4 ms·

I will deeply abhor the new Settings app until they go back 30 years and rediscover multitasking. It's pure insanity that I can't have two Settings windows open

by Sakos 2y ago

I will deeply abhor the new Settings app until they go back 30 years and rediscover multitasking. It's pure insanity that I can't have two Settings windows open in different locations at the same time. Instead, if I'm doing one thing (like the volume mixer) and need to quickly check my Bluetooth devices, I have to navigate to the Bluetooth screen from the volume mixer, then I need to navigate back to the volume mixer. Sorry, what the hell is this? Do engineers at Microsoft actually think this is sensible, usable and accessible?

ThrowawayB7 2y ago
UI/UX is designed by UI/UX specialists at giant corporations. Often engineers who have criticism get brushed off.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  Yeah if engineer critises something like that UX/product will counter "yeah, but not everyone are as autistic/nerdy as you are. Normal person will never care for it". Also they really need to change something to justify their jobs. If an engineer pushes back they can make less change and might seem like they are doing nothing. If engineer keeps pushing back, it is bad performance review and "hard to work with".
  - Sakos 2y ago
    You're all correct, of course. Whenever I listen to UX/UI where I work talk about "improving" the UI or how they design things, I just want to chug on a bottle of vodka until I forget which year I'm living in. I can't stand the UI for the services we provide because it's utter shit and was designed with a laser focus on increasing KPIs and sales. I'm not sure what Microsoft's excuse is in designing such a terrible control panel replacement. The only small solace I can find is that all our competitors are designing their UIs the exact same way. Or maybe that's just more depressing. I can't decide.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      I don't even see it as increasing KPIs or sales. Unless it's sales as in selling the idea to the leadership. A lot of it is trying to make it look visually and superficially impressive trying to apply the common hammers like whitespace, very little visible content at once as to not "overwhelm" the user and other rules to anything, and then trying to pretend whatever that is going to increase the sales by doing non-sensical user research, only listening to what proves their initial vision and then later trying to cherry-pick success metrics. A/B test the new Settings panel: If User spends more time in the Settings page -> We just increased engagement. They must really like the new Settings page and find that pleasurable to use. That's a win. User spends less time in the Settings page -> We made it quicker to find and tweak the correct settings. That's amazing. Either way, any change you make you can find wins. You could even keep going back and forth between two versions. Also another common flaw I notice with some redesigns or things in general is that when the features, e.g. config settings were initially released, there was very thorough understanding and need for that feature and whoever put it there knew the technical implications and why it is needed, and they put it there in such a way that it's reasonably easy to use and makes sense with other things. However when redesigning, you are going to be exposed to all those features and nuances at once. And you won't have a good understanding of everything at all and all the little details and implications. And you might want to start with some sort of feel, framework and design to handle all of that. But then you are going to approach those features from an aspect where you have to take the features and make them adapt to the design as opposed to considering what makes sense specifically for that feature. And you won't have good understanding of the features, so either you are reducing the scope a lot or also just implement features incorrectly or in a poor way, not working well together with some other features, etc.
      - Sakos 2y ago
        I was specifically talking about where I work with that criticism about KPI and sales. I have no idea what might be driving Microsoft's design philosophy. You might be into something though.
        mewpmewp2 2y ago
  - vultour 2y ago
    I've long been of the opinion that UI/UX "experts" cannot be full-time employees, otherwise you will get a constant stream of utterly pointless changes and redesigns to justify their employment. I'm sorry, please design the product you were asked for and move on.
    - account42 2y ago
      UI/UX contractors are not much better - they still need to justify their billable hours somehow, leading to pointless changes. What's really needed is internal pushback against UI changes without user studies to back them up as well as a willingness to listen to user complaints and not just brush them off as "people complain no matter what change is make hurdurdur". Perhaps also an understanding that even neutral changes (as far as usability is concerned) have a negative cost to users.
skydhash 2y ago
It's like the new settings UI on mac os. It's all list. Before there were different layout patterns (Grid, then sectioned forms inside tabs). Great for spatial memorization. They've thrown it out of the windows for something that only works for small vertical screens with touch. It also sucks if you're using a mouse with the iPad.
- david422 2y ago
  Why the hell isn't that list in alphabetical order. No, the random groupings aren't helpful for me to find things at all.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > It's all list. Now I'm imagining a kind of spreadsheet-based hell where the UI is one enormous vertically scrollable grid of cells that are sometimes labels and sometimes inputs and sometimes buttons... I feel like I caught a glimpse of it once or twice in the VB5 / Java Swing days.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  and the search is still awful. In the world of tags, AI, and fuzzy search you still have to remember the -exact- name of what you're looking for
theendisney 2y ago
I like the part where it clearly knows a tv with sound is disconnected but it doesnt switch to the only working audio device. Trips around the settings and back get all the more interesting like that. I dont even know where my failed prints from 6 months ago are stored until it bothers me with a popup that is slightly to fast to interact with. I belive a complicated ui should have a kind of blog where you can find all the nonsense going doen in chronological order with tags and categories.
- card_zero 2y ago
  I've kept a file called "problems.txt" for the last two years, where I record the many Windows aggravations for posterity (and for when they happen again).
  - BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
    If you begin the txt file with .LOG each time you open the file Notepad will add a timestamp and a new line at the end of the document.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      I stopped using Notepad because updates were turning it to shit, now I use SciTE (with a command rigged up to run a .bat to insert time and date on a key combo, which is the one thing I missed from Notepad).
- vel0city 2y ago
  > I dont even know where my failed prints from 6 months ago are stored Bluetooth & devices > Printers & Scanners > pick any printer > Open print queue. The Print Queue can also then jump between printers. And you don't need to go into the Settings app to change sound devices. Click the Sound icon in the taskbar, click the icon to the right of the slider with what looks like little sliders and an arrow, choose your device. But even then its pretty easy using the full Settings app. System > Sound > click the circle next to the device you want to change to the default. I don't get how that's materially worse than Control Panel > Sound > Right click > Set as Default Device.
mewpmewp2 2y ago
It is not the engineers. It is the product and UX who never actually use the product themselves.

by Sakos 2y ago

ThrowawayB7 2y ago

UI/UX is designed by UI/UX specialists at giant corporations. Often engineers who have criticism get brushed off.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
Yeah if engineer critises something like that UX/product will counter "yeah, but not everyone are as autistic/nerdy as you are. Normal person will never care for it". Also they really need to change something to justify their jobs. If an engineer pushes back they can make less change and might seem like they are doing nothing. If engineer keeps pushing back, it is bad performance review and "hard to work with".
- Sakos 2y ago
  You're all correct, of course. Whenever I listen to UX/UI where I work talk about "improving" the UI or how they design things, I just want to chug on a bottle of vodka until I forget which year I'm living in. I can't stand the UI for the services we provide because it's utter shit and was designed with a laser focus on increasing KPIs and sales. I'm not sure what Microsoft's excuse is in designing such a terrible control panel replacement. The only small solace I can find is that all our competitors are designing their UIs the exact same way. Or maybe that's just more depressing. I can't decide.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I don't even see it as increasing KPIs or sales. Unless it's sales as in selling the idea to the leadership. A lot of it is trying to make it look visually and superficially impressive trying to apply the common hammers like whitespace, very little visible content at once as to not "overwhelm" the user and other rules to anything, and then trying to pretend whatever that is going to increase the sales by doing non-sensical user research, only listening to what proves their initial vision and then later trying to cherry-pick success metrics. A/B test the new Settings panel: If User spends more time in the Settings page -> We just increased engagement. They must really like the new Settings page and find that pleasurable to use. That's a win. User spends less time in the Settings page -> We made it quicker to find and tweak the correct settings. That's amazing. Either way, any change you make you can find wins. You could even keep going back and forth between two versions. Also another common flaw I notice with some redesigns or things in general is that when the features, e.g. config settings were initially released, there was very thorough understanding and need for that feature and whoever put it there knew the technical implications and why it is needed, and they put it there in such a way that it's reasonably easy to use and makes sense with other things. However when redesigning, you are going to be exposed to all those features and nuances at once. And you won't have a good understanding of everything at all and all the little details and implications. And you might want to start with some sort of feel, framework and design to handle all of that. But then you are going to approach those features from an aspect where you have to take the features and make them adapt to the design as opposed to considering what makes sense specifically for that feature. And you won't have good understanding of the features, so either you are reducing the scope a lot or also just implement features incorrectly or in a poor way, not working well together with some other features, etc.
    - Sakos 2y ago
      I was specifically talking about where I work with that criticism about KPI and sales. I have no idea what might be driving Microsoft's design philosophy. You might be into something though.
      - mewpmewp2 2y ago
- vultour 2y ago
  I've long been of the opinion that UI/UX "experts" cannot be full-time employees, otherwise you will get a constant stream of utterly pointless changes and redesigns to justify their employment. I'm sorry, please design the product you were asked for and move on.
  - account42 2y ago
    UI/UX contractors are not much better - they still need to justify their billable hours somehow, leading to pointless changes. What's really needed is internal pushback against UI changes without user studies to back them up as well as a willingness to listen to user complaints and not just brush them off as "people complain no matter what change is make hurdurdur". Perhaps also an understanding that even neutral changes (as far as usability is concerned) have a negative cost to users.

skydhash 2y ago

It's like the new settings UI on mac os. It's all list. Before there were different layout patterns (Grid, then sectioned forms inside tabs). Great for spatial memorization. They've thrown it out of the windows for something that only works for small vertical screens with touch. It also sucks if you're using a mouse with the iPad.

david422 2y ago
Why the hell isn't that list in alphabetical order. No, the random groupings aren't helpful for me to find things at all.
Terr_ 2y ago
> It's all list. Now I'm imagining a kind of spreadsheet-based hell where the UI is one enormous vertically scrollable grid of cells that are sometimes labels and sometimes inputs and sometimes buttons... I feel like I caught a glimpse of it once or twice in the VB5 / Java Swing days.
EasyMark 2y ago
and the search is still awful. In the world of tags, AI, and fuzzy search you still have to remember the -exact- name of what you're looking for

theendisney 2y ago

I like the part where it clearly knows a tv with sound is disconnected but it doesnt switch to the only working audio device. Trips around the settings and back get all the more interesting like that. I dont even know where my failed prints from 6 months ago are stored until it bothers me with a popup that is slightly to fast to interact with. I belive a complicated ui should have a kind of blog where you can find all the nonsense going doen in chronological order with tags and categories.

card_zero 2y ago
I've kept a file called "problems.txt" for the last two years, where I record the many Windows aggravations for posterity (and for when they happen again).
- BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
  If you begin the txt file with .LOG each time you open the file Notepad will add a timestamp and a new line at the end of the document.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    I stopped using Notepad because updates were turning it to shit, now I use SciTE (with a command rigged up to run a .bat to insert time and date on a key combo, which is the one thing I missed from Notepad).
vel0city 2y ago
> I dont even know where my failed prints from 6 months ago are stored Bluetooth & devices > Printers & Scanners > pick any printer > Open print queue. The Print Queue can also then jump between printers. And you don't need to go into the Settings app to change sound devices. Click the Sound icon in the taskbar, click the icon to the right of the slider with what looks like little sliders and an arrow, choose your device. But even then its pretty easy using the full Settings app. System > Sound > click the circle next to the device you want to change to the default. I don't get how that's materially worse than Control Panel > Sound > Right click > Set as Default Device.

mewpmewp2 2y ago

It is not the engineers. It is the product and UX who never actually use the product themselves.