The Windows 95 user interface: A case study in usability engineering (1996)

Post by Pikamander2 » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #90

catskull wrote: post #64

Microsoft dumped $100 million on this huge marketing campaign with a simple question: “Where do you want to go today?” I love it. It really captures the seemingly endless new digital world that was emerging in the 90’s and in many ways is still evolving 30 years later. I love the promo video they made too: https://youtu.be/KNLDLVJZx0o I love it so much I wrote a blog post inspired by it: https://catskull.net/where-do…

As I've joked about before, their slogan now has turned into "where do we want you to go today?"

Post by jmusall » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

ink_13 wrote: post #72

derefr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think most of the complaints from the tech circles are completely unfounded in reality. Many non-tech people and younger ones actually prefer using Ribbon. Well, yes, but that observation doesn't prove the point you think it does. People who were highly experienced with previous non-ribbon versions of Office, disliked the ribbon, because the ribbon is essentially a "tutorial mode" for Office. The ribbon reduces c…

This is it. Ultimately the best interfaces are designed for experts, not beginners. "Usability" at some point became confused with "approachability", probably because like in so many other areas, growth was prioritized over retention. It's OK if complex software is hard to use at first if that enables advanced users to work better. Really, the most efficient interfaces are the old-style pure text mode mainframe forms…

Post by jonhohle » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #122

jedberg wrote: post #92

If you want a true lesson on design, check out Ask Tog, starting here: https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ Tog was the original design engineer for the Mac, and arguably one of the first true HCI engineers. Then read the rest of his website. He goes into where Windows tried to copy Mac and got it horribly wrong. One of my favorite examples is menu placement. The reason the Mac menus are at the to…

AFAIK Windows 3.x flipped a bunch of Mac decisions to avoid being sued and then MS felt that they had to keep those choices forever for backwards compatibility.

Post by pjmlp » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

linguae wrote: post #15

Steve Jobs is famous for his 1996 quote about Microsoft not having taste ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiOzGI4MqSU ). I disagree; as much as I love the classic Mac OS and Jobs-era Mac OS X, and despite my feelings about Microsoft's monopolistic behavior, 1995-2000 Microsoft's user interfaces were quite tasteful, in my opinion, and this was Microsoft's most tasteful period. I have fond memories of Windows 95/NT 4/…

Post by jonhohle » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #166

jedberg wrote: post #92

If you want a true lesson on design, check out Ask Tog, starting here: https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ Tog was the original design engineer for the Mac, and arguably one of the first true HCI engineers. Then read the rest of his website. He goes into where Windows tried to copy Mac and got it horribly wrong. One of my favorite examples is menu placement. The reason the Mac menus are at the to…

> So it looked like the Mac but was infinitely worse. "Infinitely worse"? Some people really need to cool off the hyperbole. Having each window be a self-contained unit is the far better metaphor than making each window transform a global element when it is selected. As well as scaling better for bigger screens. An edge case like that may well be unfortunate, but it could be the price you pay to make the overall bett…