6 ms·

While some are egregious usability disasters, like hiding the scroll bar, others points are just a sign of times moving on, like the ≡ for menu.

the_af 7y ago
> others points are just a sign of times moving on, like the ≡ for menu The article addresses this at the end. In software, the "times" do not move on like an unsteerable force. We (users and designers) decide how the times should move on. For non-mobile, the ≡ for menu seems like a step backwards and we shouldn't accept it without complaint. Applying mobile patterns which are suboptimal on the desktop seems like a UX antipattern to me. I think a huge part of the problem is that software -- both free and nonfree -- needs to show "change" in order to signal it's still alive and maintained, but change for change's sake can be a bad thing, especially if you already had a pretty good (or consistent) UI.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > change for change's sake can be a bad thing, especially if you already had a pretty good (or consistent) UI. I run Trinity Desktop on Linux for exactly this reason: it's basically what KDE 3 looked like 10 or 15 years ago. I run it so I don't have to re-learn all my workflows every time somebody comes up with some new eye candy.
saagarjha 7y ago
"Hamburger menus" are and will forever be, in my mind, a lazy design for "catch all" stuff. (On Apple's platforms, it's three dots, but it's the same thing.)
- red_admiral 7y ago
  Joel Spolsky has an old post somewhere where he says the reason the Palm Pilot failed but the iPhone succeeded at making mobile devices "a thing" is that desktop and mobile are two different things; the Palm tried to do a desktop interface on mobile. I'm ok with three-dot menus on mobile, especially for features like "settings" that I don't use all the time - Whatsapp's dots menu works for me. Using a dots/hamburger menu on desktop is lazy, I'd agree with you there; using it on desktop for things that people do use a lot like the editing menu in a painting program is atrocious.
  - Firehawke 7y ago
    I'm generally not a hamburger menu fan, but I've come to accept it in Firefox/Chrome/Edge/etc because I rarely ever need to bring up the menu anyway so it conserves precious vertical space on a widescreen display. When I DO need to bring up the menu, I'm usually one to two clicks from where I need to go. When a hamburger menu encompasses the whole UI (metaphorically speaking) I'd definitely agree it's problematic-- and the same goes for random placement of menu items into a hamburger menu. That's just lazy design.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      I think hamburgers work in browsers because they are just chrome for an actual application running inside the browser tab. Having a browser menu just above an application menu inside the browser tab is something I can actually see being problematic.
    - int_19h 7y ago
      The typical desktop hamburger menu is still horribly unstructured compared to File/Edit/... that it replaced. IIRC at some point in Opera, you could move the top-level menu into the hamburger, but it was still the same top-level menu as before. That would be better.
red_admiral 7y ago
I'm sure, given a bit of time, one could come up with a consistent design language based around "hamburger" menus. At the moment though, as the article states, a lot of previous consistency (e.g. open/save/exit will be in the "File" menu) is being sacrificed as everyone rolls their own. I've actually seen applications where the first button on the toolbar is a hamburger menu and when you click it you get a dropdown with File/Edit/... etc options, that work as expected. I can live with that for now.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  > I've actually seen applications where the first button on the toolbar is a hamburger menu and when you click it you get a dropdown with File/Edit/... etc options, that work as expected. I can live with that for now. So instead of just having File/Edit/etc. on the toolbar they're nested inside another menu? This seems like introducing an extra click for no reason :(
  - red_admiral 7y ago
    A good example that works for me is SumatraPDF, as 90% of the time I don't need the menu (I use keyboard shortcuts) so the screen estate saved is a fair trade-off for the extra click the few times I do need it. [EDIT: probably more than 90% of the time, actually; EDIT2: and I'm pretty sure there's an option to show a proper menu bar all the time for those that want it]

the_af 7y ago

> others points are just a sign of times moving on, like the ≡ for menu The article addresses this at the end. In software, the "times" do not move on like an unsteerable force. We (users and designers) decide how the times should move on. For non-mobile, the ≡ for menu seems like a step backwards and we shouldn't accept it without complaint. Applying mobile patterns which are suboptimal on the desktop seems like a UX antipattern to me. I think a huge part of the problem is that software -- both free and nonfree -- needs to show "change" in order to signal it's still alive and maintained, but change for change's sake can be a bad thing, especially if you already had a pretty good (or consistent) UI.

pdonis 7y ago
> change for change's sake can be a bad thing, especially if you already had a pretty good (or consistent) UI. I run Trinity Desktop on Linux for exactly this reason: it's basically what KDE 3 looked like 10 or 15 years ago. I run it so I don't have to re-learn all my workflows every time somebody comes up with some new eye candy.

saagarjha 7y ago

"Hamburger menus" are and will forever be, in my mind, a lazy design for "catch all" stuff. (On Apple's platforms, it's three dots, but it's the same thing.)

red_admiral 7y ago
Joel Spolsky has an old post somewhere where he says the reason the Palm Pilot failed but the iPhone succeeded at making mobile devices "a thing" is that desktop and mobile are two different things; the Palm tried to do a desktop interface on mobile. I'm ok with three-dot menus on mobile, especially for features like "settings" that I don't use all the time - Whatsapp's dots menu works for me. Using a dots/hamburger menu on desktop is lazy, I'd agree with you there; using it on desktop for things that people do use a lot like the editing menu in a painting program is atrocious.
- Firehawke 7y ago
  I'm generally not a hamburger menu fan, but I've come to accept it in Firefox/Chrome/Edge/etc because I rarely ever need to bring up the menu anyway so it conserves precious vertical space on a widescreen display. When I DO need to bring up the menu, I'm usually one to two clicks from where I need to go. When a hamburger menu encompasses the whole UI (metaphorically speaking) I'd definitely agree it's problematic-- and the same goes for random placement of menu items into a hamburger menu. That's just lazy design.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    I think hamburgers work in browsers because they are just chrome for an actual application running inside the browser tab. Having a browser menu just above an application menu inside the browser tab is something I can actually see being problematic.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    The typical desktop hamburger menu is still horribly unstructured compared to File/Edit/... that it replaced. IIRC at some point in Opera, you could move the top-level menu into the hamburger, but it was still the same top-level menu as before. That would be better.

red_admiral 7y ago

I'm sure, given a bit of time, one could come up with a consistent design language based around "hamburger" menus. At the moment though, as the article states, a lot of previous consistency (e.g. open/save/exit will be in the "File" menu) is being sacrificed as everyone rolls their own. I've actually seen applications where the first button on the toolbar is a hamburger menu and when you click it you get a dropdown with File/Edit/... etc options, that work as expected. I can live with that for now.

AlexandrB 7y ago
> I've actually seen applications where the first button on the toolbar is a hamburger menu and when you click it you get a dropdown with File/Edit/... etc options, that work as expected. I can live with that for now. So instead of just having File/Edit/etc. on the toolbar they're nested inside another menu? This seems like introducing an extra click for no reason :(
- red_admiral 7y ago
  A good example that works for me is SumatraPDF, as 90% of the time I don't need the menu (I use keyboard shortcuts) so the screen estate saved is a fair trade-off for the extra click the few times I do need it. [EDIT: probably more than 90% of the time, actually; EDIT2: and I'm pretty sure there's an option to show a proper menu bar all the time for those that want it]