I just accidentally clicked the “clear all” on the browser URL and wished that it was a bit harder to click but was still there. If it took three clicks to make happen, its still useful in most circumstances but would drastically drop the mistaken clicks
Anyway, what are your unpopular UI opinions?
Every modern design trend sucks. Overly minimalistic/simplistic UI harms usability and actively makes users dumber and helpless.
I don’t want rounded corners, transparency, shadows, animations, modern icons etc…
Give me boring panels with clear boundaries between conceptual sections, explicit text on buttons, and no theming. I don’t care if it’s a fugly Win95 grey, I’d rather it be usable than flashy.
My partner and I watch a fellow (Brutalmoose) play retro/vintage games. Mostly Windows 98/XP/DOS/older consoles. When he busted out his Windows 98 machine built by LGR on YouTube, I was astounded at how simple and professional 98 looks. Windows XP looks like a toy compared to 98.
I will never get over Windows 7 Start Menu/Explorer, though. I loved it. I use OpenShell to make all of my Windows 10 machines have Windows 7 start menus, with their good indexed search (no internet results) and excellent Explorer UI I’ve been used to forever.
I got a Windows 11 machine at work and I fucking hate everything about it. They won’t let me install OpenShell because they “don’t allow open-source software” (insane)
Yeah, I remember going from 98 to XP. My schoolmates and I used to joke that it looked like an OS made by playskool. But to be fair, iirc, that was kind of the trend then and not uniquely some MS bullshit. We were saying the same about the appearance of the GameCube controller (even though it’s objectively great to use).
Not allowing open-source software as a blanket policy sounds pretty unhinged. I feel for you.
Always makes me laugh what people prioritize. Perfectly blended shadows underneath my windows that takes noticeable resources to render
“But computers are so powerful these days, clock cycles are basically free”
real
I see you are a fan of FVWM style of UI design.
I wish UI design had followed that kind of paradigm to be honest. My high school library had some Sun workstations running Solaris, instead of the shitty outdated Windows computers that would have been the norm then. I was in the minority enjoying it, but that’s how I got to use my first Unix system.
I can understand the sentiment though I can’t stand ugly as sin flat pixels unfortunately.
…win95 had the same minimize, maximize/restore and close buttons that modern ones do. _ □ x in the left upper corner…
You mean in the right upper corner.
Yes. It did. And?
Haha, mixed my directions up.
I just find it curious how modern minimalistic design harms users when we have had those in use from the very beginning of the visual operating systems.
Well, apart from the fact that Win95 is not the “very beginning of visual operating systems”, and it’s not even close (it’s not even MS first, second or third OS with a GUI), I don’t think this is necessarily relevant?
You’ve chosen pretty much the only windows element that has been left unchanged since windows 95, when MS has tried to “simplify” a bunch of other stuff as time went on. For instance, the whole settings situation in Windows 10 and 11 just shows the various iterations of trying to make the settings more and more minimal, but all it’s managed to do is:
Or, in windows 11, again in an effort to oversimplify things, by default the right click menu now has fewer options, symbols in lieu of text for common operations, and needs expanding to access other options. This is more work, and a hidden layer, instead of just laying out the options because it’d feel “cluttered” or something.
This is symptomatic of the issues I am arguing about: there is a trend of trying to lay out things flatly and “simply”, but all it does is:
The funny thing is, it’s still not successful at being user friendly. Phones and tablets are, but it makes the issues even worse. A lot of kids my partner teach only ever use phones and tablets so in IT lessons it’s apparent they don’t know what files are, and “where they go” for instance. Because on iPhone and Android, in an effort to keep the UI simple, the directory structure is pretty much hidden by default.
Computers are complex tools, users should be helped in learning them, not infantilised with a “we know best” attitude.
I chose win95 because it was the one you gave as an example. I wanna also point out that i remember time when floppy discs were still floppy, so im not completelly talking from my ass.
Also i mostly agree with you. But purely from argumentive perspective i wanna bring up few point.
Symbols are universal reducing the need of localization. This is usefull when lets say my mother who does not speak English that well is searching help with some setting. Its easier for her to press the button with a gear, than reading from the list and trying to find option that in her computer is “Järjestelmä asetukset” and on the website is “System settings.”
Good place to notice how well visual symbols work are airports. No matter where in the world you are in international airports you can always wind bathrooms, exits, gates, shops and restaurants without knowing the local language bacause the symbols used at the airports are so universal. Similary now days i know to look for three dots or hamburger when im looking for more settings.
Thing to remember is that you and me arent the microsofts main customers. Most people using windows dont know anything about computers, and im willing a bet lot of money that MS have data of how many people use spesific menus and settings and that the now nested menus in win11 dont get that much of an use ie. Listing those are unneccessary clutter for most users.
Also i share your worry about kids gettkng used on mobile devices and having no understanging of basics of computers, BUT same argument could have been said when we jumped from text based operating systems to visuals, or when we jumped from punch cards to text based system, or when jumped from using cables to punch cards.
That makes us about the same age then.
Yeah, I am not arguing “all symbols bad”, more than we are trying to push symbols where it could be questionable. Also these symbols still need to be learned: talking of my mother for instance, I absolutely remember having to teach her that the X was for closing the window, and having to do it multiple times. I don’t argue the usefulness of the X over a “quit” or “close” button btw. Just that this has to be learned too. That’s fine.
That’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation though. Would some settings not be useful to almost anyone, even if they all knew about it? Absolutely, so it should be harder to access. Are there features that would be better for a lot of users but barely anyone knows about because of this? Certainly true too. And that’s being charitable to companies, and assuming that they collect and present data as fairly as possible internally rather than use it in a way that makes a case for what they want to push… And yeah, we aren’t Microsoft target, but I’d argue most companies share this trend. Even some open source projects buy into that when not necessary (imo).
And yeah, there is a good amount of subjectivity here of course. I think we (probably?) both agree with saying that making things simpler is not inherently bad, it’s good even. I was trying to argue we are making a lot of things “simplistic” instead. As an aside, MS developing PowerShell is a form of admission that, for certain tasks, command line is better suited than graphical user interfaces. So yes, automatic jumps between paradigm could, and should, be argued on a case by case basis rather than blindly following it.
I absolutelly agree most people would benefit if they had the possibility and intrest to go trough all the settings. But most i also think most users would never go trough them. And for some reason some people just are against learning anything new.
Thinking about programs that show everything my mind goes straight to Blender. For first time user the amount of information is overwhelming, even if everything has pretty clear explanations and plenty of tutorial material online, for average person its borderline unusable program. Add the ability to customize the layout and thousands of possible plugins, if you mess with things there and you dont know what you are doing, you are going to have bad time with it.
Sorry i got stuck at the microsoft/windows thing.
Personally i hate win11 and if i were the king of the world, we would have stopped at win7 or xp. I also loathe how microsoft has started to force people in their enviroment, forcing people to have online account, in every turn trying to push their cloud service, trying to prohibit downloads outside of their store and generally trying to take personal out of personal computers.
But even after so i think their UI is pretty smartly designed for what is their core userbase. (Not that much for professional side)
Generally i agree with you and i see three kinds of UI designs: professional stuff like photoshop, ui that is trying to sell you something like most apps or websites and engaging uis like games or social media.
What i hate in modern times is when companies start to mix those things up. Like for example Canva is supposed to be tool for making graphics, but the sites design is allover the place.