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Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

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Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#151

Post by calmbonsai »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #130
calmbonsai wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trek needs to visibly "sci-fi-up" extant tech in order to have the poetic narrative license to tell its present-day parables. Things just need to "look futuristic". The don't actually need to have practical function outside whatever narrative constraints are imposed in order to provide pace and tension to the story. I forget who said it first, but "Warp is really the speed of plot".

Case in point - nobody sensible would put realtime ship controls on a touchscreen if the designed use of it was combat or complex human driven manoeuvrers.

I always laughed at the "fixed-position" rotatable laptop equivalents https://legendary-digital-network-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/wp... that were on people's desks as if somehow a single physical desktop location would work for everyone--let alone aliens.

In truth, that was due to having a fixed sight-line and focal distance to the camera so any post-production LCARS effects could be matched-moved to the action and any possible alternative lighting conditions. Offhand, I can't think of any explicit digital match-moving shots, but I'm certain that's the reason.

As pointed out in that infamous Red Letter Media video, all the screens on the bridge ended up casting too much glare so they very blatantly used gaffer tape on them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzJqarYU5Io . :)

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#152

Post by bathtub365 »

porkbrain wrote: post #95
jhhh wrote: post #72

I understand the desire to want to fix user pain points. There are plenty to choose from. I think the problem is that most of the UI changes don't seem to fix any particular issue I have. They are just different, and when some changes do create even more problems there's never any configuration to disable them. You're trying to create a perfect, coherent system for everyone absent the ability to configure it to our l…

Text selection used to be frustrating on mobile for me too until Google fixed it with OCR. I get to just hold a button briefly and then can immediately select an area of the screen to scan text from, with a consistent UX. Like a screenshot but for text.

Does it automatically scroll down while selecting if the text is larger than the screen?

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#153

Post by jauntywundrkind »

jhhh wrote: post #72

I understand the desire to want to fix user pain points. There are plenty to choose from. I think the problem is that most of the UI changes don't seem to fix any particular issue I have. They are just different, and when some changes do create even more problems there's never any configuration to disable them. You're trying to create a perfect, coherent system for everyone absent the ability to configure it to our l…

> that it did what I want and actually just picked one word. Each application designer decided they wanted to make their own change and made the whole system fragmented and worse overall.

This is the trouble. It's been decades of the OS becoming less and less relevant. Apps have more power, more will to build their own thing.

And there's less and less personal computing left. There's the design challenges, the UX being totally different. But the OS used to be a common substrate that the user could use to do things. And the OS has just vanished vanished vanished, receeded into the sea. Leaving these apps to totally dominate the experience, apps that are so often little more than thin clients to some far off cloud system, to basically some corporations mainframe.

The OS's relevance keeps shrinking, and it's awful for users. Why bother making new UX for the desktop, if the capabilities budget is still entirely on the side of the app? What actually needs to change is's UX of the desktop or other OS paradigm (mobile), it's a fundamental shift in taking power out of the mainframe and having a personal computer that's worth a damn, that again has more than a quantum of capability embued in it that it can deliver to the user.

(My actual hope is that someday the web can do some of this, because apps have near always been a horrible thing for users that gives them no agency, no control, that's pre baked to be only what is delivered to the user.)

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#154

Post by throwaway894345 »

eastbound wrote: post #128
taskforcegemini wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are using OCR for selecting plain text?

On iPhone too, taking a screenshot is the single reliable way to select text.

It becomes possible. Getting the handles to move correctly is still often a frustrating experience.

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#155

Post by throwaway894345 »

supportengineer wrote: post #107
porkbrain wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text selection used to be frustrating on mobile for me too until Google fixed it with OCR. I get to just hold a button briefly and then can immediately select an area of the screen to scan text from, with a consistent UX. Like a screenshot but for text.

That’s how I do it on the iPhone as well. I take a screen shot first. You can count on it, it is reliable, it always works.

Unless you need to select more text than fits on the screen

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#156

Post by throwaway894345 »

ryandrake wrote: post #138
andrekandre wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 80s and 90s there was much more idealism than now. that idealism was already fading by then, which had started much earlier in the preceding decades (see, memex/hypertext etc) > tech has devolved into a big money making scheme with only the minimum necessary actual technology and innovation in the end, they are businesses, so it could be assumed that such orientation would take over in the end eventually tho…

> make more money or die This is not true for the vast majority of people making these things. At some point, most businesses go from “make money or die” to financial security: “make line go up forever for no reason”.

i discovered the meaning of life and its name is “increasing shareholder value”

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#157

Post by eviks »

3v1n0 wrote: post #146
ryandrake wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 90s, you had a setting for everything! It was glorious. This trend of deliberately not making things configurable is the worst, and we can’t seem to escape it because artists are in charge of the UI rather than human interaction professionals. App designers need to understand that their opinions on how the app should look and work are just that: opinions. Opinions they should keep to themselves.

Try to maintain the whole matrix or possibilities then you tell me...

Indeed, people aren't paid to do the good things, only the easy ones

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#158

Post by eviks »

stephenlf wrote: post #143
PunchyHamster wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He even mentioned how unpopular making things configurable is in the UI community. Inability to imagine someone might have different idea about what's useful is general plague of UI/UX industry. And there seem to be zero care given to usage by user that have to use the app longer than 30 seconds a day. Productivity vs learning time curve is basically flat, and low, with exception being pretty much "the tools made b…

Convention over configuration is a powerful idea. Most people don’t want to twiddle with configs. The power user approach is the way to go.

Of course they don't, but since there is no magical way to make incompatible desires/workflow compatible, configuration is the only way out

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#159

Post by Anonyneko »

Telaneo wrote: post #141
ryandrake wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never understood the idea of a software developer who doesn’t use a computer outside of development. Who are these people?

People who got into software development not because they enjoy working with computers, but rather because it pays well. Outside of work, they're the same as any other casual who's got a phone as their primary computing device.

Also people who now have other commitments, such as family, or became tired of computers over their career and don't want to fiddle with them outside of work anymore. I feel like an outlier in my office, even the nerdiest of my developer colleagues sold his PC in favor of Steam Deck and phones.

Re: Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

#160

Post by throwaboat »

I'd like to point to tabs in browsers as a problem area. Ctrl + T is a problem.

I'll set the scene that I think most of us have experienced: you're working on a project. You start down the rabbit hole of research to find a solution to something. Maybe you find it quickly somehow. But this case, you don't. The problem is too big for an easy answer and instead requires synthesis and reflection.

Eventually, after opening 50 tabs and only closing the immediately useless stuff, you find that you need to circle back up the problem solving chain. The problem is that you have 45 tabs open and no method to the madness that is clearly visible.

This further compounds if you're trying to solve a new problem with an existing set of tabs that haven't been cleaned out from the last problem.

Nowhere in this process is the UX leading you to solving a problem.

My half-baked solution is to allow for the user to enter "research mode". When a new tab is opened, the browser halts the user and prompts for what they found on the last tab that led them to opening this new tab. When the user leaves research mode, any leafs left should also prompt for a summary or omitted as irrelevant. Then, once all the tabs have been accounted for, a report can be generated which shows all the URLs and the user's notes. Bonus points if allows generation of MLA / APA citations automagically. Further bonus points if I can highlight sections of text / images while in research mode to fill my new tab questionnaire as I go.

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