I don't get the obsession with "clean" UIs, nor how hiding everything and replacing it with tons of whitespace and nondescript icons can be "calming". It's sterile and unwelcoming like an empty house or unused workshop.
Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
121–130 of 293 posts
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#122I couldn't agree more. The Gnome devs have a very long track record of imposing universally hated UI/UX design on people. I'd wonder why KDE isn't more popular, but I'm pretty sure the main reason is that the Gnome devs also have way better aesthetic taste than the KDE devs. Gnome simply looks much nicer in screenshots. They understand spacing. That and KDE had it's own major UI/UX fuck up with Plasma.
That's not completely true. They are hated by some users, loved by some. For example, in general, I really like what gnome does. Desktop use is not something that is useful outside starting other apps, so I like its simplicity and the fact that it gets out of the way. Default apps could use maybe a bit more features, but I generally don't find too much wrong with e.g. files. The only confusing thing for me is which h…
> their visuals are a disaster. Believe what you will, but visual consistency and attention to detail is what gnome has. They are not perfect, so there are some issues as OP points out, but they are on a different level from kde. KDE looks like it was frankensteined, while gnome it looks like it was designed.
Yeah I totally agree with that. KDE has terrible aesthetics and great usability, Gnome has great aesthetics and terrible usability.
Random example: I've missed so many meetings because of Gnome's insane behaviour that touching a notification with your mouse even for one frame dismisses it. Combined with the grey-on-grey colour scheme that requires coding to change it's extremely easy to miss notifications.
I ended up hand editing the theme CSS to make notifications orange, and setting Google Calendar to give me a notification every minute 3 times before every meeting. Insane. I need to switch to KDE.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The macOS/OSX Finder really isn't an example of good UX. It always felt like a half-assed and unloved port from NeXTStep which then was quickly abandondend. In general, Apple has lost its UI mojo in the last decade or so, macOS shouldn't be used anymore as an example of a good desktop UI.
So what should be?
OS X Snow Leopard (10.6).
Apple also has a thick Human Interface Guidelines document from.. ‘97 or ‘03, I can’t remember. But it’s great.
Funnily enough, if you use it as a yardstick to measure the current macOS by, macOS is full of violations of that HIG.
Pulling back to the article: I wonder what desktop the writer uses, because KDE is absolutely chock full with idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. Especially because KDE application development is much less top-down than Gnome, so each applications feels completely different which leads to having to “learn” each application separately. Absolutely horrible UX.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#124Just to make clear to the Gnome developers: you've created by far the best desktop DE there is. I hope you don't get discouraged by the constant whining of a minority clamoring for some clunky ad-hoc 90's interfaces whose suckiness is just glossed over with nostalgia and incapability to learn new and more poweful ways of using computers.
I like the GNOME experience, but to say that it's a more powerful way to use computers is just plain wrong. The only reason I use KDE instead is the inability (or additional hoops) to configure GNOME. That starts at fractional scaling and ends with something as trivial as setting different time to suspend on battery or switching to suspend-then-hibernate. It probably is enough for the vast majority of computer users.…
If you want to configure Gnome, learn to read and write text files and use dconf/gsettings. And possibly write Gnome shell extensions.
Gnome though usually just works and has well thought out defaults, so you're usually just hampering yourself with changing them. For navigating the desktop and windows I rarely have to touch the keyboard, and it works so well I don't even have the need for a secondary or larger display.
KDE et all OTOH have tend to have poorly thought out defaults leading to inconsistent mess of an inteface littered with random configuration options. A big reason for this is likely the user community who like to be "power users" by clicking buttons and refusing to learn text configuration, let alone extensions. And the DE devs then give in to the users demanding a configuration option to select a specific cat picture as the menubar background.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#125I don't get the obsession with "clean" UIs, nor how hiding everything and replacing it with tons of whitespace and nondescript icons can be "calming". It's sterile and unwelcoming like an empty house or unused workshop.
Clean and well thought out UI is like clean and well thought out plumbing. Just works, doesn't need fiddling and stays out of the way.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#126Maybe the arrogance is the worst feature of GNOME approach. They make this studies and constantly repeat how focused are they on usability that when an individual finds it not usable (not in that words) it's double frustating cause is like GNOME saying: "our average users are happy so you must to be handicaped"
No shame in needing a special UI if you're handicapped.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
The basics: you are not your users. Just because it’s easy for you, doesn’t mean it’s easy for others. That is the entire basis of usability work. I cannot believe how resistant the tech community, like above, is to the very basics of human cognition. It’s your comment that’s the rant. OP has actual data from decades of research they are applying. Quoting myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303387
What data does he have? OP wrote a basic opinion-piece on what they dislike. It’s just as valuable as the parent commenter’s opinion, so we can only say that one user found some feature hard to find. There is no ultimate design, and striving for 100% of users knowing everything immediately is just unrealistic. If we are at opinions, I really dislike this absolutely tone-deaf attacking of GNOME that is always happenin…
I enjoy GNOME and would prefer a gtk4/libadwaita based UI for e.g. FreeCAD. I brought this up as a counter example to the frequent negativity in GNOME related discussions.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#128I don't get the obsession with "clean" UIs, nor how hiding everything and replacing it with tons of whitespace and nondescript icons can be "calming". It's sterile and unwelcoming like an empty house or unused workshop.
If you like dense UIs with lots of options, you're better served using KDE or friends. I love that a less cluttered option exists, I don't understand why all DEs should behave the same.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#129[flagged]
Sometimes you see these whiners doing their own perfect interfaces. They tend to be something born out of a threesome between an alien spaceship, TempleOS and Blender 1.x.
Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination
#130Decent critique, but it mixes together two things: the design language, and UI papercuts showing a lack of attention to detail. Consider the current macOS Finder: https://a.qoid.us/20240907-finder.png Finder's design is extremely similar to GNOME Files! And so the inherent downsides of the design language are present in Finder too, such as it being harder to drag windows around or click to activate windows. But macOS…
Current on nixos stable bersion of Files allows double tapping on the bar to edit the path manually - absolutely lovely.