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I could not disagree more about Windows 95 looking "dated". It's one the clearest, simplest, and easiest to parse UIs I've ever seen. Buttons look like buttons

I could not disagree more about Windows 95 looking "dated". It's one the clearest, simplest, and easiest to parse UIs I've ever seen. Buttons look like buttons. Scroll bars are thick and clear. Draggable objects are obvious. It's a huge shame that we've gone only backwards since then, IMHO.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Sometimes I wonder what kids will consider a 'button' since their first few years will be touch screens, magic corner trackpads, and no-show clickers in MightyMice. Do TV remotes even have physical buttons any more?
- Avshalom 3y ago
  Last Christmas, one of the most popular toys we sold was Pop-Its, which is nothing more that a plastic sheet of buttons. I am not worried that the kids will grow up not understanding the concept of a button. https://www.target.com/s/pop+it+fidget+toy https://www.target.com/s/pop+it+fidget+toy
- trealira 3y ago
  TV remotes do still have buttons. Also, there are still on/off buttons and volume buttons on phones. Video game controllers still use buttons. Car radios and car A/C and heaters still use physical buttons.
  - theandrewbailey 3y ago
    > Car radios and car A/C and heaters still use physical buttons. Depends on the car's year, make, and model. It could be touchscreen only.
    - trealira 3y ago
      That's fair. I haven't yet seen a car with only a touchscreen and nothing else, but I wouldn't be surprised by the existence of such a car. I don't actively keep up with new cars.
      - applied_heat 3y ago
        Tesla doesn’t have buttons for the aforementioned functions
        LeoPanthera 3y ago
        I hate Tesla as much as the next guy, but all Teslas have buttons for temperature and audio controls - they're on the steering wheel.
jbverschoor 3y ago
Enable "high contrast mode" in macOS.. buttons look like buttons and some more things.. The normal mode is way too flat / low contrast.
lagniappe 3y ago
I'll probably catch heat for this, but I think Windows 95 was the pinnacle of UI/UX design, and much of what we've done since have been regressions.
- sigzero 3y ago
  I agree. You knew visually what everything did. A button was a button and was noticeably off or on and things like that. I would put classic on for my XP UI I love it so much.
  - emchammer 3y ago
    It was a very explicit interface. It was not as sexy as a 3D composited one, but it did not play peek-a-boo. Scrolling through a list, like downloads on a web page, you would see 20 or 30 line items, not two or three. It also worked on a slow CPU without a GPU. We have lost something since those highly-optimized 2D interfaces, from the same era as Super Nintendo Mode 7 affine transform and After Dark/Xscreensaver 2.5D graphics.
    - applied_heat 3y ago
      I can’t stand things that are hidden until I mouse over or click on them. Just draw everything and let me scroll
- slantyyz 3y ago
  I disagree, but only slightly, Windows 2000 was my personal favorite, especially for its version of Windows Explorer.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    The one area where I think 98 and 2000 regress from 95 is that they introduce "web content" in applications that are not web browsers - specifically, random objects respond to single-clicks instead of double-clicks, and blue underlined (and sometimes not even underlined) hyperlinks start to appear. There was no reason to do that.
wolpoli 3y ago
One convention we lost was that text fields have sunken white background and other areas of the UI are generally grey. UI now uses bright white in most places, eventually causing the world to invent dark mode. It's really gone backward.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  We lost any concept of shading and borders, which has made modern day user interfaces absolute hell to navigate because everything melts together and looks the same. Windows 9x/NT4.0 Explorer was the pinnacle of graphical user interfaces.
- o11c 3y ago
  One regression that really annoys me: in recent KDE themes, the default "active window" and "background window" titlebar colors are indistinguishable. So you have no clue where all your input events are going to go. And if you actually set them to reasonable colors, certain applications do weird epileptic things (looking at you, Firefox!)

paulryanrogers 3y ago

Sometimes I wonder what kids will consider a 'button' since their first few years will be touch screens, magic corner trackpads, and no-show clickers in MightyMice. Do TV remotes even have physical buttons any more?

Avshalom 3y ago
Last Christmas, one of the most popular toys we sold was Pop-Its, which is nothing more that a plastic sheet of buttons. I am not worried that the kids will grow up not understanding the concept of a button. https://www.target.com/s/pop+it+fidget+toy https://www.target.com/s/pop+it+fidget+toy
trealira 3y ago
TV remotes do still have buttons. Also, there are still on/off buttons and volume buttons on phones. Video game controllers still use buttons. Car radios and car A/C and heaters still use physical buttons.
- theandrewbailey 3y ago
  > Car radios and car A/C and heaters still use physical buttons. Depends on the car's year, make, and model. It could be touchscreen only.
  - trealira 3y ago
    That's fair. I haven't yet seen a car with only a touchscreen and nothing else, but I wouldn't be surprised by the existence of such a car. I don't actively keep up with new cars.
    - applied_heat 3y ago
      Tesla doesn’t have buttons for the aforementioned functions
      - LeoPanthera 3y ago
        I hate Tesla as much as the next guy, but all Teslas have buttons for temperature and audio controls - they're on the steering wheel.

jbverschoor 3y ago

Enable "high contrast mode" in macOS.. buttons look like buttons and some more things.. The normal mode is way too flat / low contrast.

lagniappe 3y ago

I'll probably catch heat for this, but I think Windows 95 was the pinnacle of UI/UX design, and much of what we've done since have been regressions.

sigzero 3y ago
I agree. You knew visually what everything did. A button was a button and was noticeably off or on and things like that. I would put classic on for my XP UI I love it so much.
- emchammer 3y ago
  It was a very explicit interface. It was not as sexy as a 3D composited one, but it did not play peek-a-boo. Scrolling through a list, like downloads on a web page, you would see 20 or 30 line items, not two or three. It also worked on a slow CPU without a GPU. We have lost something since those highly-optimized 2D interfaces, from the same era as Super Nintendo Mode 7 affine transform and After Dark/Xscreensaver 2.5D graphics.
  - applied_heat 3y ago
    I can’t stand things that are hidden until I mouse over or click on them. Just draw everything and let me scroll
slantyyz 3y ago
I disagree, but only slightly, Windows 2000 was my personal favorite, especially for its version of Windows Explorer.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  The one area where I think 98 and 2000 regress from 95 is that they introduce "web content" in applications that are not web browsers - specifically, random objects respond to single-clicks instead of double-clicks, and blue underlined (and sometimes not even underlined) hyperlinks start to appear. There was no reason to do that.

wolpoli 3y ago

One convention we lost was that text fields have sunken white background and other areas of the UI are generally grey. UI now uses bright white in most places, eventually causing the world to invent dark mode. It's really gone backward.

Dalewyn 3y ago
We lost any concept of shading and borders, which has made modern day user interfaces absolute hell to navigate because everything melts together and looks the same. Windows 9x/NT4.0 Explorer was the pinnacle of graphical user interfaces.
o11c 3y ago
One regression that really annoys me: in recent KDE themes, the default "active window" and "background window" titlebar colors are indistinguishable. So you have no clue where all your input events are going to go. And if you actually set them to reasonable colors, certain applications do weird epileptic things (looking at you, Firefox!)