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Screenshots from Windows 95

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Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#3

Post by rvieira »

There's always a degree of subjectivity and personal taste, but I do consider this to be the peak of OS UIs.

I have an "ironic" machine at home that is an old retina iMac, with Linux installed and themed with Chicago95. My attempt at a machine with a nice hardware, nice OS and nice UI :)

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#5

Post by sho_hn »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #4
I_am_uncreative wrote: post #2

The Windows 95 user interface was really something special.

Yeah, it is special how almost every element is somehow looks slightly off-center. It's also pretty much ripped off of NEXTSTEP.

Isn't a much bigger influence on Windows in general the IBM Common User Access material, which NeXTSTEP decidedly was not like?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

The app UI / interaction model patterns go deeper than "they both have greyscale 3D bevels".

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#6

Post by RajT88 »

rvieira wrote: post #3

There's always a degree of subjectivity and personal taste, but I do consider this to be the peak of OS UIs. I have an "ironic" machine at home that is an old retina iMac, with Linux installed and themed with Chicago95. My attempt at a machine with a nice hardware, nice OS and nice UI :)

I too appreciate minimalist OS UI.

I believe that graphical polish is just a distraction. It's part of why I like reading this site!

When I have time to waste, I am happy to have something pretty and shiny to work with. For professional work, I want my OS to be snappy and without distractions.

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#7

Post by pazimzadeh »

sho_hn wrote: post #5
pazimzadeh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is special how almost every element is somehow looks slightly off-center. It's also pretty much ripped off of NEXTSTEP.

Isn't a much bigger influence on Windows in general the IBM Common User Access material, which NeXTSTEP decidedly was not like? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access The app UI / interaction model patterns go deeper than "they both have greyscale 3D bevels".

I don't think if you instructed someone to make a UI with greyscale 3D bevels it would look as close to NEXTSTEP as Windows 95 was. There's specific things like the source of light being on the top left, etc, which make them nearly identical.

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#8

Post by stavros »

rvieira wrote: post #3

There's always a degree of subjectivity and personal taste, but I do consider this to be the peak of OS UIs. I have an "ironic" machine at home that is an old retina iMac, with Linux installed and themed with Chicago95. My attempt at a machine with a nice hardware, nice OS and nice UI :)

I agree with you. Buttons were immediately identifiable as such, menus had keyboard shortcuts visible everywhere, all items always looked the same across all apps, and everything was really snappy.

We've really gone backwards since.

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#9

Post by hotnfresh »

rvieira wrote: post #3

There's always a degree of subjectivity and personal taste, but I do consider this to be the peak of OS UIs. I have an "ironic" machine at home that is an old retina iMac, with Linux installed and themed with Chicago95. My attempt at a machine with a nice hardware, nice OS and nice UI :)

I miss being able to tell what’s a button. And what state it’s in.

It is kinda funny that a style that looks like one of those bad UIs a stereotypical doesn’t-know-GUI programmer might have made as a stand-in before the actual designers could make it good, is what’s in vogue. Finally, even I can make a “good” UI! Thanks, flat design.

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