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I like your first idea (new UX layer over unchanged core) more than the second (fully customisable), although they're not mutually exclusive. An understated be

by nomilk 2y ago

I like your first idea (new UX layer over unchanged core) more than the second (fully customisable), although they're not mutually exclusive. An understated benefit of a consistent UI is if the user gets stuck and searches how to do XYZ, often an LLM or search engine will give an accurate answer as it's been answered before in forums etc. But if the UI changes every few months, there's often no answer.

nine_k 2y ago
It's always the same trade-off between having a uniform experience and the ability to fix unfortunate decisions more easily. The UI default shipped should not materially (if any) change every few months. But power users should be able to tweak the UI and UX even more, and publish their tweaks. Some sets of tweaks might become popular among other power users, and the best finds could find their way upstream. What I strive to achieve is speeding up the process of UI evolution, of finding better approaches to UI and UX. This may be enabled by an ability to tweak UI/UX without recompiling the whole thing, and by not having to write the UI/UX in a low-level footgun-ridden language which is C. Even now GIMP allows for quite a bit of customization within its built-in UX. The untweaked, vanilla experience should be good enough, stable, and the norm for non-advanced users, very much like the current UX. For a battle-tested example, look at MS Office. You can tweak its UI in rather drastic ways; I've seen VBA apps that make Excel barely recognizable, while harnessing its power. But most users never ever alter a single button on a single toolbar, and are fine following video guides showing where to click.
wruza 2y ago
For the latter you make a special “dialog” that has all the features in a single list. You make it anyway, because it’s a part of ui customization menu, but this one is separate, for search uses.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Have you tried pressing the "/" key, BTW? It's an easier way to search.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Pressing where, in gimp? I was talking about an average app with customizable ui. But in general, search can’t replace a list because search is not discoverable. You can only search for what you know and remember and you may not remember e.g. “Morphology…” until you see it in that section, how was it again. More generally, and just as a tangential sentiment, I don’t understand the last decade trends of dumbing down apps and removing (/not adding) features because X is enough. Back in the day we had full dialogs called by a shortcut and having searches, menu builders, etc. Nowadays everyone tries to sell only a shortcut, or only a filter, or only nothing. But why-y? Humans have multiple mechanisms of memory and orientation (and these may heavily vary across population) and people are throwing it away deliberately.

by nomilk 2y ago

nine_k 2y ago

It's always the same trade-off between having a uniform experience and the ability to fix unfortunate decisions more easily. The UI default shipped should not materially (if any) change every few months. But power users should be able to tweak the UI and UX even more, and publish their tweaks. Some sets of tweaks might become popular among other power users, and the best finds could find their way upstream. What I strive to achieve is speeding up the process of UI evolution, of finding better approaches to UI and UX. This may be enabled by an ability to tweak UI/UX without recompiling the whole thing, and by not having to write the UI/UX in a low-level footgun-ridden language which is C. Even now GIMP allows for quite a bit of customization within its built-in UX. The untweaked, vanilla experience should be good enough, stable, and the norm for non-advanced users, very much like the current UX. For a battle-tested example, look at MS Office. You can tweak its UI in rather drastic ways; I've seen VBA apps that make Excel barely recognizable, while harnessing its power. But most users never ever alter a single button on a single toolbar, and are fine following video guides showing where to click.

wruza 2y ago

For the latter you make a special “dialog” that has all the features in a single list. You make it anyway, because it’s a part of ui customization menu, but this one is separate, for search uses.

nine_k 2y ago
Have you tried pressing the "/" key, BTW? It's an easier way to search.
- wruza 2y ago
  Pressing where, in gimp? I was talking about an average app with customizable ui. But in general, search can’t replace a list because search is not discoverable. You can only search for what you know and remember and you may not remember e.g. “Morphology…” until you see it in that section, how was it again. More generally, and just as a tangential sentiment, I don’t understand the last decade trends of dumbing down apps and removing (/not adding) features because X is enough. Back in the day we had full dialogs called by a shortcut and having searches, menu builders, etc. Nowadays everyone tries to sell only a shortcut, or only a filter, or only nothing. But why-y? Humans have multiple mechanisms of memory and orientation (and these may heavily vary across population) and people are throwing it away deliberately.