3 ms·

>I'd love to see some innovation with the old school design ethos too; maybe there are even better ways of displaying controls? Or maybe a new way to think abou

by akling 5y ago

>I'd love to see some innovation with the old school design ethos too; maybe there are even better ways of displaying controls? Or maybe a new way to think about controls that weren't around back then. Oh yeah, this is something we've been exploring (carefully) with SerenityOS! There's obviously been a lot of good UI/UX innovations since the late 90s, and it's super interesting to look for ways to integrate them with the classic aesthetics. As an example, we use breadcrumb bars in our file manager, to display the current directory as a part of separately interactive segments. And we also have "Assistant" which works similarly to macOS Spotlight, for fast access to a range of data providers. I'm sure there are many similar concepts we have yet to discover :)

mysterydip 5y ago
I'm sure you've seen this or similar paper before, but a good refresher from the windows 95 team: https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...
- akling 5y ago
  Yes! That’s such a great post. For people interested in this, I strongly recommend getting a hold of the old Windows 2000 era user interface guidelines book from Microsoft.
  - edeion 5y ago
    What book are you talking about? Is it "Microsoft Windows User Experience" published by Microsoft Professional Editions? Aside: Thank you for your video! It looks great and that's yet another OS I'd like to try and play with -- along with Plan 9, which Serenity made me think of a bit, and TempleOS because of the soul-saving effect of devoting to a hard piece of beautiful software craftmanship.
    - akling 5y ago
      Yes indeed! “Microsoft Windows User Experience”. I got a used copy off of Amazon last year for $2
codetrotter 5y ago
Did you look into Neumorphism? It’s a recent thing, but in a way it is a callback to making it more obvious what is interactible and not. For a while, quite recently, it seemed to be catching on. But then it didn’t really catch on like. But I think SerenityOS with a Neumorphism style would be a really interesting experiment. https://uxdesign.cc/neumorphism-in-user-interfaces-b47cef3bf3a6 https://uxdesign.cc/neumorphism-in-user-interfaces-b47cef3bf...
- brandonmenc 5y ago
  The Windows 95/98/2000 interfaces are imo kind of just the low-res version of Neumorphism. Which I like.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Neumorphism is interesting, but as far away from Windows 95 style as can be. It's tactile, yes, but low density, low contrast, borders are non existent, colours are used to create intense gradient background palettes, instead of using them to increase readability and usability. Neumorphism has all the drawbacks of modern flat design, with none of the benefits of old UI design studies. But it looks cool.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I do not like that at all. It looks like the stuff I designed when I just started university.
flenserboy 5y ago
Do check out the Spotlight version in Tiger — the first iteration has been the best iteration of it, by far. You might be able to pick up a few things!
DragonL80 5y ago
@akling, I want to take a moment to comment just how amazing recovery can be. As someone who's suffered some similar substance issues. Thank you for being a great example of just how amazing of a place the mind can be when its trained onto something that gives us meaning and direction. I am in sheer awe of what you've created. Its incredibly powerful but yet so simple its staggering. I am so following the progress of SerenityOS (i get the name too, btw) and look forward to seeing great things come of it and from you.
- paraiuspau 5y ago
  Just to second what this good person here has said. Having suffered with substance abuse myself, it truly is inspiring to follow your accomplishments Andreas! I love that your hostname is 'courage', and like my fellow poster here, Serenity makes a lot of sense. Much strength to others having walked/still walking on a dark path.
zozbot234 5y ago
> As an example, we use breadcrumb bars in our file manager, to display the current directory as a part of separately interactive segments. With current 90s themes for GTK+, "breadcrumb" segments appear just fine as buttons. It works quite well in practice.

by akling 5y ago

mysterydip 5y ago

I'm sure you've seen this or similar paper before, but a good refresher from the windows 95 team: https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...

akling 5y ago
Yes! That’s such a great post. For people interested in this, I strongly recommend getting a hold of the old Windows 2000 era user interface guidelines book from Microsoft.
- edeion 5y ago
  What book are you talking about? Is it "Microsoft Windows User Experience" published by Microsoft Professional Editions? Aside: Thank you for your video! It looks great and that's yet another OS I'd like to try and play with -- along with Plan 9, which Serenity made me think of a bit, and TempleOS because of the soul-saving effect of devoting to a hard piece of beautiful software craftmanship.
  - akling 5y ago
    Yes indeed! “Microsoft Windows User Experience”. I got a used copy off of Amazon last year for $2

codetrotter 5y ago

Did you look into Neumorphism? It’s a recent thing, but in a way it is a callback to making it more obvious what is interactible and not. For a while, quite recently, it seemed to be catching on. But then it didn’t really catch on like. But I think SerenityOS with a Neumorphism style would be a really interesting experiment. https://uxdesign.cc/neumorphism-in-user-interfaces-b47cef3bf3a6 https://uxdesign.cc/neumorphism-in-user-interfaces-b47cef3bf...

brandonmenc 5y ago
The Windows 95/98/2000 interfaces are imo kind of just the low-res version of Neumorphism. Which I like.
1_player 5y ago
Neumorphism is interesting, but as far away from Windows 95 style as can be. It's tactile, yes, but low density, low contrast, borders are non existent, colours are used to create intense gradient background palettes, instead of using them to increase readability and usability. Neumorphism has all the drawbacks of modern flat design, with none of the benefits of old UI design studies. But it looks cool.
Aeolun 5y ago
I do not like that at all. It looks like the stuff I designed when I just started university.

flenserboy 5y ago

Do check out the Spotlight version in Tiger — the first iteration has been the best iteration of it, by far. You might be able to pick up a few things!

DragonL80 5y ago

@akling, I want to take a moment to comment just how amazing recovery can be. As someone who's suffered some similar substance issues. Thank you for being a great example of just how amazing of a place the mind can be when its trained onto something that gives us meaning and direction. I am in sheer awe of what you've created. Its incredibly powerful but yet so simple its staggering. I am so following the progress of SerenityOS (i get the name too, btw) and look forward to seeing great things come of it and from you.

paraiuspau 5y ago
Just to second what this good person here has said. Having suffered with substance abuse myself, it truly is inspiring to follow your accomplishments Andreas! I love that your hostname is 'courage', and like my fellow poster here, Serenity makes a lot of sense. Much strength to others having walked/still walking on a dark path.

zozbot234 5y ago

> As an example, we use breadcrumb bars in our file manager, to display the current directory as a part of separately interactive segments. With current 90s themes for GTK+, "breadcrumb" segments appear just fine as buttons. It works quite well in practice.