4 ms·

Got to say, other than the font being much nicer now, some of those old screens look a whole lot better and easier to navigate. I miss buttons that look like

Got to say, other than the font being much nicer now, some of those old screens look a whole lot better and easier to navigate. I miss buttons that look like buttons.

agumonkey 8y ago
I have a weird feeling these days, that improvements didn't happen at the right place and that old GUI paradigms were just right and that if you knew how to leverage what a computer can do (mind you you could do sml and prolog back in the days) you wouldn't much fancier presentation..
- hnzix 8y ago
  > old GUI paradigms were just right It's a permutation of "worse is better". Skeuomorphism and hierarchical organization cargo-culted as evil, ignoring that our traditional built environments work using these paradigms. User-hostile design. Let's replace all buttons and text labels with arbitrary flat abstract icons! See also: nosql and SPAs.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    I'm not sure I parse your comment well. I think I've seen enough UI/GUI/UX paradigm to know when something is near the sweet spot. It seems you agree ? The flat trend was a reaction to abusive skeymorphism; arguing that visual information should be reduced to a minimum.. but somehow ~serious interaction requires a little bit more than layout and font to be enjoyable.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    Well, Microsoft is a good illustration. They imposed a ribbon on all customer UIs, except of course the one software that their developers actually use (Visual Studio).
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Extreme skeumorphism a la Mac sometime ago is also undesirable, though. You want them to look just close enough to trigger recognition, everything above that is cognitive overhead.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Extreme skeumorphism a la Mac sometime ago is also undesirable, though Mac never had extreme skeumorphism. Extreme skeumorphism would be like the common case of DVD player apps made to look real-life DVD players (with all the frustrating LCD-like text displays and tiny cryptic buttons). It's not about having 3d looking buttons, or having faux-leather on your Notes app, which are the kinds of things Apple did.
      - agumonkey 8y ago
        faux-leather falls into abusive skeu IMO
        coldtea 8y ago
        The bad skeuomorphism is about replicating physical world design and constraints in digital apps -- and thus imposing constraints that don't exist in the digital world. Merely looking like a physical product (but with interactivity that takes advantage of what the digital world affords) is not the skeuomorphism people complained about. One might like or not like faux-leather, for example, but that's just an aesthetic preference (and those things come in circles, in 10-15 years it could be all skeuomorphism in vogue again, as a backlash against too minimal / plain vanilla designs).
      - int_19h 8y ago
        I'm probably using the word wrong, then. But those 3D-looking buttons with glare, or faux leather, is exactly what I'm talking about - it is unnecessary cognitive overhead.
        hnzix 8y ago
dfox 8y ago
One interesting observation is that Delphi 1 copied the Word 6/Excel 4 "ctrl3d" UI style, but not quite exactly. Typical Delphi-ism are the Paradox-like (well, duh) tabs on bottom edge of the window, which look good as long as the window isn't modal dialog (compare the tabs on code editor window and on the project settings dialog). And another more subtle, but sure signal of Delphi 1 application are the black borders inside text fields (and then also TBitBtn, but that is another thing which in the 3.1 days looked reasonable and not totally ugly as it does in anything after windows 95).
userbinator 8y ago
Comparing the sizes of the apps made with the two different versions, and the environments they ran under, is most revealing: the old one has a more complex and 3D UI, yet uses a fraction of the resources of the new one that looks bland and lifeless. What's more difficult to draw, a 3D button with an integrated icon or a flat one that just has a single piece of text? Whatever it is, this is not progress.

Got to say, other than the font being much nicer now, some of those old screens look a whole lot better and easier to navigate. I miss buttons that look like buttons.

agumonkey 8y ago

I have a weird feeling these days, that improvements didn't happen at the right place and that old GUI paradigms were just right and that if you knew how to leverage what a computer can do (mind you you could do sml and prolog back in the days) you wouldn't much fancier presentation..

hnzix 8y ago
> old GUI paradigms were just right It's a permutation of "worse is better". Skeuomorphism and hierarchical organization cargo-culted as evil, ignoring that our traditional built environments work using these paradigms. User-hostile design. Let's replace all buttons and text labels with arbitrary flat abstract icons! See also: nosql and SPAs.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I'm not sure I parse your comment well. I think I've seen enough UI/GUI/UX paradigm to know when something is near the sweet spot. It seems you agree ? The flat trend was a reaction to abusive skeymorphism; arguing that visual information should be reduced to a minimum.. but somehow ~serious interaction requires a little bit more than layout and font to be enjoyable.
- cm2187 8y ago
  Well, Microsoft is a good illustration. They imposed a ribbon on all customer UIs, except of course the one software that their developers actually use (Visual Studio).
- int_19h 8y ago
  Extreme skeumorphism a la Mac sometime ago is also undesirable, though. You want them to look just close enough to trigger recognition, everything above that is cognitive overhead.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Extreme skeumorphism a la Mac sometime ago is also undesirable, though Mac never had extreme skeumorphism. Extreme skeumorphism would be like the common case of DVD player apps made to look real-life DVD players (with all the frustrating LCD-like text displays and tiny cryptic buttons). It's not about having 3d looking buttons, or having faux-leather on your Notes app, which are the kinds of things Apple did.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      faux-leather falls into abusive skeu IMO
      - coldtea 8y ago
        The bad skeuomorphism is about replicating physical world design and constraints in digital apps -- and thus imposing constraints that don't exist in the digital world. Merely looking like a physical product (but with interactivity that takes advantage of what the digital world affords) is not the skeuomorphism people complained about. One might like or not like faux-leather, for example, but that's just an aesthetic preference (and those things come in circles, in 10-15 years it could be all skeuomorphism in vogue again, as a backlash against too minimal / plain vanilla designs).
    - int_19h 8y ago
      I'm probably using the word wrong, then. But those 3D-looking buttons with glare, or faux leather, is exactly what I'm talking about - it is unnecessary cognitive overhead.
      - hnzix 8y ago

dfox 8y ago

One interesting observation is that Delphi 1 copied the Word 6/Excel 4 "ctrl3d" UI style, but not quite exactly. Typical Delphi-ism are the Paradox-like (well, duh) tabs on bottom edge of the window, which look good as long as the window isn't modal dialog (compare the tabs on code editor window and on the project settings dialog). And another more subtle, but sure signal of Delphi 1 application are the black borders inside text fields (and then also TBitBtn, but that is another thing which in the 3.1 days looked reasonable and not totally ugly as it does in anything after windows 95).

userbinator 8y ago

Comparing the sizes of the apps made with the two different versions, and the environments they ran under, is most revealing: the old one has a more complex and 3D UI, yet uses a fraction of the resources of the new one that looks bland and lifeless. What's more difficult to draw, a 3D button with an integrated icon or a flat one that just has a single piece of text? Whatever it is, this is not progress.