Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video] • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:17 PM UTC

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...

It does make quality assurance an absolute nightmare, I would know, our application is like this to the 10th degree. Config on top of config on top of setting on top of options.

But if you also want your product to be productive for a way array of use cases, it's necessary. You need to think about your market.

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

#182

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #161

eviks wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think when it comes to config too people really underestimate its power.

On desktop, I often see people waste inordinate amounts of time on workflows that don't suit their use case. Little do they know - there's a config for that!

For example, I'll see people holding outlook like it's radioactive. They'll do the same busy-body work of manually pruning their inbox and sorting stuff and deleting stuff. The config can really help them there, but I think they either don't know it's capabilities or are scared of it.

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

#183

Post by Ekaros » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #122

linguae wrote: post #24

I enjoyed this talk, and I want to learn more about the concept of “learning loops” for interface design. Personally, I wish there were a champion of desktop usability like how Apple was in the 1980s and 1990s. I feel that Microsoft, Apple, and Google lost the plot in the 2010s due to two factors: (1) the rise of mobile and Web computing, and (2) the realization that software platforms are excellent platforms for mil…

GTK's dedication to killing the standard top bar menu layout is on intensely irritating. We now have giant title bars to accommodate the hamburger menu button, which opens a list of...standard menu bar sub menu options. You could fit all the same information into the same real estate space, using the original and tested paradigm.

Somehow I just thought about this on VS Code. Native windows has the top command bar. One of Linux VMs do not... It saves entire line of text... As if I would care about that much vertical space on modern screen.

On other hand. Vivaldi I am trying on phone has this stupid thick bar at bottom on my Android. With essentially bookmarks, back, home, forward and tabs buttons... Significantly more taking visual space...

I am really not sure what is going on in total...

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

#184

Post by TheAceOfHearts » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

ares623 wrote: post #9

Are we stuck with the same toothbrush UX forever?

This is a bad example because it's solving a problem over a much more constrained domain.

A UX revolution in teeth-cleaning technology would probably look like some kind of bio-organism or colony that eats plaque and kills plaque-producing bacteria. In an ideal world you wouldn't have to brush your teeth at all, aside from an occasionally floss or scrub.

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

#185

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:52 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #64

I felt rage baited when he crossed out Jakob Nielsen and promoted Ed Zitron ( https://youtu.be/1fZTOjd_bOQt=1852 ). Bad AI is not good UI, but objecting based on AI being "not ethically trained" and "burning the planet" aren't great reasons.

From an economic standpoint those are both very good reasons, because:

1. Burning the planet on your servers is expensive, offloading it to a client-side LLM is not.

2. Ethics means risk means you won't be SOC compliant, your legal department will be mad, your users will be mad, etc.

The current status-quo of a few giant LLMs on supercomputers operated by OpenAI and Google is basically destined to fail, in my eyes. At least from a business standpoint. Consumer stuff might be different.

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

#186

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #11

7thaccount wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Windows 95-XP taskbar is good. Everything else has been downhill.

I use Trinity Desktop on Linux because it's basically the same as the Windows 95-XP taskbar interface, and has no plans to change.

To be fair, modern KDE has more-or-less the same taskbar.

And the taskbar is also not optimal. Having text next to the icons is great, but it means you can only really have, like, 4 or 5 applications open and see all their titles and stuff. Which is why modern windows switched to just icons - which is much worse, because now you can't tell which app window is which!

The optimal taskbar, imo, is a vertical one. I basically take the KDE panel and just make it vertical. I can easily have 20+ apps open and read all their titles. Also, I generally think vertical space is more valuable for applications, and you get more of it this way.

It also allows me to ungroup apps. So that each window is it's own entry in the taskbar, so one less click. And it works because I can read the window title.

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

#187

Post by sounds » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #103

The keyboard and screen UX was established in the 1970s. I've been using a keyboard and screen to work with computers since the 1980s. I am quite sure I'll be using a keyboard and screen until I retire. And probably 50 years from now, we'll still be using keyboards and screens. Some things just work. Touch screens, voice commands, and other specialized interfaces have and will continue to make sense for some use case…

100% this. Wikipedia article on qwerty:

"The QWERTY layout became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878...

"The 0 key was added and standardized in its modern position early in the history of the typewriter, but the 1 and exclamation point were left off some typewriter keyboards into the 1970s."

There's always a few oddball variations. But desk work will probably use a qwerty keyboard in the year 2100

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

#188

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

porise wrote: post #177

I didn't watch the 45 min video but does he mention tiling environments? They have solved every complaint I had before. I can immediately swap to the exact windows I want without tabbing, I can rebind everything to pull up whatever application I want, and I can even switch a window to floating.

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #47

echoangle wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just not what user experience means, two products having the same start and end state doesn’t mean the user experience is the same. Imagine two tools, one a CLI and one a GUI, which both let you do the same thing. Would you say that they by definition have the same user experience?

If you drew both brushing processes as a UML diagram the variance would be trivial Now compare that variance to the variance options given with machine and computing UX options you’ll see clearly that one (toothbrushing) is less than one stdev different in steps and components for the median use case and one (computing) is nearly infinite variance (no stable stdev) between median use case steps and components. The fa…

I think this moreso points out how bad UML is for this sort of thing.

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

#190

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

sprash wrote: post #54

whatever1 wrote: post #48

Desktop is dead. Gamers will move to consoles and Valve-like platforms. Rest of productivity is done on a single window browser anyway. Llms will accelerate this Coders are the only ones who still should be interested in desktop UX, but even in that segment many just need a terminal window.

It's not dead. It's being murdered. Microsoft, Apple, Gnome and KDE are making the experience worse with each update. Productive work becomes a chore. And the last thing we need is more experiments. We need more performance, responsiveness, consistency and less latency. Everything got worse on all 4 points for every desktop environment despite hardware getting faster by several orders of magnitude. This also means th…

I don't know how you can say this about KDE with a straight face.

They basically never remove features, and just add on more customization. You can get your desktop to behave exactly like Windows 95, if you want.

And the apps are some of the most productive around. Dolphin is the best file manager across every operating system, and it's not even close. Basic things like reading metadata is overlooked in all other file managers, but dolphin gives you a panel just for that. And then tabs, splits, thumbnails, and graph views.