8 ms·

I was pretty blown away to see that Dropbox's hamburger menu opens to take over the entire screen, including on desktop. In other words, they only considered mo

by city41 7y ago

I was pretty blown away to see that Dropbox's hamburger menu opens to take over the entire screen, including on desktop. In other words, they only considered mobile in their design. You can try it even if you don't have an account, just go to dropbox.com and click the hamburger in the upper right.

rightbyte 7y ago
How is that not pancakes? But ye, it's way to big. If they have to do it fullscreen, atleast put the menu options in the centre of the screen not downwards ...
Zelphyr 7y ago
I see this happening a lot. "Mobile first!" doesn't mean "Mobile only!"
- rhizome 7y ago
  I've had to conclude that they think (or hope) that everybody not using a phone is using a tablet.
  - cally 7y ago
    Yeah, but surely the vast vast majority of dropbox's business has to come from PCs. Given how hard (and wrongly) they are pushing to be a collaborative space for work documents, I think I must be correct about this. I know it's cool and all to imagine everyone working on their phones, I just can't see that as a viable work process atm.
    - genericone 7y ago
      Their loudest majority is probably mobile then.
      - nine_k 7y ago
        Not necessarily a majority.
    - bllguo 7y ago
      but who uses the desktop web interface? don't dropbox users use the desktop app?
      - inetknght 7y ago
        Sarcasm is hard. Unless I'm mistaken, you're imitating Blizzard and Diablo Immortal. If not then I think your comment comes across as extremely blind to a large segment of users.
      - redwall_hp 7y ago
        Some people use it by dropping files up to share with people, and don't use the syncing capabilities. It's a reasonably common use case, I've noticed. Some people also use it like a USB dongle, and drop files up manually, then download them on computers they don't have installation privileges on.
        ksaj 7y ago
        I use it to sync the pictures and videos from my phone, which is then synced to my desktop at home, and then deleted from dropbox and thus also the phone. Automatically. If my phone gets stolen (or data deleted by some overzealous border patrol goon) it doesn't matter as much as it would have otherwise.
      - Arbalest 7y ago
        I do, because all the people at my office using the desktop app complain about bad syncs, sudden filling up of the local hard drive and general slowness
      - batat 7y ago
        I was forced to use web interface after app reinstall because Dropbox free account now supports only 3 linked devices (and I have 7).
- clhodapp 7y ago
  It kinda does though, because modern software companies tend to shift focus away from projects before they get completely "done". The whole reason for "mobile first" is the tacit admission that whatever is not the primary focus will often get drastically less attention because there's already something that sorta "works".
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    There’s truth in what you’re saying, especially in the “things mostly suck, so expect that” world. But in the ideal world you’re wrong... it’s fundamentally easier to start with a mobile design and make some specific interventions to make it work well on desktop than to do the opposite. Whether anyone actually makes those interventions is, as you indicate, somewhat unlikely.
- IIAOPSW 7y ago
  I personally think "mobile first" should mean we force the devs to use a mobile device as their work computer until they all realize how fundamentally crippling mobile UI is and we all agree to stop shoving it on everyone.
yeldarb 7y ago
Looks like it only does this on sufficiently "small" screens. This is what it looks like on my external display: https://imgur.com/a/DJBiYJ6 https://imgur.com/a/DJBiYJ6
- city41 7y ago
  Oh you're right. Interesting. My browser is 1134x1080. I guess maybe in today's world of super high res phones that could be considered a "mobile display".
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    Any CSS that doesn't take screen density into account is doing it wrong, though.
  - baddox 7y ago
    I don't really understand what's wrong with a full-screen modal menu, or how that means "this is for mobile." It's true that it looks a bit stark on their homepage where there are only 2 links, but it's probably a fairly sensible extensible design that works well when there are many more links or things to see. It's fair to criticize specific visual and UX design details, but it's a bit much to take this as any indication that Dropbox doesn't care about desktop users (especially Dropbox) or that everything is being "mobilified."
    - jandrese 7y ago
      Because I'm trying to read off some details on a document I have open on the side while interacting with the menu and then it goes full screen and obscures everything.
      - baddox 7y ago
        Fair enough. I only see two links in the menu, so surely the menu can quickly be viewed and closed.
    - 7y ago
jjoonathan 7y ago
Hamburgers and Heiroglyphs, GUI of the future! At least Dropbox hasn't gone full in on the Heiroglyph side of the fad, they still have text labels for buttons, so you can understand what they do by looking at them and reading them.
- discreteevent 7y ago
  The hieroglyphs are beyond me. It's literally making up your own alphabet not to mind language. Might be the ultimate sign of the over indulgence of developers/designers. Each gets their own perfect world which we must spend the time decrypting
  - buboard 7y ago
    I wish at least they used the egyptian ones. I 'd love to learn their language
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      Press (Stork) to save!
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      Then you'd love OS/Iris, which died a long time ago but was later resurrected! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth#Death_and_resurrection_of_Osiris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth#Death_and_resurrec...
  - nine_k 7y ago
    Maybe they try to save on i18n.
  - tomjen3 7y ago
    That is pretty easy - you don't need to support text in multiple languages, which is both difficult, a tad expensive, and slows down your velocity (I think the last on is the biggest issue).
svnpenn 7y ago
Man that page is garbage. With JavaScript disabled, you get a big white page of nothing. Not to mention the full screen menu as was mentioned.
- amelius 7y ago
  They probably designed it to work on the CEO's tablet and called it a day.
wott 7y ago
I can't see the hamburger menu. But here is the upper part of what I can see: https://imgur.com/eRFnDo6 https://imgur.com/eRFnDo6 Isn't is beautiful? How the image layer is put over half of the text line? Oh, and the right part (white background) only appears after a couple of seconds. At first it shows the continuation of the blue background scree, with 2 'menu' items: "Se connecter" (log in) and "S'inscrire" (sign in). So if you try to click on "sign in", by the time your click is registered, it ends up on the white background item which appears at the same place: "Télécharger" (download). Wonderful.
thom 7y ago
In fairness, Dropbox's primary interface on desktops is "my files are there" and nothing else. I can understand why they'd spend most of their UX effort concentrating on platforms where it's not as transparent.
- buboard 7y ago
  you used to click on the icon in the taskbar and get a menu only. Now you get a full popup with a home screen , advertisements and "notifications" (even though windows has integrated notifications. Never used it
  - thom 7y ago
    I have never clicked on this before, but mine on Windows 10 isn't what you described, and even if it was... why would I ever click on it? My files are backed up and show up on other machines. They could put animal porn in the UI and I don't think I'd notice.
acqq 7y ago
I've just seen the new Microsoft Office. On the desktop. With a big screen. But just pressing the File menu makes the document you work on completely disappear behind something useless. I've tried Word and Excel, both behaved so. Insane!
- com2kid 7y ago
  > I've just seen the new Microsoft Office. On the desktop. With a big screen. But just pressing the File menu makes the document you work on completely disappear behind something useless. That's been the case for I think a decade now. Maybe longer. To be fair, now days they make really good use of that space. Earlier iterations of that UI were pretty bad, but a giant list of recent documents, a list of recent document templates, and all the main commands to do things (save, open) are positions to the left where they have always been. Given that Word now days auto-saves (about time!), the main thing I'm going into the File menu for is to switch to a different file, at which point the file menu showing me a list of, well, files, is pretty useful to be honest. Also it has a search box, and search boxes are nice, I welcome UI changes that allow for more search boxes in the world.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jaruzel 7y ago
    I think it auto saves only for Office 365 or SharePoint based documents. It definitely doesn't auto save my documents when they are local or on a network share.
    - com2kid 7y ago
      One Drive files as well. Strange it doesn't do local, but I imagine there are legacy reasons for that. Everything in Office is old. Often it is crazy well engineered, but decisions set in stone decades ago still linger on.
      - 7y ago
paulddraper 7y ago
> just go to dropbox.com and click the hamburger in the upper right. Wow that is sloppy.
taejavu 7y ago
That's not true, their desktop breakpoint is 1024px. If the window is wider than that, there's no hamburger menu, and clicking "Sign in" reveals a menu that takes up 1/3 of the right side of the screen.
- city41 7y ago
  This is what I see: https://i.imgur.com/nmi0FHQ.png https://i.imgur.com/nmi0FHQ.png For me the hamburger button's media query is set to a width of 1366px. I don't have a dropbox account. I do notice no matter what I always end up at `https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv2` https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv2`, so I may somehow be being put into an AB test. Even an incognito window does that. The name `dbv2` might imply a new version of the site that is in the works? Shrug.
  - taejavu 7y ago
    Ah, I think you'll see what I see at https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv1 https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv1 Yours looks like https://www.dropbox.com/business https://www.dropbox.com/business
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
LeoPanthera 7y ago
I went to Dropbox to try this out but got redirected to "Dropbox Business" which doesn't have a hamburger. And then spent nearly 5 minutes trying to get back to "Regular Dropbox". But wait... I'm at the root of dropbox.com. Is... Dropbox "non-business" dead? I stopped using it a while ago because of their inexorable push into "enterprise" features that I didn't care about, but I never expected them to outright kill the product.

by city41 7y ago

rightbyte 7y ago

How is that not pancakes? But ye, it's way to big. If they have to do it fullscreen, atleast put the menu options in the centre of the screen not downwards ...

Zelphyr 7y ago

I see this happening a lot. "Mobile first!" doesn't mean "Mobile only!"

rhizome 7y ago
I've had to conclude that they think (or hope) that everybody not using a phone is using a tablet.
- cally 7y ago
  Yeah, but surely the vast vast majority of dropbox's business has to come from PCs. Given how hard (and wrongly) they are pushing to be a collaborative space for work documents, I think I must be correct about this. I know it's cool and all to imagine everyone working on their phones, I just can't see that as a viable work process atm.
  - genericone 7y ago
    Their loudest majority is probably mobile then.
    - nine_k 7y ago
      Not necessarily a majority.
  - bllguo 7y ago
    but who uses the desktop web interface? don't dropbox users use the desktop app?
    - inetknght 7y ago
      Sarcasm is hard. Unless I'm mistaken, you're imitating Blizzard and Diablo Immortal. If not then I think your comment comes across as extremely blind to a large segment of users.
    - redwall_hp 7y ago
      Some people use it by dropping files up to share with people, and don't use the syncing capabilities. It's a reasonably common use case, I've noticed. Some people also use it like a USB dongle, and drop files up manually, then download them on computers they don't have installation privileges on.
      - ksaj 7y ago
        I use it to sync the pictures and videos from my phone, which is then synced to my desktop at home, and then deleted from dropbox and thus also the phone. Automatically. If my phone gets stolen (or data deleted by some overzealous border patrol goon) it doesn't matter as much as it would have otherwise.
    - Arbalest 7y ago
      I do, because all the people at my office using the desktop app complain about bad syncs, sudden filling up of the local hard drive and general slowness
    - batat 7y ago
      I was forced to use web interface after app reinstall because Dropbox free account now supports only 3 linked devices (and I have 7).
clhodapp 7y ago
It kinda does though, because modern software companies tend to shift focus away from projects before they get completely "done". The whole reason for "mobile first" is the tacit admission that whatever is not the primary focus will often get drastically less attention because there's already something that sorta "works".
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  There’s truth in what you’re saying, especially in the “things mostly suck, so expect that” world. But in the ideal world you’re wrong... it’s fundamentally easier to start with a mobile design and make some specific interventions to make it work well on desktop than to do the opposite. Whether anyone actually makes those interventions is, as you indicate, somewhat unlikely.
IIAOPSW 7y ago
I personally think "mobile first" should mean we force the devs to use a mobile device as their work computer until they all realize how fundamentally crippling mobile UI is and we all agree to stop shoving it on everyone.

yeldarb 7y ago

Looks like it only does this on sufficiently "small" screens. This is what it looks like on my external display: https://imgur.com/a/DJBiYJ6 https://imgur.com/a/DJBiYJ6

city41 7y ago
Oh you're right. Interesting. My browser is 1134x1080. I guess maybe in today's world of super high res phones that could be considered a "mobile display".
- organsnyder 7y ago
  Any CSS that doesn't take screen density into account is doing it wrong, though.
- baddox 7y ago
  I don't really understand what's wrong with a full-screen modal menu, or how that means "this is for mobile." It's true that it looks a bit stark on their homepage where there are only 2 links, but it's probably a fairly sensible extensible design that works well when there are many more links or things to see. It's fair to criticize specific visual and UX design details, but it's a bit much to take this as any indication that Dropbox doesn't care about desktop users (especially Dropbox) or that everything is being "mobilified."
  - jandrese 7y ago
    Because I'm trying to read off some details on a document I have open on the side while interacting with the menu and then it goes full screen and obscures everything.
    - baddox 7y ago
      Fair enough. I only see two links in the menu, so surely the menu can quickly be viewed and closed.
  - 7y ago

jjoonathan 7y ago

Hamburgers and Heiroglyphs, GUI of the future! At least Dropbox hasn't gone full in on the Heiroglyph side of the fad, they still have text labels for buttons, so you can understand what they do by looking at them and reading them.

discreteevent 7y ago
The hieroglyphs are beyond me. It's literally making up your own alphabet not to mind language. Might be the ultimate sign of the over indulgence of developers/designers. Each gets their own perfect world which we must spend the time decrypting
- buboard 7y ago
  I wish at least they used the egyptian ones. I 'd love to learn their language
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    Press (Stork) to save!
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    Then you'd love OS/Iris, which died a long time ago but was later resurrected! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth#Death_and_resurrection_of_Osiris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth#Death_and_resurrec...
- nine_k 7y ago
  Maybe they try to save on i18n.
- tomjen3 7y ago
  That is pretty easy - you don't need to support text in multiple languages, which is both difficult, a tad expensive, and slows down your velocity (I think the last on is the biggest issue).

svnpenn 7y ago

Man that page is garbage. With JavaScript disabled, you get a big white page of nothing. Not to mention the full screen menu as was mentioned.

amelius 7y ago
They probably designed it to work on the CEO's tablet and called it a day.

wott 7y ago

I can't see the hamburger menu. But here is the upper part of what I can see: https://imgur.com/eRFnDo6 https://imgur.com/eRFnDo6 Isn't is beautiful? How the image layer is put over half of the text line? Oh, and the right part (white background) only appears after a couple of seconds. At first it shows the continuation of the blue background scree, with 2 'menu' items: "Se connecter" (log in) and "S'inscrire" (sign in). So if you try to click on "sign in", by the time your click is registered, it ends up on the white background item which appears at the same place: "Télécharger" (download). Wonderful.

thom 7y ago

In fairness, Dropbox's primary interface on desktops is "my files are there" and nothing else. I can understand why they'd spend most of their UX effort concentrating on platforms where it's not as transparent.

buboard 7y ago
you used to click on the icon in the taskbar and get a menu only. Now you get a full popup with a home screen , advertisements and "notifications" (even though windows has integrated notifications. Never used it
- thom 7y ago
  I have never clicked on this before, but mine on Windows 10 isn't what you described, and even if it was... why would I ever click on it? My files are backed up and show up on other machines. They could put animal porn in the UI and I don't think I'd notice.

acqq 7y ago

I've just seen the new Microsoft Office. On the desktop. With a big screen. But just pressing the File menu makes the document you work on completely disappear behind something useless. I've tried Word and Excel, both behaved so. Insane!

com2kid 7y ago
> I've just seen the new Microsoft Office. On the desktop. With a big screen. But just pressing the File menu makes the document you work on completely disappear behind something useless. That's been the case for I think a decade now. Maybe longer. To be fair, now days they make really good use of that space. Earlier iterations of that UI were pretty bad, but a giant list of recent documents, a list of recent document templates, and all the main commands to do things (save, open) are positions to the left where they have always been. Given that Word now days auto-saves (about time!), the main thing I'm going into the File menu for is to switch to a different file, at which point the file menu showing me a list of, well, files, is pretty useful to be honest. Also it has a search box, and search boxes are nice, I welcome UI changes that allow for more search boxes in the world.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Jaruzel 7y ago
  I think it auto saves only for Office 365 or SharePoint based documents. It definitely doesn't auto save my documents when they are local or on a network share.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    One Drive files as well. Strange it doesn't do local, but I imagine there are legacy reasons for that. Everything in Office is old. Often it is crazy well engineered, but decisions set in stone decades ago still linger on.
    - 7y ago

paulddraper 7y ago

> just go to dropbox.com and click the hamburger in the upper right. Wow that is sloppy.

taejavu 7y ago

That's not true, their desktop breakpoint is 1024px. If the window is wider than that, there's no hamburger menu, and clicking "Sign in" reveals a menu that takes up 1/3 of the right side of the screen.

city41 7y ago
This is what I see: https://i.imgur.com/nmi0FHQ.png https://i.imgur.com/nmi0FHQ.png For me the hamburger button's media query is set to a width of 1366px. I don't have a dropbox account. I do notice no matter what I always end up at `https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv2` https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv2`, so I may somehow be being put into an AB test. Even an incognito window does that. The name `dbv2` might imply a new version of the site that is in the works? Shrug.
- taejavu 7y ago
  Ah, I think you'll see what I see at https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv1 https://www.dropbox.com/?landing=dbv1 Yours looks like https://www.dropbox.com/business https://www.dropbox.com/business
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

LeoPanthera 7y ago

I went to Dropbox to try this out but got redirected to "Dropbox Business" which doesn't have a hamburger. And then spent nearly 5 minutes trying to get back to "Regular Dropbox". But wait... I'm at the root of dropbox.com. Is... Dropbox "non-business" dead? I stopped using it a while ago because of their inexorable push into "enterprise" features that I didn't care about, but I never expected them to outright kill the product.