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How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

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Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#331
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ncpa.cpl forever baby

I work as a “contractor” and when I sit down to work with some sysadmin they watch me and ask out I bring up the old style config windows. One of them had started a sheet while watching me with all the run commands and helper phrases (North Carolina PennsylvAnia). Run commands are great for me, but it sucks when I have to walk someone through something over the phone. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t walk peopl…

>North Carolina PennsylvAnia

What is that?

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#332
post #273

What I don’t understand is why Microsoft seems to have failed so often at creating the basic abstractions needed to be able to replace the old dialogs (for instance the file browser the ODBC connection UI) with new ones without needing to touch the calling code. Microsoft’s answer for making new UI always seems to involve making new API’s altogether, leaving the old ones intact for compatibility, and adopting the new…

MacOS has also been much more willing to break backwards compatibility. You haven't been able to directly run 1993-vintage software for a long time, much longer than the equivalent Windows period. And the difference gets even clearer for more recent software.

The other big factor here is that Apple have used four entirely different processor architectures since 1993 — M68k, PowerPC, Intel and ARM — whereas Windows has only ever really enjoyed widespread popular use on Intel and compatibles.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#333
post #18
post #3

I am still looking forward for the option to ungroup task bar buttons, preferably with titles. Again! Something that was there before, worked, and was useful. But some designer decided we don't need that, to the bin with it!

One of the first things I installed recently on my first Win11 computer was StartAllBack[1]. It’s not perfect but the standard taskbar is so bad that I had to fix it somehow. [1] https://www.startallback.com/

ExplorerPatcher [1] exists also

[1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metro was wonderful on Windows Phone and tablets . Garbage on the desktop. All Microsoft had to do to suppress the outrage was give people back the start menu on desktops like Windows 7 and allow a setting to turn on tablet mode if auto detection didn't work. Instead, probably because at that time they brought in people with no history in the Windows org to manage the Window org, we got a 10+ year decline of Windows…

Your timeline is off - SteveSi/Julie/etc. were brought in to lead the Win7 effort. Win8 was not a significant leadership change.

> SteveSi/Julie/etc. were brought in to lead the Win7 effort.

And Win7 barely changed anything.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why it is so pervasive, but programmers think they are inherently good at UX/UI for some reason. And they are very possessive about it. I was until I married a designer, and they actually went to school to study visual composition, balance, color language, etc. I'm fond of saying UIs designed by engineers look exactly like UIs designed by engineers. I'm not saying that all designers are always better tha…

It sounds like you think the job of a UI designer it to make UIs look pretty. That's exactly the misconception that people are railing against, because it leads to disasters like Windows Vista, 8, and 11. The job of a UI designer is to make the UI usable . Looking pretty in screenshots must always be a lower priority than being functional and accessible.

You are exactly confusing UX and UI.

Usability--what you are describing--is the UX or user experience, buttons colors composition affordance is the UI, connecting the buttons to the REST endpoints is frontend, servicing the REST endpoints is backend, making sure the backend is running and so is the gateway is devops. At least that's what it has been for 20+ years.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#336
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work as a “contractor” and when I sit down to work with some sysadmin they watch me and ask out I bring up the old style config windows. One of them had started a sheet while watching me with all the run commands and helper phrases (North Carolina PennsylvAnia). Run commands are great for me, but it sucks when I have to walk someone through something over the phone. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t walk peopl…

>North Carolina PennsylvAnia What is that?

looks like ncpa (.cpl)

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please care to point to something ACTUALLY useful to end users that came out of the W11 UI "redesign"? Because you cannot legitimately look at the W11 task manager and tell me it was designed with any sort of professional UI/UX in mind. It's busy work to keep a job. And if it is then there's something deeply wrong where no UX theory is being applied, or they're being overruled to make it "app-y".

The Settings app. It's head-and-shoulders better than the Windows 10 version, or the mess that was Control Panel.

itd be a decent point if it wasnt still missing stuff that's existed as long as windows

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#338
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just looks, there are real features missing from the new control panel activities too, and I don't look forward to the day the old ones are removed. For example, to disable a network adapter, you have to go into the Vista/7 version of Network settings so you can right click it and get the context menu. It's a mess!

ncpa.cpl forever baby

Whoever decided to move away from that had a lapse of reason that day, and every day he didn't back out of it later.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#339
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>North Carolina PennsylvAnia What is that?

looks like ncpa (.cpl)

What does ncpa.cpl do? I assume it’s part of the Control Panel, but a cursory Google search doesn’t return any useful explanation.
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