14 ms·

UI redesigns of desktop operating systems are usually opposite of exciting these days. You could be damn sure they'll further optimize it for touchscreens no on

UI redesigns of desktop operating systems are usually opposite of exciting these days. You could be damn sure they'll further optimize it for touchscreens no one uses. Here's an opinion: desktop UIs are mature. They serve their purpose outstandingly well. The best thing you could do is revert most of the last 10 years of "innovation" and then leave them alone forever. Stop reinventing stuff that has worked well for decades.

lemonspat 6y ago
I have often wondered when a UI will be 'settled' and won't need to be updated anymore. But then what will the UI designers do? Idle fingers make new designs?
- silon42 6y ago
  IBM CUA 87/92 is at least 90% done if not more.
- Arainach 6y ago
  Never, because if you change the insides no one notices: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39193 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39...
jjoonathan 6y ago
Desktop UIs are hardly mature, but for the last 15 years UI innovation has been about putting lipstick on a pig rather than deep-diving subsystems and figuring out how to graphically represent and control them. Designers aren't doing subsystem deep-dives, they're just implementing subsets of existing wholly inadequate GUIs using new widgets. Conversely, systems people who understand the un-GUIed subsystems aren't doing design work to better expose them, or expose them at all. It's an unproductive and frustrating stalemate.
- grishka 6y ago
  Desktop UIs are mature, and were such by the end of '00s, in the sense that they've made the best use of the keyboard and mouse. Sure, it's okay to add subtle new things, like window snapping on Windows (the thing where you drag it to the edge of the screen) or inertial scrolling on macOS. It's absolutely not okay to take a perfectly functional and polished UI and "refresh" it with disproportional controls and huge fonts because people now carry phones in their pockets. The only good reason for a complete UI redesign is change in the way it's interacted with, for example because some novel kind of input device came about. But then again, the mere existence of touchscreens shouldn't be detrimental to the UX of those who use keyboard and mouse.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    You're talking about cross-cutting UI concerns (themes, widgets, window system), which I agree are largely mature, while I'm talking about vertical combinations of specific UIs and subsystems, which aren't mature by a long shot. Example: "delete file" on Windows. Windows has relatively aggressive file locking, but if you try to delete a file that's open, it just errors out, it doesn't tell you what's using the file and give you the option to (force) quit it. See also: networking, disk management, permissions, sound, preferences, ipc, etc. There are a hundred of these "just needs a bit of work" UI verticals, but designers keep trying to solve these problems with themes and functionality subsets, which are doomed to fail because the underlying issue is a lack of expressiveness in the existing UI, not an excess of it. Meanwhile, systems people live with "just use CLI / sysinternals / wireshark / nmap" like it isn't an issue that bog-standard tasks still require arcane tools in 2020 (arcane by the standards of typical users).
    - grishka 6y ago
      Yeah, in my Windows days, I remember having a lot of small utilities that filled the gaps of the OS. There was one for deleting files too, I don't remember the name, probably unlocker something — it showed you all currently open descriptors for a file and allowed you to close them. As opposed to macOS, which straight up tells you "this file is being used by X.app, close it to try again" when you try to delete an open file. But this is how it works, which is UX. UI is more about how it looks and how it's interacted with.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Desktop UIs are hardly mature, but for the last 15 years UI innovation has been about putting lipstick on a pig rather than deep-diving subsystems and figuring out how to graphically represent and control them. I disagree. To various degrees, the last "15 years of [desktop] UI innovation" have been trying to push trendy touch UI concepts into places where they don't belong.
jbob2000 6y ago
I don’t think Microsoft will make the same mistake again by pursuing a touch UI on the desktop. Windows 8 and the Metro UI was a huge waste of time and effort that really harmed Microsoft. What I think they are pursuing is how to monetize Windows. They tried it in Windows 10 with some start menu shenanigans, but people hated it and you can find tons of articles about how to hack Windows to get rid of that shit. So this role’s job will be to find a design that supports monetization without pissing off users.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  have they considered, you know, charging money for the OS? I would be happy to pay a reasonable yearly subscription fee for a telemetry-free windows install.
loxs 6y ago
On the contrary. I think desktop UI design needs lots of improvements. To me the peak was around Windows 7 but that's not "perfect" - it needs more improvements in the same direction. Probably KDE is a small improvement over Windows 7, but of course has some drawbacks by being exclusively on Linux. Still, it's my favorite modern desktop UI.
- kenjackson 6y ago
  Windows 10 is much better than Win 7. IMO one reason, desktop search that works. Some may consider the reliance on search a UI failure, but I think it has become the dominant organizational principle. The other being pinned apps to the task bar.
  - flohofwoe 6y ago
    > desktop search that works ...interesting... my experience with Win10 search is the complete opposite, it's so broken that I'm really not sure why there is a search feature in Windows10 in the first place. The only way to "fix it" is to install an alternative start menu (like OpenShell) which has a search box which actually works (somewhat, but better than the default search).
    - _trampeltier 6y ago
      Yes for example the new Snipping Tool. It is so slow when you click the save button. I just expect instant the save dialog, but there is a small time delay. It just does not feel good. And yes, all Syytem Menus are a mess and what you want is allways somewhere hidden. No wonder you need a good search on your desktop, because without you wouldn't find anything.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    The Win10 search randomly throws me into a web browser and giving away my search query to the search engine.
  - loxs 6y ago
    These are features, not "design". I agree that they are nice. On the other hand Win 10 "mobile friendly" design is much worse than Win 7.
PeterStuer 6y ago
Windows 7 was their last true desktop UI. What came after was the mobile tax, driven by their lust for appstore margins. We had to gradually claw it back since the Windows 8 disaster, but I'm confident they will never give up.
- pieter_mj 6y ago
  I think you've hit the nail on the head. And there's still a lot of work to be done on the desktop gui. For example, adapting to multimonitor scaling differences. And the year of the linux desktop will only arrive if we can achieve hw 2d+3d acceleration on an open hardware graphics platform.
- tartoran 6y ago
  I agree, windows 7 was doen well and it was a successful os. Following that is the distaster of Win 8 and the irrevocable disaster windows 10 is. There really is no hope to get a better version every other 2 iterations of windows
vezycash 6y ago
The touch screen UI experience design isn't well thought out. I never use tablet mode even though I have a few windows detachable devices. All they need to fix it is to realize that windows isn't a mobile is. And that windows users keep their important stuff in the desktop. In tablet mode, desktop is hidden and you'd would have to jump through hoops to access it. It seems windows cannot distinguish between a touch screen tap and a mouse. Because long pressing on desktop randomly shows a touch optimized context menu or the normal one designed for mouse.
dustinmoris 6y ago
Ironically today I tried to pair a Bluetooth device on my wife's Surface Pro 4 and I told her to hit the Windows key and start typing Bluetooth and then select the result for managing bluetooth devices. She opened it up and we were unable to add the Bluetooth device no matter what we did. It was the most frustrating experience I had in months (I am a macOS and Linux user). Later I discovered that there is an entire different Bluetooth managing app on Windows. One had the old school look, the other had some modern oversized bullshit look. Turns out one of those two worked, the other didn't. Windows search returned the non working one first. In the taskbar was a Bluetooth icon to the other one. WTAF? Honestly, fuck Windows for being such an utter pile of shit. They don't need a UI re-design. They need a fucking working operating system.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Welcome to the new non-complete blue Control panel for Windows. There was a time where opening the control panel gave you a view of all subsystems. I hardly remember it anymore. A faint memory.
  - rebuilder 6y ago
    The Control Panel in "small icons" or "large icons" viewing mode defaults to organizing the contents into columns. That's OK, that's pretty easy to read through. The contents are also in alphabetical order. That's good, too, it's something the user is likely to expect. Within the columns, the contents are not organized alphabetically! Instead the alphabetical ordering completely ignores the very clear column structure. Who does this?!
  - twobitshifter 6y ago
    If you’re interested, look up “God Mode” it’s a shortcut that can be created which gives you access to a complete control panel which covers everything.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      Thats a hack done not by Microsoft but probably a frustrated user who needed all subststems under a god damn umbrella. I hate Microsoft Windows with a passion but I have to stick to it because of work reasons
jayd16 6y ago
>touchscreens no one uses. (read: touchscreens I don't use) Surfaces, touchscreen laptops, and convertibles are all pretty popular.
- mkl 6y ago
  And touchscreen all-in-one desktops. Touchscreen external monitors are not as popular, which is unfortunate since I use them and want higher resolution ones. Every screen I have is a touch screen. Laptops, all-in-ones, external screens, on Windows and Linux.
- beauzero 6y ago
  Yeah I saw that comment too. We had to search for two weeks to find an affordable non Surface touchscreen because it was my 16 years olds preference for school work.
- grishka 6y ago
  I get it, laptops with touchscreens exist, but do people actually use them, or do they buy them because it's hard to find a laptop that doesn't have a touchscreen?
Nition 6y ago
Maybe we'll finally get one Settings area again so we don't have stuff like: Search 'mouse' > Click 'Mouse settings' > Don't find any option to change pointer speed > Click the tiny 'Additional mouse options' text > Click 'Pointer Options' > Change the mouse pointer speed.
mzarate06 6y ago
> UI redesigns of desktop operating systems are usually opposite of exciting these days. ... Here's an opinion: desktop UIs are mature. They serve their purpose outstandingly well. I couldn't agree more. Your points are exactly why I've remained a happy Linux Mint user for nearly a decade. I don't dread OS or desktop environment updates, precisely because I know my chosen desktop environment will mostly remain the same (if not exactly the same).
tomrod 6y ago
I'm not sure the version where Excel went from desktop app to rendered monster, but if we could roll that back I'd be most grateful. The number of UX issues that generated surely was predictable.
_zamorano_ 6y ago
I dread the day they change Windows Explorer for the one with a new "modern" UI
ksec 6y ago
The Desktop UI paradigm has definitely matured, and requires only some fine tuning here and there. Mostly with graphics and not design. What Microsoft really need is a Window strategy. Where is it heading. Its source of revenue in the future. Its longtime programming framework, library, API Strategy etc.... I believe they have WinUI 3.0 now? What happened to WPF, UWP and WinForms? And they are moving all of the Outlook Apps to Electron for cross platform development. [1] And just look at .Net. Have they finally settled on .Net Core now? May be because I am on Mac so I am confused. It is not Apple are perfect, but looking from the outside either Microsoft doesn't have a clue or they just dont care. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-replace-its-many-mail-variants-with-one-outlook/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-replace-its-many-...

lemonspat 6y ago

I have often wondered when a UI will be 'settled' and won't need to be updated anymore. But then what will the UI designers do? Idle fingers make new designs?

silon42 6y ago
IBM CUA 87/92 is at least 90% done if not more.
Arainach 6y ago
Never, because if you change the insides no one notices: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39193 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39...

jjoonathan 6y ago

Desktop UIs are hardly mature, but for the last 15 years UI innovation has been about putting lipstick on a pig rather than deep-diving subsystems and figuring out how to graphically represent and control them. Designers aren't doing subsystem deep-dives, they're just implementing subsets of existing wholly inadequate GUIs using new widgets. Conversely, systems people who understand the un-GUIed subsystems aren't doing design work to better expose them, or expose them at all. It's an unproductive and frustrating stalemate.

grishka 6y ago
Desktop UIs are mature, and were such by the end of '00s, in the sense that they've made the best use of the keyboard and mouse. Sure, it's okay to add subtle new things, like window snapping on Windows (the thing where you drag it to the edge of the screen) or inertial scrolling on macOS. It's absolutely not okay to take a perfectly functional and polished UI and "refresh" it with disproportional controls and huge fonts because people now carry phones in their pockets. The only good reason for a complete UI redesign is change in the way it's interacted with, for example because some novel kind of input device came about. But then again, the mere existence of touchscreens shouldn't be detrimental to the UX of those who use keyboard and mouse.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  You're talking about cross-cutting UI concerns (themes, widgets, window system), which I agree are largely mature, while I'm talking about vertical combinations of specific UIs and subsystems, which aren't mature by a long shot. Example: "delete file" on Windows. Windows has relatively aggressive file locking, but if you try to delete a file that's open, it just errors out, it doesn't tell you what's using the file and give you the option to (force) quit it. See also: networking, disk management, permissions, sound, preferences, ipc, etc. There are a hundred of these "just needs a bit of work" UI verticals, but designers keep trying to solve these problems with themes and functionality subsets, which are doomed to fail because the underlying issue is a lack of expressiveness in the existing UI, not an excess of it. Meanwhile, systems people live with "just use CLI / sysinternals / wireshark / nmap" like it isn't an issue that bog-standard tasks still require arcane tools in 2020 (arcane by the standards of typical users).
  - grishka 6y ago
    Yeah, in my Windows days, I remember having a lot of small utilities that filled the gaps of the OS. There was one for deleting files too, I don't remember the name, probably unlocker something — it showed you all currently open descriptors for a file and allowed you to close them. As opposed to macOS, which straight up tells you "this file is being used by X.app, close it to try again" when you try to delete an open file. But this is how it works, which is UX. UI is more about how it looks and how it's interacted with.
ardy42 6y ago
> Desktop UIs are hardly mature, but for the last 15 years UI innovation has been about putting lipstick on a pig rather than deep-diving subsystems and figuring out how to graphically represent and control them. I disagree. To various degrees, the last "15 years of [desktop] UI innovation" have been trying to push trendy touch UI concepts into places where they don't belong.

jbob2000 6y ago

I don’t think Microsoft will make the same mistake again by pursuing a touch UI on the desktop. Windows 8 and the Metro UI was a huge waste of time and effort that really harmed Microsoft. What I think they are pursuing is how to monetize Windows. They tried it in Windows 10 with some start menu shenanigans, but people hated it and you can find tons of articles about how to hack Windows to get rid of that shit. So this role’s job will be to find a design that supports monetization without pissing off users.

leetcrew 6y ago
have they considered, you know, charging money for the OS? I would be happy to pay a reasonable yearly subscription fee for a telemetry-free windows install.

loxs 6y ago

On the contrary. I think desktop UI design needs lots of improvements. To me the peak was around Windows 7 but that's not "perfect" - it needs more improvements in the same direction. Probably KDE is a small improvement over Windows 7, but of course has some drawbacks by being exclusively on Linux. Still, it's my favorite modern desktop UI.

kenjackson 6y ago
Windows 10 is much better than Win 7. IMO one reason, desktop search that works. Some may consider the reliance on search a UI failure, but I think it has become the dominant organizational principle. The other being pinned apps to the task bar.
- flohofwoe 6y ago
  > desktop search that works ...interesting... my experience with Win10 search is the complete opposite, it's so broken that I'm really not sure why there is a search feature in Windows10 in the first place. The only way to "fix it" is to install an alternative start menu (like OpenShell) which has a search box which actually works (somewhat, but better than the default search).
  - _trampeltier 6y ago
    Yes for example the new Snipping Tool. It is so slow when you click the save button. I just expect instant the save dialog, but there is a small time delay. It just does not feel good. And yes, all Syytem Menus are a mess and what you want is allways somewhere hidden. No wonder you need a good search on your desktop, because without you wouldn't find anything.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  The Win10 search randomly throws me into a web browser and giving away my search query to the search engine.
- loxs 6y ago
  These are features, not "design". I agree that they are nice. On the other hand Win 10 "mobile friendly" design is much worse than Win 7.

PeterStuer 6y ago

Windows 7 was their last true desktop UI. What came after was the mobile tax, driven by their lust for appstore margins. We had to gradually claw it back since the Windows 8 disaster, but I'm confident they will never give up.

pieter_mj 6y ago
I think you've hit the nail on the head. And there's still a lot of work to be done on the desktop gui. For example, adapting to multimonitor scaling differences. And the year of the linux desktop will only arrive if we can achieve hw 2d+3d acceleration on an open hardware graphics platform.
tartoran 6y ago
I agree, windows 7 was doen well and it was a successful os. Following that is the distaster of Win 8 and the irrevocable disaster windows 10 is. There really is no hope to get a better version every other 2 iterations of windows

vezycash 6y ago

The touch screen UI experience design isn't well thought out. I never use tablet mode even though I have a few windows detachable devices. All they need to fix it is to realize that windows isn't a mobile is. And that windows users keep their important stuff in the desktop. In tablet mode, desktop is hidden and you'd would have to jump through hoops to access it. It seems windows cannot distinguish between a touch screen tap and a mouse. Because long pressing on desktop randomly shows a touch optimized context menu or the normal one designed for mouse.

dustinmoris 6y ago

Ironically today I tried to pair a Bluetooth device on my wife's Surface Pro 4 and I told her to hit the Windows key and start typing Bluetooth and then select the result for managing bluetooth devices. She opened it up and we were unable to add the Bluetooth device no matter what we did. It was the most frustrating experience I had in months (I am a macOS and Linux user). Later I discovered that there is an entire different Bluetooth managing app on Windows. One had the old school look, the other had some modern oversized bullshit look. Turns out one of those two worked, the other didn't. Windows search returned the non working one first. In the taskbar was a Bluetooth icon to the other one. WTAF? Honestly, fuck Windows for being such an utter pile of shit. They don't need a UI re-design. They need a fucking working operating system.

rightbyte 6y ago
Welcome to the new non-complete blue Control panel for Windows. There was a time where opening the control panel gave you a view of all subsystems. I hardly remember it anymore. A faint memory.
- rebuilder 6y ago
  The Control Panel in "small icons" or "large icons" viewing mode defaults to organizing the contents into columns. That's OK, that's pretty easy to read through. The contents are also in alphabetical order. That's good, too, it's something the user is likely to expect. Within the columns, the contents are not organized alphabetically! Instead the alphabetical ordering completely ignores the very clear column structure. Who does this?!
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  If you’re interested, look up “God Mode” it’s a shortcut that can be created which gives you access to a complete control panel which covers everything.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Thats a hack done not by Microsoft but probably a frustrated user who needed all subststems under a god damn umbrella. I hate Microsoft Windows with a passion but I have to stick to it because of work reasons

jayd16 6y ago

>touchscreens no one uses. (read: touchscreens I don't use) Surfaces, touchscreen laptops, and convertibles are all pretty popular.

mkl 6y ago
And touchscreen all-in-one desktops. Touchscreen external monitors are not as popular, which is unfortunate since I use them and want higher resolution ones. Every screen I have is a touch screen. Laptops, all-in-ones, external screens, on Windows and Linux.
beauzero 6y ago
Yeah I saw that comment too. We had to search for two weeks to find an affordable non Surface touchscreen because it was my 16 years olds preference for school work.
grishka 6y ago
I get it, laptops with touchscreens exist, but do people actually use them, or do they buy them because it's hard to find a laptop that doesn't have a touchscreen?

Nition 6y ago

Maybe we'll finally get one Settings area again so we don't have stuff like: Search 'mouse' > Click 'Mouse settings' > Don't find any option to change pointer speed > Click the tiny 'Additional mouse options' text > Click 'Pointer Options' > Change the mouse pointer speed.

mzarate06 6y ago

> UI redesigns of desktop operating systems are usually opposite of exciting these days. ... Here's an opinion: desktop UIs are mature. They serve their purpose outstandingly well. I couldn't agree more. Your points are exactly why I've remained a happy Linux Mint user for nearly a decade. I don't dread OS or desktop environment updates, precisely because I know my chosen desktop environment will mostly remain the same (if not exactly the same).

tomrod 6y ago

I'm not sure the version where Excel went from desktop app to rendered monster, but if we could roll that back I'd be most grateful. The number of UX issues that generated surely was predictable.

_zamorano_ 6y ago

I dread the day they change Windows Explorer for the one with a new "modern" UI

ksec 6y ago

The Desktop UI paradigm has definitely matured, and requires only some fine tuning here and there. Mostly with graphics and not design. What Microsoft really need is a Window strategy. Where is it heading. Its source of revenue in the future. Its longtime programming framework, library, API Strategy etc.... I believe they have WinUI 3.0 now? What happened to WPF, UWP and WinForms? And they are moving all of the Outlook Apps to Electron for cross platform development. [1] And just look at .Net. Have they finally settled on .Net Core now? May be because I am on Mac so I am confused. It is not Apple are perfect, but looking from the outside either Microsoft doesn't have a clue or they just dont care. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-replace-its-many-mail-variants-with-one-outlook/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-replace-its-many-...