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What made Windows 95's UI have so much staying power? The right combination of people in the right room? Superstar stallions? Like Silent Hill 2, a group of pe

What made Windows 95's UI have so much staying power? The right combination of people in the right room? Superstar stallions? Like Silent Hill 2, a group of people that were greater together than as individuals and can never be replicated? Where are they now? What are they building?

tl 6y ago
That decade had the right incentives for a good UI design to come together (Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc...). Windows 95 had, by far the largest marketing push (pointed out elsewhere, but Chicago had gen 1 iPhone hype levels) and install base (didn't need "Microsoft" hardware).
hyakosm 6y ago
David Plummer created the task manager and the pinball game (Space cadet). Search about him, he has explained and revealed a lot of interesting facts last year.
- ddingus 6y ago
  That pinball game was excellent! Huge depth! Lots of replay value. I kind of want to give it a go now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ianetaylor 6y ago
I wrote the '95 Start Menu among other bits and pieces. Mostly the team was just a bunch of regular devs but with a few crazy-smart types making the rest of us look good. RaymondC to name but one. Several of that original team are still at Microsoft, I currently work on HoloLens
- sergiotapia 6y ago
  Your work was so influential! If you are working on hololens I have high hopes for that next step in computing interfaces.
wvenable 6y ago
They did heavy user research when building the Win95 UI. They experimented and then had real users come in and try to do stuff. When the users couldn't figure something out they went back and fixed it. Originally what was the start menu was just a single icon button just like it is now. But people looking a fresh Windows desktop didn't know what to do. So that's why they put the word "start" on it and it became the start menu. Users looking at the desktop would then immediately click there and find all the applications. Just imagine that same process for everything. These days I don't think nearly as much effort goes into it -- and maybe for good reason -- end users might just re-invent the Windows 95 UI!

tl 6y ago

That decade had the right incentives for a good UI design to come together (Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc...). Windows 95 had, by far the largest marketing push (pointed out elsewhere, but Chicago had gen 1 iPhone hype levels) and install base (didn't need "Microsoft" hardware).

hyakosm 6y ago

David Plummer created the task manager and the pinball game (Space cadet). Search about him, he has explained and revealed a lot of interesting facts last year.

ddingus 6y ago
That pinball game was excellent! Huge depth! Lots of replay value. I kind of want to give it a go now.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ianetaylor 6y ago

I wrote the '95 Start Menu among other bits and pieces. Mostly the team was just a bunch of regular devs but with a few crazy-smart types making the rest of us look good. RaymondC to name but one. Several of that original team are still at Microsoft, I currently work on HoloLens

sergiotapia 6y ago
Your work was so influential! If you are working on hololens I have high hopes for that next step in computing interfaces.

wvenable 6y ago

They did heavy user research when building the Win95 UI. They experimented and then had real users come in and try to do stuff. When the users couldn't figure something out they went back and fixed it. Originally what was the start menu was just a single icon button just like it is now. But people looking a fresh Windows desktop didn't know what to do. So that's why they put the word "start" on it and it became the start menu. Users looking at the desktop would then immediately click there and find all the applications. Just imagine that same process for everything. These days I don't think nearly as much effort goes into it -- and maybe for good reason -- end users might just re-invent the Windows 95 UI!