times, GC pauses and Java…

> Honorable mention for docker convincing windows and macos developers to write software inside slow virtual machines for no reason. There's plenty of reasons; it's a compromise like everything else. You trade away some performance for portability; the ability to run the same code and know your environment is identical each run is a significant pro. Docker wouldn't have gotten to where it is for no reason .

I don’t buy the portability argument. If you want to write native io_uring code from windows, sure. But as far as I can tell, most people using docker are using it to deploy cloud services. And guess what? Nodejs, Python, Java, golang, Ruby - they all work fine natively on every platform.

I suspect the popularity of docker as a local developer tool comes from convenience. It feels easier to install docker than fix your homebrew permissions, install anaconda or install a recent version of nodejs on ubuntu. And if you’re already using docker in production, you need a workflow to make docker images anyway.

That and it’s trendy.

Never mind that using docker makes macos sometimes not sleep properly. That it makes your program much more difficult to debug. Or that you’re throwing away 2/3rds of the performance and 1/2 of the RAM of your expensive computer in the process.

Everyone else is using it. We can’t all be wrong, can we?

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

#380

Post by wtallis »

FatActor wrote: post #372
wtallis wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are exactly confusing UX and UI. > Usability--what you are describing--is the UX or user experience, buttons colors composition affordance is the UI, Considering these to be separate disciplines is just more of the same madness. They're inextricable. > At least that's what it has been for 20+ years. I think it's more that over the past 15-20 years there's been a growing trend of people forgetting that "look and…

> Considering these to be separate disciplines is just more of the same madness. They're inextricable. Not if you've actually done both. ;-) Here's an example: UX would be: on beginning a customer purchase, do we use a funnel pattern (isolating the purchase experience from the layout template), or is there backout that allows the user back to the store instead of back through the path. UI would be: how do we design t…

No, it doesn't make any sense.

You cannot decide whether a small piece of what you call "UI" is good without considering its place within the larger context that you call "UX". A dialog box that is very pretty, fits well with the overall aesthetics of the application and the platform/OS, and properly does what it says it does—would still be an example of bad UI if it's one of those dialog boxes that shouldn't exist in the first place and is a product of the developers/designers fundamentally misunderstanding the workflow or goals of their users.

This distinction you're trying to make is really not productive. Its too vague and subjective about where to draw the line, and I'm pretty sure most people who are adamant that a line must be drawn are people who will subsequently neglect things on one side of the line as "somebody else's problem".

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