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Back in the day Apple had a neat menu in the top left. You clicked on it and the menu dropped down and you did stuff with it. When Microsoft came along with the

Back in the day Apple had a neat menu in the top left. You clicked on it and the menu dropped down and you did stuff with it. When Microsoft came along with the 'Start' menu I felt that their design was a reaction to the precedent set by Apple and that the 'drop up' menu idea was bad UX. I did find myself in a minority of one concerning this, nobody else I knew moved the menu bar from the bottom to the top. I stopped using Windows when Ubuntu became the popular Linux flavour of choice. I haven't looked back although I didn't really like the switch to Unity that much. I have adapted rather than go some Linux Mint or other route. I learned how to 'alt-tab' again but still find Unity a tad compromised when it comes to easily switching between terminal windows. Nonetheless I am glad the Ubuntu dash is a 'drop-down' affair rather than the anti-pattern 'drop-up' menu. Maybe now that Apple have all those icons in the bottom and Windows has the 'drop-up' menu the 'frame' of interaction is understood that way, to be as natural as a 'QWERTY' keyboard.

wambotron 11y ago
I know a lot of people who set their taskbar to the side (specifically the left side). I like it on top myself, but I rarely use the start menu for clicking about. I just use WIN+S and start typing to search for stuff.
- theandrewbailey 11y ago
  Ever since Windows 7, the taskbar has been on the left on every machine I use. I tried doing it on earlier Windows, but the small and long buttons made usability suffer and it looked stupid.
benaiah 11y ago
How is “drop-down” an anti-pattern as opposed to drop-up?
- Theodores 11y ago
  I must have misspoke, 'drop up', as per Win 95 onwards is anti-pattern to me, everything menu-wise that is drop-down is good, again to me, given that is the UX I learned first with WIMP GUI's.
  - dingo_bat 11y ago
    But why? It seems highly arbitrary to me that drop up is bad and drop down is good.
    - somecallitblues 11y ago
      Drop downs make more sense because you always read from top down.
  - usrusr 11y ago
    “drop up“ is quite natural when you trigger the menu with a key on the bottom row of the keyboard. Classic Windows UI (grumpy old me does not want to talk positively about anything since the ribbon bar) was always strongest in "combined arms" mode, mouse use on the right coordinated with the left part of the keyboard. (Whereas the Apple style seems more polarized to me between easy mouse-only and powerful keyboard-only "modes", with not much in between)
- Someone 11y ago
  I think Theodores claims the reverse, but "drop-down" is an anti-pattern in interfaces where you use a pen or a finger because your hand will obscure the popped up menu.
digi_owl 11y ago
Then again the Mac menu was the menu not just for the OS but also for any focused window. With Windows mostly you used the start menu to launch stuff and that was it. for all the rest the menus were still drop down, but embedded inside the relevant window rather than nail to the top of the screen (not sure how much of that was to neuter the Apple lawsuit back in the day).
ianetaylor 11y ago
Start Menu engineer here. There was a bunch of precedent for having a bar at the bottom of the screen (Dos apps, Windows 1.0, Cairo etc) but mostly it was a compat issue; a bunch apps broke if the Taskbar was at the top. We thought that we could maybe move it to the top when these apps got fixed but of course by then everyone was used to it at the bottom even if the 'drop up' menu wasn't great UX.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> I did find myself in a minority of one concerning this, nobody else I knew moved the menu bar from the bottom to the top. Personally, I never really liked either -- and that got more pronounced with the modern trend of widescreen monitors. So I usually keep the taskbar on the left.

wambotron 11y ago

I know a lot of people who set their taskbar to the side (specifically the left side). I like it on top myself, but I rarely use the start menu for clicking about. I just use WIN+S and start typing to search for stuff.

theandrewbailey 11y ago
Ever since Windows 7, the taskbar has been on the left on every machine I use. I tried doing it on earlier Windows, but the small and long buttons made usability suffer and it looked stupid.

benaiah 11y ago

How is “drop-down” an anti-pattern as opposed to drop-up?

Theodores 11y ago
I must have misspoke, 'drop up', as per Win 95 onwards is anti-pattern to me, everything menu-wise that is drop-down is good, again to me, given that is the UX I learned first with WIMP GUI's.
- dingo_bat 11y ago
  But why? It seems highly arbitrary to me that drop up is bad and drop down is good.
  - somecallitblues 11y ago
    Drop downs make more sense because you always read from top down.
- usrusr 11y ago
  “drop up“ is quite natural when you trigger the menu with a key on the bottom row of the keyboard. Classic Windows UI (grumpy old me does not want to talk positively about anything since the ribbon bar) was always strongest in "combined arms" mode, mouse use on the right coordinated with the left part of the keyboard. (Whereas the Apple style seems more polarized to me between easy mouse-only and powerful keyboard-only "modes", with not much in between)
Someone 11y ago
I think Theodores claims the reverse, but "drop-down" is an anti-pattern in interfaces where you use a pen or a finger because your hand will obscure the popped up menu.

digi_owl 11y ago

Then again the Mac menu was the menu not just for the OS but also for any focused window. With Windows mostly you used the start menu to launch stuff and that was it. for all the rest the menus were still drop down, but embedded inside the relevant window rather than nail to the top of the screen (not sure how much of that was to neuter the Apple lawsuit back in the day).

ianetaylor 11y ago

Start Menu engineer here. There was a bunch of precedent for having a bar at the bottom of the screen (Dos apps, Windows 1.0, Cairo etc) but mostly it was a compat issue; a bunch apps broke if the Taskbar was at the top. We thought that we could maybe move it to the top when these apps got fixed but of course by then everyone was used to it at the bottom even if the 'drop up' menu wasn't great UX.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> I did find myself in a minority of one concerning this, nobody else I knew moved the menu bar from the bottom to the top. Personally, I never really liked either -- and that got more pronounced with the modern trend of widescreen monitors. So I usually keep the taskbar on the left.