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> Today, even in apps not designed primarily for touch use (e.g. Slack), we’ve buried the menu behind a randomly placed inscrutable hamburger icon. Windows 95

> Today, even in apps not designed primarily for touch use (e.g. Slack), we’ve buried the menu behind a randomly placed inscrutable hamburger icon. Windows 95 buried everything under the Start menu, which was hardly a paragon of usability. There was a "Documents" menu that was pretty useless, a "Programs" menu that required several small click targets to launch anything (and regularly overflowed with applications), a "Run" button that popped up a completely inscrutable dialog box, and a "Shut Down" button that made users decide whether to restart normally or to restart in DOS mode. I think you're giving the '90s too much of a pass. Modern mobile OS's in particular are much more usable than anything back then.

ptx 8y ago
> a "Run" button that popped up a completely inscrutable dialog box I've relied on that dialog box throughout the years, as Microsoft keeps moving things around and hiding functionality. Hitting Win+R and typing "control userpasswords2" works identically in Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10 and is far less inscrutable than divining where they've decided to hide the settings in any particular Windows version.
rayiner 8y ago
> I think you're giving the '90s too much of a pass. Modern mobile OS's in particular are much more usable than anything back then I disagree. At least Win 95 was largely discoverable to people who can read. Today’s mobile OSes are completely undiscoverable, with functionality hidden behind inconsistant gestures and iconography. E.g. Apple Maps. How do I get directions from point A to point B? No obvious widget. Maybe search for point A. A, “directions.” But it looks like it is directions from wherever Apple thinks I am to point A. Not what I wanted. Maybe search for point B. Still directions from wherever Apple thinks I am. Maybe click it anyway. Okay, now routes. But no obvious button or text field to change the starting and ending point. Oh, I see, the “here” is blue. Maybe I can click on it. It’s hot garbage. Would it kill you to have a menu across the top with a comprehensive enumeration of functions your app supports? And apps like Edge and Chrome are even worse for importing this lunacy into the desktop, where the screen space limitations of mobile don’t apply.
- pcwalton 8y ago
  Research has consistently shown that the traditional menu bar is actually not very usable for most people. Office ran into this problem fairly quickly, even back in 1997. The menu bars quickly became overwhelming. This series of blog posts from a decade ago is intresting: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2008/03/13/table-of-contents/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2008/03/13/table-of...
  - MagnumOpus 8y ago
    > Research has consistently shown Research on non-professional users run by mediocre UI "visionaries" trying to justify change for the sake of change (I am looking at you Jensen Harris). The justification for ribbon UI is making it easy for people with tablets, with jittery hands unable to hit a menu item, and newbies -- and making it mandatory degraded the experiance of the 95% of regular users who are none of the above. There is a good reason why my private computers still get Office 2003 installed by default, despite of all of its limitations at age 15...
  - userbinator 8y ago
    Maybe it wasn't "very usable for most people", but it certainly was becoming usable for an increasing number of them when MS decided to change the UI completely, making it not very usable for everyone. Learning takes time, and they just threw away countless man-hours of it.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Better discoverability was one of the primary intentions. Shame it led to less usability for everyone else (ie all non-beginners), with an arbitrary mix of text, text+icons and mystery find out only on rollover icons. There was much to be said for hierarchical menus, now it's partially guesswork to even decide which tab the required choice is on. Anecdotal for sure, but the old interface seemed to be missed most by the very users that the ribbon was intended for - those needing to discover, rather than already knowing, which feature to use. There was a lot more piracy of Office 2003 after 2007 came out.
  - kilper 8y ago

ptx 8y ago

> a "Run" button that popped up a completely inscrutable dialog box I've relied on that dialog box throughout the years, as Microsoft keeps moving things around and hiding functionality. Hitting Win+R and typing "control userpasswords2" works identically in Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10 and is far less inscrutable than divining where they've decided to hide the settings in any particular Windows version.

rayiner 8y ago

> I think you're giving the '90s too much of a pass. Modern mobile OS's in particular are much more usable than anything back then I disagree. At least Win 95 was largely discoverable to people who can read. Today’s mobile OSes are completely undiscoverable, with functionality hidden behind inconsistant gestures and iconography. E.g. Apple Maps. How do I get directions from point A to point B? No obvious widget. Maybe search for point A. A, “directions.” But it looks like it is directions from wherever Apple thinks I am to point A. Not what I wanted. Maybe search for point B. Still directions from wherever Apple thinks I am. Maybe click it anyway. Okay, now routes. But no obvious button or text field to change the starting and ending point. Oh, I see, the “here” is blue. Maybe I can click on it. It’s hot garbage. Would it kill you to have a menu across the top with a comprehensive enumeration of functions your app supports? And apps like Edge and Chrome are even worse for importing this lunacy into the desktop, where the screen space limitations of mobile don’t apply.

pcwalton 8y ago
Research has consistently shown that the traditional menu bar is actually not very usable for most people. Office ran into this problem fairly quickly, even back in 1997. The menu bars quickly became overwhelming. This series of blog posts from a decade ago is intresting: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2008/03/13/table-of-contents/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2008/03/13/table-of...
- MagnumOpus 8y ago
  > Research has consistently shown Research on non-professional users run by mediocre UI "visionaries" trying to justify change for the sake of change (I am looking at you Jensen Harris). The justification for ribbon UI is making it easy for people with tablets, with jittery hands unable to hit a menu item, and newbies -- and making it mandatory degraded the experiance of the 95% of regular users who are none of the above. There is a good reason why my private computers still get Office 2003 installed by default, despite of all of its limitations at age 15...
- userbinator 8y ago
  Maybe it wasn't "very usable for most people", but it certainly was becoming usable for an increasing number of them when MS decided to change the UI completely, making it not very usable for everyone. Learning takes time, and they just threw away countless man-hours of it.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Better discoverability was one of the primary intentions. Shame it led to less usability for everyone else (ie all non-beginners), with an arbitrary mix of text, text+icons and mystery find out only on rollover icons. There was much to be said for hierarchical menus, now it's partially guesswork to even decide which tab the required choice is on. Anecdotal for sure, but the old interface seemed to be missed most by the very users that the ribbon was intended for - those needing to discover, rather than already knowing, which feature to use. There was a lot more piracy of Office 2003 after 2007 came out.
- kilper 8y ago