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As a kid, I found windows to be extremely intuitive - no matter what I was doing, if I thought something was possible, the feature would always be exactly where
by gxs 3y ago
As a kid, I found windows to be extremely intuitive - no matter what I was doing, if I thought something was possible, the feature would always be exactly where I’d expect to be.
And by windows I mean windows and the desktop applications of the time. They worked well and adhered to the same ui principles, vs every saas tool now that does its own thing. Even the fabled UX of macs never compared to me, I always thought their design was overrated. (Not today, of course).
Something about UI designers back then was just different - they really seemed to prioritize putting everything in its place vs trying to make everything wow you/look good. Everything was organized very logically.
Today, a lot of websites are terrible. I’m not being overly dramatic, there are still a lot that are fine or even good, but so many are garbage. They hijack/break standard browser functionality (cut/paste, scroll bars/behavior, right click, etc.) and the UI itself can be frustrating. You might be able to quickly tell what’s clickable vs not, what’s expandable/collapsible vs not, bad text/contrast, etc etc.
- vaylian 3y ago> As a kid, I found windows to be extremely intuitive - no matter what I was doing, if I thought something was possible, the feature would always be exactly where I’d expect to be. This. People had computer problems and asked me for help. I didn't know the answer. But I knew how to quickly find the most likely place where I could diagnose/fix things. And most of the time I was right. > And by windows I mean windows and the desktop applications of the time. They worked well and adhered to the same ui principles, vs every saas tool now that does its own thing. And even when these saas tools try to emulate the Windows experience, they fail miserably. What you get is a cursed hodgepodge of double-clicking on links and key bindings that don't work. The web has a simple but powerful UI. But casual users have trouble learning it, because a significant fraction of websites don't follow that UI. And then there is also the madness of advertisements on the web which makes everything even more confusing.
- gxs 3y agoHa, sounds like we had a similar experiences, especially with helping others. Interesting the impact that can have, years later I work in tech in large part because I was actually able to use and configure the computer I had back then.