10 ms·

Funny how the more the screenshots go back in history, the more 'useful' the UI looks like (even though they no longer adhere to the current fashion fad - which

Funny how the more the screenshots go back in history, the more 'useful' the UI looks like (even though they no longer adhere to the current fashion fad - which should actually be handled through a user-accessible themeing engine, no need to pay some UI designers big bucks to come up with rounded corners). For instance right in the first Task Manager screenshot, I have no clue what those tab icons on the left side actually mean - with one exception: "users". There are two icons that both look like hamburger menues FFS.

majewsky 4y ago
The newer UIs also seem to be lacking a clear visual hierarchy. The Task Manager screenshot feels quite cluttered to me, not because of the amount of information presented (which is actually well-balanced IMO), but because different parts of the view are not properly separated from each other visually. The biggest offender is probably the scrollbar between the stack of summary graphs on the left and the stack of CPU graphs on the right. This scrollbar would work way better in the "old" style, with a frame that extends over the entire height of the scrollable viewport, since that frame would provide a clearer boundary between left and right.
akersten 4y ago
It's not just looks, there are real features missing from the new control panel activities too, and I don't look forward to the day the old ones are removed. For example, to disable a network adapter, you have to go into the Vista/7 version of Network settings so you can right click it and get the context menu. It's a mess!
- csours 4y ago
  ncpa.cpl forever baby
  - procarch2019 4y ago
    I work as a “contractor” and when I sit down to work with some sysadmin they watch me and ask out I bring up the old style config windows. One of them had started a sheet while watching me with all the run commands and helper phrases (North Carolina PennsylvAnia). Run commands are great for me, but it sucks when I have to walk someone through something over the phone. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t walk people through the gui methods anymore and it’s actually easier to explain how to open a run prompt and type xyz
    - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
      I have been doing this my entire career. IMO its always been much easier to tell someone to hold the Win key and press R and enter a short command than it is to guide them through the UI to whatever setting needs interacting with, especially over the phone.
      - wazoox 4y ago
        All Linux users have known that forever... Also you can email a command to copy and paste into a terminal, try emailing a procedure like "open app X, click button Y, type Z in field W..."
        procarch2019 4y ago
        Some of the people I work with don’t understand cmd/posh syntax. Additionally they are often working with air gapped systems, so copy paste is not really an option. Those 2 things make it really difficult to have someone do something by cli only, especially if it’s relatively complex command (pipes, regex, vars)
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - whoopdedo 4y ago
        If you ever end up talking to Microsoft tier 2 support they'll do almost everything through PowerShell. Which I think hints at the problem. Internally, Microsoft must not be dogfooding (or is it dogfeeding?) their GUI. It's an over-correction from the time when Windows was criticized for being too reliant on visual tools for administration and devs asked for better automation. Well, now scripting is the preferred way to interact with the OS and the GUI plays second fiddle.
        procarch2019 4y ago
        There’s actually new functionality that has been specifically designed with no GUI on purpose. Do a google of split brain DNS. The only way to set it up is by creating additional DNS zones and creating DNS query filters. Can only be done in posh. There are other examples of that too, but I’ve had to implement split brain before so I know that one for a fact.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    Whoever decided to move away from that had a lapse of reason that day, and every day he didn't back out of it later.
  - nunez 4y ago
    I'm a inetcpl.cpl man myself
    - csours 4y ago
      Ah, a man of distinction and class
gizmo385 4y ago
> o need to pay some UI designers big bucks to come up with rounded corners). It’s really unfortunate how dismissive of the entire ui design profession so much of HN is. Not a great look IMO
- bitwize 4y ago
  I've met some great UI designers and they could take a libXaw application and have it present information cleanly and offer available actions and context transitions that make sense. But these people are not rewarded in today's industry. The criteria for good UI design these days is all about "lOoKs mOdErN". Plus the field seems increasingly tied to HTML/CSS/JS. Development teams as a whole are not incentivized to do UI design with an emphasis on making the user's work easier... they're incentivized by engagement KPIs and the like. So there's a trendline towards more sizzle and less steak.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Microsoft's UI designers used to be useful. The Windows UI design got better by leaps and bounds at first, was at its peak between Windows 95 and Windows 2000, and has been getting worse ever since. The problem is now that the field has matured, there's a lot less that needs to be changed, so they've started to change things that were fine the way they were to justify not being downsized.
  - djur 4y ago
    I've been working on a project recently that involves running Win95 in a VM and it's almost shocking how nice the UX feels compared to the Win11 host surrounding it. Consistent, clean, legible - nothing hidden, very little extraneous animation or visual flash. Even the battleship gray is nicer than I remember. Nostalgia goggles for sure, but...
  - rstat1 4y ago
    The one improvement modern Windows has over Windows from the 90s is the lack of those godawful cascading menus that would disappear off the screen the second you even slightly missed a hover target. I do not miss those at all.
IAmGraydon 4y ago
>Funny how the more the screenshots go back in history, the more 'useful' the UI looks like Maybe because you’ve spent time in those older OS interfaces and are therefore more familiar? Your post amounts to “new things have a learning curve”.

majewsky 4y ago

The newer UIs also seem to be lacking a clear visual hierarchy. The Task Manager screenshot feels quite cluttered to me, not because of the amount of information presented (which is actually well-balanced IMO), but because different parts of the view are not properly separated from each other visually. The biggest offender is probably the scrollbar between the stack of summary graphs on the left and the stack of CPU graphs on the right. This scrollbar would work way better in the "old" style, with a frame that extends over the entire height of the scrollable viewport, since that frame would provide a clearer boundary between left and right.

akersten 4y ago

It's not just looks, there are real features missing from the new control panel activities too, and I don't look forward to the day the old ones are removed. For example, to disable a network adapter, you have to go into the Vista/7 version of Network settings so you can right click it and get the context menu. It's a mess!

csours 4y ago
ncpa.cpl forever baby
- procarch2019 4y ago
  I work as a “contractor” and when I sit down to work with some sysadmin they watch me and ask out I bring up the old style config windows. One of them had started a sheet while watching me with all the run commands and helper phrases (North Carolina PennsylvAnia). Run commands are great for me, but it sucks when I have to walk someone through something over the phone. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t walk people through the gui methods anymore and it’s actually easier to explain how to open a run prompt and type xyz
  - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
    I have been doing this my entire career. IMO its always been much easier to tell someone to hold the Win key and press R and enter a short command than it is to guide them through the UI to whatever setting needs interacting with, especially over the phone.
    - wazoox 4y ago
      All Linux users have known that forever... Also you can email a command to copy and paste into a terminal, try emailing a procedure like "open app X, click button Y, type Z in field W..."
      - procarch2019 4y ago
        Some of the people I work with don’t understand cmd/posh syntax. Additionally they are often working with air gapped systems, so copy paste is not really an option. Those 2 things make it really difficult to have someone do something by cli only, especially if it’s relatively complex command (pipes, regex, vars)
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - whoopdedo 4y ago
      If you ever end up talking to Microsoft tier 2 support they'll do almost everything through PowerShell. Which I think hints at the problem. Internally, Microsoft must not be dogfooding (or is it dogfeeding?) their GUI. It's an over-correction from the time when Windows was criticized for being too reliant on visual tools for administration and devs asked for better automation. Well, now scripting is the preferred way to interact with the OS and the GUI plays second fiddle.
      - procarch2019 4y ago
        There’s actually new functionality that has been specifically designed with no GUI on purpose. Do a google of split brain DNS. The only way to set it up is by creating additional DNS zones and creating DNS query filters. Can only be done in posh. There are other examples of that too, but I’ve had to implement split brain before so I know that one for a fact.
- jojobas 4y ago
  Whoever decided to move away from that had a lapse of reason that day, and every day he didn't back out of it later.
- nunez 4y ago
  I'm a inetcpl.cpl man myself
  - csours 4y ago
    Ah, a man of distinction and class

gizmo385 4y ago

> o need to pay some UI designers big bucks to come up with rounded corners). It’s really unfortunate how dismissive of the entire ui design profession so much of HN is. Not a great look IMO

bitwize 4y ago
I've met some great UI designers and they could take a libXaw application and have it present information cleanly and offer available actions and context transitions that make sense. But these people are not rewarded in today's industry. The criteria for good UI design these days is all about "lOoKs mOdErN". Plus the field seems increasingly tied to HTML/CSS/JS. Development teams as a whole are not incentivized to do UI design with an emphasis on making the user's work easier... they're incentivized by engagement KPIs and the like. So there's a trendline towards more sizzle and less steak.
josephcsible 4y ago
Microsoft's UI designers used to be useful. The Windows UI design got better by leaps and bounds at first, was at its peak between Windows 95 and Windows 2000, and has been getting worse ever since. The problem is now that the field has matured, there's a lot less that needs to be changed, so they've started to change things that were fine the way they were to justify not being downsized.
- djur 4y ago
  I've been working on a project recently that involves running Win95 in a VM and it's almost shocking how nice the UX feels compared to the Win11 host surrounding it. Consistent, clean, legible - nothing hidden, very little extraneous animation or visual flash. Even the battleship gray is nicer than I remember. Nostalgia goggles for sure, but...
- rstat1 4y ago
  The one improvement modern Windows has over Windows from the 90s is the lack of those godawful cascading menus that would disappear off the screen the second you even slightly missed a hover target. I do not miss those at all.

IAmGraydon 4y ago

>Funny how the more the screenshots go back in history, the more 'useful' the UI looks like Maybe because you’ve spent time in those older OS interfaces and are therefore more familiar? Your post amounts to “new things have a learning curve”.