10 ms·

It's almost as bad 5 years later then. - icons on task bar too low - icons on task bar vertically not aligned - task icons different size than pinned icons o

It's almost as bad 5 years later then. - icons on task bar too low - icons on task bar vertically not aligned - task icons different size than pinned icons on task bar - task text vertically aligned too high - icons stylistically not matched - system icons unreadable (badly designed, all look the same, don't convey purpose adequately) - task bar icons on right are vertically all over the place - task bar mini icons sizing on right is not consistent - file manager icon sizes all over the place - file manager bottom bar icons are too low and lack 'breathing room' at bottom compared to top bar with buttons - file manager top/bottom bar size is mismatched - horizontal alignment/margin of icons on file manager's top and bottom bars is inconsistent I could go on and on. People who don't care about these things don't see them. Their vision is not trained for it. But for a polished experience, even to UI laypersons, they make all the difference.

black-tea 8y ago
I think it's more that you are trying to see these things while other people use computers to do work.
- solarmist 8y ago
  So everyone with an eye for design doesn't do work? Anyways anyone that has trained their eyes (which allows extremely technical visual skills to be developed, not just "art") to actually see what their eye is transmitting to them and not just interpreting it will immediately notice these kinds of things. It's like saying to them stop looking at letters if you're trying to read. If this sounds like gibberish try this exercise. https://www.allaboutdrawings.com/upside-down-drawing.html https://www.allaboutdrawings.com/upside-down-drawing.html
  - black-tea 8y ago
    I'm a trained musician but I'm not going to complain when my plumber doesn't quite sing in tune. It just doesn't matter. I have a pretty well-trained eye for typography too, but when the choice is between systems that are free, fast, privacy-respecting, and functional and systems that are pretty but completely out of my control I'm never going to choose the latter. I'm not sure what posts like yours are trying to achieve. Are you just complaining about how nobody has managed to make something that is free and perfectly well "designed"? If so, why not try to do something about it rather than complain? You'd probably make a lot of people happy if you did. To me it seems more like you are saying that your priorities are with superficial design rather than anything actually relating to work, hence my original comment.
    - thekelvinliu 8y ago
      i agree with you about the plumber. it doesn't matter. but imo that example is not really an analogous situation. what if your instrument was always out of tune? or if a member of your ensemble couldn't keep time? i bet that would prevent you from making a record or being productive otherwise as a musician. as a full time developer and someone who does notice these little things, i care a lot about good design and visual polish. in order to get my work done, i have to use these interfaces for hours on end, after all. if it doesn't particularly bother you, hey that's great. even if not intentional, this and your original comment come off as a bit disparaging, so that reply isn't terribly off base.
      - jenscow 8y ago
        Linux desktop is more like an unpolished trumpet, with a few dents. After a small amount of tuning, it plays the perfect note every time. You can take it apart, and adjust the internals. If you wish, you can turn it into any other type of instrument. Then you have macOS, perfectly round, so shiny you can see your face, including the insides... the nicest looking trumpet money can buy. But it comes in one piece, only the shop can re-tune it, and has only one button, and sounds exactly the same as the other apple trumpets. And Windows... average looking a trumpet, which everyone recognises, operated like a kazoo. Sometimes it plays the wrong note, or stop during a performance. You can retune it, but it will de-tune itself randomly. Sometimes it will recommend the shop's other instruments, and report back to the shop what you've been playing. But the shop now wants to rent studios, instead.
        bubblethink 8y ago
        These analogies are fun. Reminded me of that Neal Stephenson book, "In the beginning was the command line".
zapzupnz 8y ago
I'm inclined to agree. The design is fine, functionally, but there's a certain harmony missing from it and most Linux desktops (even elementaryOS') that makes them feel like using toys rather than proper desktops. Mind you, I say that as a macOS user (although I did run Linux full-time for a good six years in a past life), and I'm sure many a Linux user will call the macOS interface toy-like to their eyes. Even though all I see, whether in the old screenshots are the current, are misaligned and seemingly randomly-sized icons, ugly text rendering, and an unclear design vision, I'll still say that the typical defaults still do a pretty good job considering that no Linux distro with mass appeal has yet shipped with a forced theme to make everything just right because, after all, such a distro would never gain mass appeal to start with. Not with the Linux users who know they're running Linux, at least. I think this is what Ubuntu and elementaryOS are trying to establish: Linuxes for people who don't know what Linux is. That gives some freedom for forcing good, consistent design — but not until there's enough "first party" software to make the rest of the Linux application ecosystem irrelevant. I don't think that'll happen until Ubuntu or elementaryOS bring about killer apps, something like iLife for Linux. Beautiful, works exceedingly well, and designed for ordinary people rather than fellow developers. A reason to develop for that one distro rather than the whole Linux ecosystem, so far not yet forthcoming.
- black-tea 8y ago
  > makes them feel like using toys rather than proper desktops. Fascinating. I consider systems like Android, Windoze and MacOS to be like toys for the same reason: superficially beautiful, but not actually a good tool for work.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    Millions would disagree with you.
  - ryneandal 8y ago
    This is a bad take
    - 8y ago
michaelmrose 8y ago
Please define "make all the difference".
- dymk 8y ago
  "it makes a difference" or "it matters"
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    I think you are quibbling about things that 99.9% of people quite frankly don't care about. A substantial group will leave everything default and for most of the rest the fact that you can change the colorscheme/style/background is sufficient. It's somewhat like a wine aficionado discussing the 7 delicate flavors that or an audiophile considering the virtue of using a slightly more expensive cable. So when I ask how it makes a difference I wasn't looking for a trivial redefinition of the word I was asking rather what difference it makes. Do you believe more people will use it if its pretty? Do you believe more people will enjoy using it if its pretty? To what degree and why?
    - dsego 8y ago
      99.9% of people are perfectly fine with doors with a pull handle and a sign saying "PUSH" on them.
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        Software is full of pull handles with push on them but none of the described examples seem at all similar.
Already__Taken 8y ago
I just tried installing fedora with only a keyboard. The tab orders are nonsensical and the active item effect is just about imperceptible. Better than last year I tried it where I couldn't even get past the timezone selection.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
I am surprised that this is the current state of UI, holy shit. Does any techie care about their UI or “good enough” is where the care ends? You couldn’t pay me to look at that all day.
- dymk 8y ago
  Making a good UI requires that you have some sort of central list of guiding UI principles, and the wherewithal and authority to enforce it. That means you need a team to: - Come up with a detailed set of UI principles and guidelines - Test that they're sane - Enforce them across the entire system Steps one and two require user interface experts, who're probably already getting paid good money to do principle UI design at Apple or Microsoft. Open source without a backing company will have a particularly hard time with step three, because these projects tend to be communal and at least a little fragmented/disjoint by nature. Mainly you just need money.

black-tea 8y ago

I think it's more that you are trying to see these things while other people use computers to do work.

solarmist 8y ago
So everyone with an eye for design doesn't do work? Anyways anyone that has trained their eyes (which allows extremely technical visual skills to be developed, not just "art") to actually see what their eye is transmitting to them and not just interpreting it will immediately notice these kinds of things. It's like saying to them stop looking at letters if you're trying to read. If this sounds like gibberish try this exercise. https://www.allaboutdrawings.com/upside-down-drawing.html https://www.allaboutdrawings.com/upside-down-drawing.html
- black-tea 8y ago
  I'm a trained musician but I'm not going to complain when my plumber doesn't quite sing in tune. It just doesn't matter. I have a pretty well-trained eye for typography too, but when the choice is between systems that are free, fast, privacy-respecting, and functional and systems that are pretty but completely out of my control I'm never going to choose the latter. I'm not sure what posts like yours are trying to achieve. Are you just complaining about how nobody has managed to make something that is free and perfectly well "designed"? If so, why not try to do something about it rather than complain? You'd probably make a lot of people happy if you did. To me it seems more like you are saying that your priorities are with superficial design rather than anything actually relating to work, hence my original comment.
  - thekelvinliu 8y ago
    i agree with you about the plumber. it doesn't matter. but imo that example is not really an analogous situation. what if your instrument was always out of tune? or if a member of your ensemble couldn't keep time? i bet that would prevent you from making a record or being productive otherwise as a musician. as a full time developer and someone who does notice these little things, i care a lot about good design and visual polish. in order to get my work done, i have to use these interfaces for hours on end, after all. if it doesn't particularly bother you, hey that's great. even if not intentional, this and your original comment come off as a bit disparaging, so that reply isn't terribly off base.
    - jenscow 8y ago
      Linux desktop is more like an unpolished trumpet, with a few dents. After a small amount of tuning, it plays the perfect note every time. You can take it apart, and adjust the internals. If you wish, you can turn it into any other type of instrument. Then you have macOS, perfectly round, so shiny you can see your face, including the insides... the nicest looking trumpet money can buy. But it comes in one piece, only the shop can re-tune it, and has only one button, and sounds exactly the same as the other apple trumpets. And Windows... average looking a trumpet, which everyone recognises, operated like a kazoo. Sometimes it plays the wrong note, or stop during a performance. You can retune it, but it will de-tune itself randomly. Sometimes it will recommend the shop's other instruments, and report back to the shop what you've been playing. But the shop now wants to rent studios, instead.
      - bubblethink 8y ago
        These analogies are fun. Reminded me of that Neal Stephenson book, "In the beginning was the command line".

zapzupnz 8y ago

I'm inclined to agree. The design is fine, functionally, but there's a certain harmony missing from it and most Linux desktops (even elementaryOS') that makes them feel like using toys rather than proper desktops. Mind you, I say that as a macOS user (although I did run Linux full-time for a good six years in a past life), and I'm sure many a Linux user will call the macOS interface toy-like to their eyes. Even though all I see, whether in the old screenshots are the current, are misaligned and seemingly randomly-sized icons, ugly text rendering, and an unclear design vision, I'll still say that the typical defaults still do a pretty good job considering that no Linux distro with mass appeal has yet shipped with a forced theme to make everything just right because, after all, such a distro would never gain mass appeal to start with. Not with the Linux users who know they're running Linux, at least. I think this is what Ubuntu and elementaryOS are trying to establish: Linuxes for people who don't know what Linux is. That gives some freedom for forcing good, consistent design — but not until there's enough "first party" software to make the rest of the Linux application ecosystem irrelevant. I don't think that'll happen until Ubuntu or elementaryOS bring about killer apps, something like iLife for Linux. Beautiful, works exceedingly well, and designed for ordinary people rather than fellow developers. A reason to develop for that one distro rather than the whole Linux ecosystem, so far not yet forthcoming.

black-tea 8y ago
> makes them feel like using toys rather than proper desktops. Fascinating. I consider systems like Android, Windoze and MacOS to be like toys for the same reason: superficially beautiful, but not actually a good tool for work.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Millions would disagree with you.
- ryneandal 8y ago
  This is a bad take
  - 8y ago

michaelmrose 8y ago

Please define "make all the difference".

dymk 8y ago
"it makes a difference" or "it matters"
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  I think you are quibbling about things that 99.9% of people quite frankly don't care about. A substantial group will leave everything default and for most of the rest the fact that you can change the colorscheme/style/background is sufficient. It's somewhat like a wine aficionado discussing the 7 delicate flavors that or an audiophile considering the virtue of using a slightly more expensive cable. So when I ask how it makes a difference I wasn't looking for a trivial redefinition of the word I was asking rather what difference it makes. Do you believe more people will use it if its pretty? Do you believe more people will enjoy using it if its pretty? To what degree and why?
  - dsego 8y ago
    99.9% of people are perfectly fine with doors with a pull handle and a sign saying "PUSH" on them.
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      Software is full of pull handles with push on them but none of the described examples seem at all similar.

Already__Taken 8y ago

I just tried installing fedora with only a keyboard. The tab orders are nonsensical and the active item effect is just about imperceptible. Better than last year I tried it where I couldn't even get past the timezone selection.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

I am surprised that this is the current state of UI, holy shit. Does any techie care about their UI or “good enough” is where the care ends? You couldn’t pay me to look at that all day.

dymk 8y ago
Making a good UI requires that you have some sort of central list of guiding UI principles, and the wherewithal and authority to enforce it. That means you need a team to: - Come up with a detailed set of UI principles and guidelines - Test that they're sane - Enforce them across the entire system Steps one and two require user interface experts, who're probably already getting paid good money to do principle UI design at Apple or Microsoft. Open source without a backing company will have a particularly hard time with step three, because these projects tend to be communal and at least a little fragmented/disjoint by nature. Mainly you just need money.