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What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

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Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#141

Post by Telaneo »

n4r9 wrote: post #136
Telaneo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been the default since Windows 95, and I suspect it's because it was just noise to the average and upcoming computer user (ignoring the fact that coolsong.mp3.exe would soon become a problem, since that probably hadn't happened yet). MacOS functionally did the same, so MS probably wanted to seem equally 'sleek'. The fact that it continued to be the default past Windows 98/ME/2000, when problems caused by it were…

Huh, I could swear the Windows XP we had when I was a kid showed file extensions by default.

It might have varied across versions (maybe Home Edition still hid them, while Professional didn't?). But given the number of guides and people complaining about it online even in the XP days, it must have been a default in some capacity on XP.

It was still a default on some Windows 10 installations I've made, so it's still around (can't confirm 11, since I haven't installed that for myself).

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#142

Post by dima55 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #131
marcosdumay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents never had any problem understanding where they can click on Windows 3.11. They never could understand how to interact with DOS GUIs. Nowadays they have decades of experience with computers. They still can't predict what part of a web-site they can interact with, but they have memorized all the actions they can make on the phone apps they use.

My mother learned BASIC in college (not at all proficiently though), searched the web before the era of Google to learn about my sister's medical condition, and has used technology to enhance her teaching (when it actually helps) whenever she can, including trying to learn OBS during COVID to better teach remote classes, but when Windows Vista came around, she had to ask "What do I do?" to open her program. Because M…

Hear hear. That was has been thoroughly lost.

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#143

Post by autoexec »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #111
petilon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are designers not understanding this these days? I think one reason is that flat UI is super easy. Skeuomorphic is extremely hard to get right, and if you don't get it right it looks super tacky. Most people who have the word "designer" in their job title don't have the artistic skills needed to pull it off. This is why most designers are opposed to skeuomorphic. Somewhere in between is the right approach. The Ne…

I've been saying for many years that it seems most UI "designers" are just art school dropouts. Art school graduates would have a better sense of style, even if they weren't HCI experts. Windows 2000 was peak Windows UI. Yeah, it wasn't visually exciting, but it was the peak of functional and discoverable UI. Of course, the Windows 10/11 UI isn't visually exciting either, and in many cases it's more boring looking, a…

> The current Windows UI is less customizable than Windows 2.

I'm guessing that's just Microsoft conditioning people to accept that Microsoft owns their computer. Same with their "we'll reboot your computer/make changes/revert your preferences whenever we feel like it" philosophy. Personalization leads to a sense of ownership and control that could undermine the feeling of learned helplessness they're hoping we'll fall into.

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#144

Post by netsharc »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #137
netsharc wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Windows 7 it was still possible to have the Win 2000-esque UI. I think it was an option between the classic UI or the fancy UI with gradient buttons and translucency and slowness.

I don't understand why they couldn't have kept that option. The Windows UI is currently the least customizable I've ever seen and I started using Windows with 2.1.

Somehow they seemingly had to rewrite everything in React or Javascript (citation needed...), but then they ran out of time and budget to reimplement all the functionality.

For a long time some settings on Windows 10 could be found partially on old style control panel windows, and partially the flat look "minimalist webpage" settings app...

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#145

Post by giantrobot »

mrguyorama wrote: post #131
marcosdumay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents never had any problem understanding where they can click on Windows 3.11. They never could understand how to interact with DOS GUIs. Nowadays they have decades of experience with computers. They still can't predict what part of a web-site they can interact with, but they have memorized all the actions they can make on the phone apps they use.

My mother learned BASIC in college (not at all proficiently though), searched the web before the era of Google to learn about my sister's medical condition, and has used technology to enhance her teaching (when it actually helps) whenever she can, including trying to learn OBS during COVID to better teach remote classes, but when Windows Vista came around, she had to ask "What do I do?" to open her program. Because M…

> People are bad with computers because "Designers" have been objectively value negative for decades. Instead of paying attention to the reams of scientific data that tells you exactly how to make a UI better, they smoke crack and make things transparent.

I've run into a lot of "UI designers" that were just graphic designers that lucked out getting a job in a software company. They design and compose the UI for static screenshots like they would do a 2D graphic composition. Far too often they'd hand off Photoshop PSDs they would expect a developer to turn into an actual UI. They don't follow a HIG document or respond to any pushback with "you have to know when to break the rules" (they do not know when to break the rules). A good UI designer is worth their weight in gold. In my experience most are worth their weight in very low grade playground sand.

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#146

Post by john-aj »

autoexec wrote: post #129

One of the things I miss being able to do in windows is arbitrarily drag around and arrange icons in a folder the same way you can on the desktop. Sorting files into piles of icons before selecting a pile and dragging and dropping it into a folder was a nice way to get them originated. I think windows 7 might have killed that off.

Isn't it still an option that you can enable in the context menu?

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#147

Post by cubefox »

Telaneo wrote: post #127
dogleash wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people like brutalist architecture. I think is so ugly that I'm half tempted to chatgpt fact check this comment. It very well could have been a deliberate conspiracy to lie to the public and say it looks good to make some austerity go down easier.

I hate brutalist architecture, but love the Win2K design language, for what should be fairly obvious reasons. I interact with software. I don't interact with architecture beyond the visuals. It can look as shit as it wants, but if it gets out of my way and lets me do what I want to do, then it's great. It'd be nice if it look better, but I'll take function over form 10/10 times. The only reason brutalist buildings we…

Making the UI grey seems just as conducive to productivity as the raw concrete walls on a brutalist office building.

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#148

Post by petilon »

kbelder wrote: post #128
petilon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on, don't give cred it to Windows 95. The beveled 3D look was the invention of NeXT. Windows 95 copied everything from them. https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/openstep42

Amiga workbench was similar, although cruder, starting in 1985. I think it was just happening all around at that time.

Amiga workbench may have been available in 1985, but I think the bevels were introduced around 1990, in which case they copied NeXTSTEP.

Re: What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000

#150

Post by xboxnolifes »

thewebguyd wrote: post #117
dieselgate wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People absolutely will not explore, click on things outside of what they have memorized, or even try basic troubleshooting steps out of fear of breaking things. I agree with this in general but it can be tough for financial/business/order workflows where an irreversible change may be initiated. From the software perspective an audit log or Git-like history would easily mitigate these concerns but they usually don't…

> From the software perspective an audit log or Git-like history would easily mitigate these concerns but they usually don't exist Yeah, and this is definitely a big reason why people are afraid to click and explore. I still don't understand why big enterprise software still lacks any kind of version control. AUdit logs, yeah, but most big ERPs and other similar products don't have an easy "roll back this change" fea…

I agree. Every action should be reversible. If an action is destructive and cannot be reversed, it should have a clear warning. In an ideal world, this would apply to all software.
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