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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]

#161

Post by seba_dos1 »

eviks wrote: post #158
stephenlf wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I rarely need to configure something on my PCs, but rarely is not never, and when I do really need an option, it better be there. There's a gradient between unmaintainable multidimensional matrices of options and "one size ought to fit everyone" and both ends of it make the user miserable.

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

#162

Post by porkbrain »

bathtub365 wrote: post #152
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.

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

Fair point, it does not on my device

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

#163

Post by porkbrain »

clearleaf wrote: post #136
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.

This is such an indictment of modern technology. No offense is meant to you for doing what works for you, but it is buck wild that this is the "fix" they've come up with. As somebody learning about this for the first time it sounds equivalent to a world where screenshotting became really hard so people started taking photos of their screen so they could screenshot the photo. How could such a fundamental aspect of usi…

Unfortunately, some apps don't support text selection and on some websites the text selection is unpredictable.

I'd actually compare screen OCR to screenshots. Instead of every app and every website implementing their own screenshot functionality, the system provides one for you.

Same goes for text selection. Instead of every context having to agree on tagging the text and directions, your phone has a quick way of letting you scan the screen for text.

To be fair, I still use the "hold the text to select it" approach when I want to continue with the "select all" action and have some confidence that is going to do what I want.

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

#164

Post by ahartmetz »

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 on mobile is trash

Doesn't have to be - Blackberry BB10 had damn near solved it. I think they had some patents on it, but these should have expired, and I noticed some corresponding changes in Android. But it's still far from being as good as BB10. What BB10 had was a kind of combined cursor and magnifying glass that controlled really well, plus the ability to tap the thing left or right to move one letter at a time.

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

#165

Post by ErroneousBosh »

DangitBobby wrote: post #118
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say "are we stuck with the same bicycle UX forever". Because we've been stuck with the same bicycle UX for like 150 years now. Sometimes shit just works right, just about straight out of the gate.

There have been absolute fucking gobs of UX changes to bikes in just the last 5 years. They just usually end up on mid range or higher end bikes. Obviously they don't fundamentally change the way a bike works, otherwise it wouldn't be a bike anymore.

Like what? What would you call a "UX change"?

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

#166

Post by pegasus »

calmbonsai wrote: post #148
pegasus wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the thing, desktops computers have always been in an important way the antithesis of a specialized appliance, a materialization of Turing's dream of the Universal Machine. It's only in recent years that this universality has come under threat, in the name of safety.

I wouldn't save the driver is "safety". It's happened that a few highly-specialized symbolic manipulation tasks now have enough market value such that they can demand highly specialized UX to optimize task performance. One classic example is the "Bloomberg Box": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Terminal which has been around since the late '80s. You can also see this from the reverse (analog -> digital) in the…

I meant the universality (openness) of desktop computers comes under threat, as the "walled garden" model seeks to make the jump from mobile to desktop.

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

#167

Post by throaway45425 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #101
sprash wrote: post #21

Unpopular take: Windows 95 was the peak of Desktop UX. GUI elements were easily distinguishable from content and there was 100% consistency down to the last little detail (e.g. right click always gave you a meaningful context menu). The innovations after that are tiny in comparison and more opinionated (things like macos making the taskbar obsolete with the introduction of Exposé).

I would say Windows 2000 Pro, but that really wasn't too different from Windows 95. The OS was much better though, being based on NT.

KDE Plasma is better than all of these right now. Cinnamon also.

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

#168

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #135
PunchyHamster wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversational interfaces are slow and will still be slow even if AI latency will be zero. It might be nice way for making complex, one off tasks by personnel unfamiliar with all the features of the system, but for fast day to day stuff, button per function will always be a king.

Keyboard button even. TUIs are faster for many cases.

The obvious answer is direct brain interfacing. Poking at stuff with your fat fingers is barely faster than speech.

The less obvious answer is how to make it work. That is a hard problem.

And the challenge is how to make it work ethically, especially given where Late Capitalism has ended up.

Otherwise we won't turn into Star Fleet, we'll turn into the Borg.

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

#169

Post by immibis »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #63
immibis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone UIs are still screen UIs, but they are not desktop UIs, and that's not because of the shape of the device.

Tell me how that’s not a phone and a desktop: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPtvpkSExfA/

This is a laptop with a cut down the middle.

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

#170

Post by rcxdude »

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...

Which is why you should think about how these options interact and compose at the start, as opposed to only adding options in an ad-hoc manner (whether you do it willy-nilly or only when your arm is really twisted)
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