5 ms·

As long as you realize that this isn't how the majority of people work, I see nothing wrong with this. The vast majority of users, though, are easily overwhelme

As long as you realize that this isn't how the majority of people work, I see nothing wrong with this. The vast majority of users, though, are easily overwhelmed by excessive options, especially those that are infrequently used. It's been proven in study after study that progressive disclosure is the most discoverable paradigm. I'm not saying that Apple is getting this right (they have screwed it up several times) but seeing every option you have is rarely useful for the average user. Case in point - the Office Ribbon interface. It's terrible and somehow uses both progressive disclosure (new tabs show up in context) while also showing you ever possible option in the most non-intuitive groupings.

breakfastduck 6y ago
2000 era windows forms are literally the worst UI ever. A design language where it's developers seem compelled to put a million fields and buttons on one page.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  Perhaps you've forgotten what computers are for. A computer is a tool that a user employs to accomplish one or more tasks. Computers are not a design statement. Computers are tools.
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    Yes, and making a tool that's so counter intuitive that most users find it a confusing mess is a bad idea. In every place I've worked, a major project has been replacing a grey forms application with every screen so stuffed with information even users who sit and use the software every day are confused by it. It is always win 2000 forms.
    - naikrovek 6y ago
      Don't blame the hammers when you find your valuables shattered. Blame the people wielding the hammers. WinForms can only do what they're told, and they can only look how they're designed to look. Blame the people creating the user interfaces that suck instead of the tool they chose to use to build the bad UI. It isn't the UI's fault. The absolute best and most useful user interfaces that I have ever used were windows forms. They were designed my people who understood how their program was to be used by its users, and who understood what information a user needs at any point in the workflow.
      - breakfastduck 6y ago
        Yeah I get that. I have the same opinion as I do for mongodb. Great tech that makes it incredibly easy for shit developers to create monsters.
        dkonofalski 6y ago
        I'll add Wordpress to the list too.
    - indymike 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure that it doesn't matter how nice your form library is, businesses and government will find a way to make it ugly and overstuffed with fields and buttons. The funny part is the team that did the winforms project was replacing horrible some horrible text-mode database form that users said all the same things about.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      It's always Windows forms because that's how people made line of business apps in that era.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      > In every place I've worked, a major project has been replacing a grey forms application with every screen so stuffed with information even users who sit and use the software every day are confused by it. That's just one big exercise in burning money. The end result of these major projects is software that is significantly less efficient to use. Information density is good. Seamlessly filtering out irrelevant things and focusing on important ones, and switching these filters on the fly, is the one thing human visual system is good at. Information density plays to our natural strengths. Meanwhile, our working memory is limited, so splitting things into multiple screens plays into our weaknesses. When you replace an information- and functionality-rich screen with a bunch of sparse screens connected by buttons, doing everything takes longer - there's extra operations, a switch delay in the UI, and working memory delays. This scales with use - so when talking about software used every day by salaried employees, that's literally setting company dollars on fire. People do their jobs slower, doing less work, getting increasingly frustrated, wasting time they could spend on something else[0]. It's hard to see such major projects as anything else than sabotage. Yes, information-dense software has steeper learning curve. But that's a solved problem - people using such software at work are usually trained in using it. They get leveled-up to proficient very fast. Information-sparse software doesn't even offer the option of becoming a proficient user, because there's nothing to skill up in (except patience for loading screens). -- [0] - or watching cat videos, or doing personal stuff, or chilling out - ways of keeping sane and improving morale, which raises overall productivity too.
pfortuny 6y ago
The basic window controls are universal and have not changed their functionality in ages.
- gsich 6y ago
  Gnome3 removed them.
naikrovek 6y ago
I would say that the vast majority of users can adapt to anything you throw at them. Users are not delicate flowers which need to be coddled and babied. Remember that the majority of the computer usage growth of the past 50 years was on home computers that booted to a command prompt when powered on. Certainly the earliest days, when adoption was most vulnerable and the most difficult. Saying that users can't learn something complex or intricate is just not true, and if you look for it, you'll see that users almost always take pride in their ability to wield a complex piece of software. I'm not saying that good design is wasted effort, mind you. I'm not saying that good UX is bad for anyone. I'm saying that a user will often (always?) opt for an option that they believe will make their lives easier, because people almost always underestimate what they are capable of. Simplifying a UI so much that you decide to hide scrollbars is simplifying to the point that you think your users are boneheaded idiots who cannot learn and who are confused by slight movement or strange noises. It's insulting and denigrating, even if this is the outcome that UX/UI testing reveals.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Current UI/UX dogma comes from endless studies, done at the dawn of wide scale adoption. Yes, many users between the late 90s, and early 2000s, were a mass of people which had never, ever used computers. They bought them for the Internet, and as their workplace adopted them, to work at home. Many of these users grew up without televisions, calculators, you name it. Yet all new users today are essentially using a tablet or phone at age 5. Users are not as easily confused as they were in the 90s. I mean really, Amazon's website has more complexity than most desktop apps.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > Current UI/UX dogma comes from endless studies, done at the dawn of wide scale adoption. That's the late 90s / early 2000s UI/UX dogma. Research-backed and sane. Current UI/UX dogma is based on taking designer opinions and throwing them into A/B testing blender, optimizing for conversions. What comes out isn't something that delivers value to the user - it's something that streamlines their journey through the sales funnel.
  - 6y ago

breakfastduck 6y ago

2000 era windows forms are literally the worst UI ever. A design language where it's developers seem compelled to put a million fields and buttons on one page.

naikrovek 6y ago
Perhaps you've forgotten what computers are for. A computer is a tool that a user employs to accomplish one or more tasks. Computers are not a design statement. Computers are tools.
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  Yes, and making a tool that's so counter intuitive that most users find it a confusing mess is a bad idea. In every place I've worked, a major project has been replacing a grey forms application with every screen so stuffed with information even users who sit and use the software every day are confused by it. It is always win 2000 forms.
  - naikrovek 6y ago
    Don't blame the hammers when you find your valuables shattered. Blame the people wielding the hammers. WinForms can only do what they're told, and they can only look how they're designed to look. Blame the people creating the user interfaces that suck instead of the tool they chose to use to build the bad UI. It isn't the UI's fault. The absolute best and most useful user interfaces that I have ever used were windows forms. They were designed my people who understood how their program was to be used by its users, and who understood what information a user needs at any point in the workflow.
    - breakfastduck 6y ago
      Yeah I get that. I have the same opinion as I do for mongodb. Great tech that makes it incredibly easy for shit developers to create monsters.
      - dkonofalski 6y ago
        I'll add Wordpress to the list too.
  - indymike 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure that it doesn't matter how nice your form library is, businesses and government will find a way to make it ugly and overstuffed with fields and buttons. The funny part is the team that did the winforms project was replacing horrible some horrible text-mode database form that users said all the same things about.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    It's always Windows forms because that's how people made line of business apps in that era.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > In every place I've worked, a major project has been replacing a grey forms application with every screen so stuffed with information even users who sit and use the software every day are confused by it. That's just one big exercise in burning money. The end result of these major projects is software that is significantly less efficient to use. Information density is good. Seamlessly filtering out irrelevant things and focusing on important ones, and switching these filters on the fly, is the one thing human visual system is good at. Information density plays to our natural strengths. Meanwhile, our working memory is limited, so splitting things into multiple screens plays into our weaknesses. When you replace an information- and functionality-rich screen with a bunch of sparse screens connected by buttons, doing everything takes longer - there's extra operations, a switch delay in the UI, and working memory delays. This scales with use - so when talking about software used every day by salaried employees, that's literally setting company dollars on fire. People do their jobs slower, doing less work, getting increasingly frustrated, wasting time they could spend on something else[0]. It's hard to see such major projects as anything else than sabotage. Yes, information-dense software has steeper learning curve. But that's a solved problem - people using such software at work are usually trained in using it. They get leveled-up to proficient very fast. Information-sparse software doesn't even offer the option of becoming a proficient user, because there's nothing to skill up in (except patience for loading screens). -- [0] - or watching cat videos, or doing personal stuff, or chilling out - ways of keeping sane and improving morale, which raises overall productivity too.

pfortuny 6y ago

The basic window controls are universal and have not changed their functionality in ages.

gsich 6y ago
Gnome3 removed them.

naikrovek 6y ago

I would say that the vast majority of users can adapt to anything you throw at them. Users are not delicate flowers which need to be coddled and babied. Remember that the majority of the computer usage growth of the past 50 years was on home computers that booted to a command prompt when powered on. Certainly the earliest days, when adoption was most vulnerable and the most difficult. Saying that users can't learn something complex or intricate is just not true, and if you look for it, you'll see that users almost always take pride in their ability to wield a complex piece of software. I'm not saying that good design is wasted effort, mind you. I'm not saying that good UX is bad for anyone. I'm saying that a user will often (always?) opt for an option that they believe will make their lives easier, because people almost always underestimate what they are capable of. Simplifying a UI so much that you decide to hide scrollbars is simplifying to the point that you think your users are boneheaded idiots who cannot learn and who are confused by slight movement or strange noises. It's insulting and denigrating, even if this is the outcome that UX/UI testing reveals.

bbarnett 6y ago
Current UI/UX dogma comes from endless studies, done at the dawn of wide scale adoption. Yes, many users between the late 90s, and early 2000s, were a mass of people which had never, ever used computers. They bought them for the Internet, and as their workplace adopted them, to work at home. Many of these users grew up without televisions, calculators, you name it. Yet all new users today are essentially using a tablet or phone at age 5. Users are not as easily confused as they were in the 90s. I mean really, Amazon's website has more complexity than most desktop apps.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > Current UI/UX dogma comes from endless studies, done at the dawn of wide scale adoption. That's the late 90s / early 2000s UI/UX dogma. Research-backed and sane. Current UI/UX dogma is based on taking designer opinions and throwing them into A/B testing blender, optimizing for conversions. What comes out isn't something that delivers value to the user - it's something that streamlines their journey through the sales funnel.
- 6y ago