Slashdot Mirror
Suck On Skins And UI
kisrael writes: "Today's Suck.com talks about how the freedoms designers now have in UI appearance-- starting with the the Web, moving to Skins for WinAmp, ending with the latest versions of QuickTime and the
preview release of Netscape 6-- are ignoring visual and interface standards that users have come to rely on." A lot to think about and discuss here: personally I'm a big fan of skins and themes, but it only takes seconds to find countless awful themes. There are exceptions, but they're rare.
Dude. Learn the paragraph tag.
I doubt the validity of this statement. People using their computer primarily as a tool for typing documents probably don't customize their machine because they don't know how. If they did, I would bet they would. I've worked at various companies, and "regular" users who only use their computers for word processing and excel also like customizing their desktop with a background picture of their family and their favorite colors, just as they would customize the layout of their desk with personal belongings. There are probably thousands of users using the skin customization program for IE, based on the easy install through activeX and the relatively easy install of skins.
The only barrier is understanding and effort. Of course, some people like decorating their house, and some don't.
As for the number of bad themes around, I would base that on the fact that, a) it takes effort to make a nice looking theme; and, b) one man's trash is another man's treasure (within an obvious bounded range).
This isn't necessarily a bad idea. It's not easy to implement, but if possible I agree the host environment should be a major consideration when chosing installation defaults.
My solution to this is to use a multi-row taskbar with autohide. The taskbar isn't there unless you move the mouse to the bottom of the screen, and you can make the taskbar as big as necessary. You can also put the taskbar on the side of the screen and see more of the titles, but I've never been able to get used to that.
Not only is it funny, but it speaks the truth.
Actually, I don't think M$ has any interest in writing ASP support code for any other web server than IIS on NT/2K. ASP support on other platforms is entirely the province of third-parties, such as ChiliSoft. Their ChiliASP lets Netscape or even Apache servers serve ASP pages, though they still have some quirks. My company's web-based offerings require ASP, but using ChiliASP we don't require IIS. Unfortunately, we still use COM under the hood, so we still have to host on NT. We're getting there...
-reemul
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
All applications ought to look and act the same.
Or rather, they should all look and act the same when a given person uses them. When somebody different uses them, they should probably be quite different, but still, all of the applications should be the same. Many people probably want them to all behave like Windows programs, for example, but I don't want any of them to behave that way.
Of course, most windows users probably want the windows look and feel, and most mac users probably want the mac look and feel, so it is a good approximation to use the platform's general UI as the default.
Skins combine the worst features of configurability: why would I want to download something to make my computer look and act unfamiliar? Why would I want to make each application behave differently?
On the other hand, it would be incredibly useful to be able to say, "Any time I am editing text, ^K cuts the rest of the line and appends it to a buffer I can retrieve with ^Y." And have this apply to my text editor, my mail reader, my web browser, my word processor, and even the word processor I have to use on Windows.
Of course, it would also mean that a Windows user could specify that all of their applications should behave like Windows, or, even better, wouldn't have to, since they'd get their computer with that as the default.
Bullshit.
You want something that conforms completely? Use a 'skin' that conforms completely. You don't want to conform completely? Then use a 'skin' that doesn't conform. Get a life.
(What an ugly use of the word 'skin' this is.)
Deleted
We had an email conversation a couple months ago; it was brought on by a question about how to get the preferred font size from the system, to set the font sizes on menus, etc. so that they look more like other GTK apps. And I pointed out that they were going about it the wrong way; GTK apps are not consistent because every developer sets the font the same size, but because you don't have to set the bloody font at all - that's the theme's job. But they've gone off and rolled their own widgets and put in their own Mozilla-specific theme management features. Their excuse is that they want it to look the same on all platforms and have the same features on all platforms; for instance Unix users who don't normally use GTK apps can get a statically linked version that can be themed. And I pointed out that if they just use GTK as it was intended, worst case if the user doesn't have a theme management app, then he has to install themes by hand, by putting them into a directory into his home directory. Not much to ask from somebody who's working suboptimally anyway, not using GTK. It's still better than the current Netscape which requires you to mess with X resources to customize its appearance (and I have never had the time to figure that out - it's too poorly documented). But even after patiently and respectfully explaining this about 3 or 4 times I don't think much of it sunk in because the developer I was talking to continued to ask the same question - how can I get the font size so I can set it on my widgets. Arrrrrggggh.
I don't believe in the concept of standardizing UI's across platforms. The different platforms all have different strengths and weaknesses usability wise, which the users get used to; and there's no point in breaking with their expectations - you just end up with a product that fits equally badly with the other apps on every OS, and wastes the users time using Mozilla's non-standard way of tweaking it so that they can live with it. Instead they should write a really abstract widget abstraction layer, which has implementation in the native widgets of each platform. There should be no custom widgets. Except maybe the toolbar - I have to admit that's kindof slick.
The same shit has happened in the Java world. AWT came first; it made sense. It made applications look like they belonged, most of the time, on the platform they were running on, with no work from the developer. Of course there were issues like font sizes, colors (all apps were grey regardless of your color settings) and layout issues and so on. But then they did this swing thing. In pure Java. The result was slick looks and really slow performance, and the apps don't look like they belong to any environment - you see it come up and instantly say "Oh god, another Java app, might as well go get coffee while this dog wakes itself up". And I'm a Java programmer, I'm supposed to like this stuff.
That LCD-like green font is a crime against nature. Anyone suggesting such an atrocity for a business productivity app would be drummed out in a thrice. Why am I expected to become stupid and unoffended at the such a pathetic attempt at home-electronics-display-nostalgia when I use WMP? Ick.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Hehe, I do the alt-f4 thing too, only I do it under vmware as well. At least, there's an easy solution under vmware: Keep vmware on desktop 4 at all times :-).
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
But to refute your point, it does not really work. Clicking on a button in a window raises it, which (for me, at least) defeats most of the usability of focus-follows-mouse. Even stranger, popping up a menu does not raise the window, but it raises when you release the mouse. And what always kills me is that if you click the border to raise the window, and then decide to move the window, it takes your second click as a double-click and maximizes the window! All of these are indications of this being a quick hack stuck atop the system by somebody who cannot rewrite the lower levels correctly.
I know this is a nitpick: httpQ, Winamp Control Center (alt), and Muse all offer some control of Winamp or streams from an HTML interface, and they offer source code too. Other general purpose plugins for Winamp expose hooks in Visual Basic and stuff. If you feel like it, you can build a wholly different interface with entirely different capabilities, and a set of new problems - like people complaining just because of a new interface. Oh well.
Horrifying thought...what if he's aware of the paragraph tag -- but he always writes like that? (shudder)
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
exactly, the link to the star trek theme was supposed to show how unusable it is..to most of us.. but the guy who designed it.. it might be the simplest thing to use.. and the normal interface that comes most apps might have been hard. No one should be forced into one "skin" for the sake of compatibility.. every program that is shipped should come with a default.. "looks and feels like your os" UI. but should allow u to change it if you want. I for one hate the normal skin of winamp. hence i use the AlpineAmp skin. in Gnome I trashed all the default panels and made my own to suit me. something I'm comfortable with. and I thank the creators for giving me the choice. I am not forcing anyone to use my skin/theme.. most people would hate my theme. but it does what i want it to. and thats what counts.
I agree that bad themes/chrome abound - I look at the chrome that mozilla developers have decided to use, and want to start changing it, but stop, as it looks like Netscape is set on using the mozilla default. Oh well. Thank God for lynx.
XenoWolf The Original - Since 1993
"The 'look' of the UI is not consistant with the rest of the OS for those who choose not to use themes. Most people, believe it or not, will probably never switch their theme - or want to. Why should their browser stick out like a sore thumb?"
This has been one of my problems with Netscape 4.x on Linux, and gtk+ widgits is it use of widgits that look and feel much different the qt/KDE widgits I am use to experiencing with KDE. Hey who want's to run an ugly motif app, that sticks out like a sore thumb from a KDE or GTK desktop? I don't know about you, but I can't stand it (although KDE's cross-color theming makes is usable -- but far from perfect).
"If the look matches, the 'feel' usually does not. This is more important than it may appear to be at first. Something as subtle as how hierarchial menus are handled will often annoy or frustrate even advanced users."
I've seen this with WinAmp themes that look like Windows -- the sort that match the default Windows apps, but feel much different, and act much different. Really annonying to say the least. Kmp3 1.0 shows the best of both worlds -- it has a native KDE interface and a optional WinAmp skin mode.
"Using non-native widgets (basically, bitmaps) often stops system-wide skin/theme programs from working. Your non-standard look and feel is rendered internally inconsistant." I know the feeling -- and that why I stay away from non standard "Platium" colored widgets in all my apps -- this color is pretty much standard and easy to match -- and is easy on the eye.
"Do you want your Linux or MacOS program to behave like a Windows one, or vice versa?"
Of course not. Create a Mac program that works like a Windows program -- people will spit on it, make fun of it, and give it bad reviews. Classic examples would be Microsoft Office 4.2.1 for Mac OS.
"Non-native UIs are generally slower than native ones, for whatever reason."
Mainly because you are loading a whole new widgit set -- meaning a whole new set of widgits demanding system resources (memory, CPU, etc.), so it will always be slower then the real thing.
Good programs use the OS's native widgit and OS calls -- they are the ones that are the most stable, fastest, longest lasting, and most loved.
I didn't see anybody say rodtsasdt llllllreport*....
One can bag on "skins" all you like, but when it comes to Mozilla, It's totally off base. Let's take a look at *why* mozilla does the things the way they do:
In Mozilla, "skins" aren't skin deep, and really allow a lot of neccessary and usefull functionality. It is the Right(tm) design decision.
~mindlace
Well, tough shit. Should the use of themes be restricted because of a bunch of people who can't deal with change? Things change all the time. If they can't deal with that, then why are they upgrading their browser in the first place?
That said, it is probably a good idea to use a sensible standard theme, one that looks more or less like a standard windows interface, and leave the funkier ones as options.
This is true; organization of data, which widgets to use, etc., determine much of how usable a piece of software is. And the developers do not abdicate responsibility for a good UI when they create skins -- particularly the limited customizations currently available.
(I would like to be able to develop UI's totally independently of the rest of an application. It's nice to pick the most usable frontend, then hook it to the most technically appropriate backend. But that hasn't caught on outside UNIX, and presents some problems of its own -- like differences in functionality between different backends. So we're stuck with the monolithic UI/app, IMO.)
That said, consistency across applications is important, too, not to mention consistency across platforms. It would be nice to present users with a totally consistent working environment in a multi-OS workplace. (And if something X-like takes off someday, that workplace might be just one desktop!)
Besides that, what a widget looks like does have an impact on how comfortable the user is with it. The Motif widget set, for instance, has crummy checkboxes -- it's hard to tell if it's checked or not, and even if you can tell whether it's beveled in or out, it's not nearly as easy to remember which one means "checked" and which one means "unchecked". And how easy is it to tell a checkbox from a radio button, esp. if you're eyesight isn't 20/20?
A pluggable look-and-feel means that tons of different UI presentations can work on the same application -- the underlying UI design doesn't have to, and probably shouldn't, change. (Usually. As I said earlier, people with particular needs from their system -- like coders or graphic designers or digital musicians -- should be able to optimize their environment for their tasks.)
The goal is not to confuse the user with a bajillion UI's (though some of that might happen in the short term). Rather, the idea is for the best cross-application UI standard to emerge. Most GTK themes sensibly eschew the Motif checkboxes, for instance.
Ultimately, the user shouldn't have to worry that a program is less usable because the interface is implemented in a Windows widget set and they're a Mac user, or it's a Motif widget set and they're a Windows user. The app developer shouldn't have to worry about that, either -- and with PLAF's, it becomes possible to make the OS entirely transparent to the user, allowing the decision of OS to be solely based on technical merit, or suitability for a given task.
So, yes, the details of a UI implementation need to be determined through usability testing and good design. But the general user experience -- particularly the parts that remain consistent across apps, like widgets -- can benefit from a free-market approach, while still allowing for innovation, and without requiring a rewrite of every application every time there's a refinement.
phil
Correction: It SUPERFICIALLY looks like the same ol' Netscape.. but it's NOT. The widgets don't work the same way; the scroll bar is still non-standard, etc.
I mean, when I use a scrollbar, I expect it to work like it does in the other apps!
But, as I've mentioned several times, these skins only SUPERFICIALLY look like the original interface, and don't act exactly correctly, and when it comes to UI, it's the little things that really count.
In my experience people who like tweaking the most are the ones that just know enough to be dangerous and have figured out how to tweak. Then they think that tweaking is the essence of computing, and scoff at anybody else who doesn't tweak.
Frankly, any serious "hacker" has way too much work on his or her plate to fool around with frilly shnick-shnacks. I get into work in the morning and the first thing I do is try to figure out the bug from last night that wouldn't go away. Fiddling with skinz is the last thing on my mind. I use the Prairie Wind backdrop, which not only looks soothing, but takes up far less RAM than fancy bitmaps.
Ta ta,
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> Although I'm not sure if I count as a real hacker, I care about themes.
You're kind of debasing your statement there. Anyway, I agree with the rest of it. I want maximum information presentation surface, so I want as few pixels as possible for control. The first thing I do after each Windows setup is to go into Appearance and reduce the size of scrollbars and menu bars. Next I move the address bar of IE into the menu bar and the links bar on the same level with the control buttons, and reduce the buttons to small icons with selective text on right. The extra space you get is unbelievable. And I'm running at 1600x1200, so it shows I'm a pixel miser.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Once there were the IBM CUA guidelines, and they were good. Then along came Microsoft, tried them out, and decided they could do better. As they increased their understanding of their own OS shell (Windows for the rest of you) and got a hang of all the fancy message passing, they went wild and their applications became unusable ever since. One of their worst offenders is probably Encarta, which is barely recognizable as a Windows app.
For all their faults, Apple did the best for the longest, before even they succumbed to pixmap twiddling. Their latest Quicktime player interface is a nightmare of usability. I feel this whole "real world look" where rotary knobs look and work like rotary knobs, etc, etc, etc, is the worst trend imaginable.
I'm not crying for the MDI, though. It never really conformed to the CUA, and it always felt awkward, at least to me. You'd have two windows side by side in Word, and you'd think the least it could do would be to scale them along with the parent frame when you resize the main Word window. No such luck. In the end you find yourself constantly readjusting the child windows.
One thing I think MS really got right is the Taskbar. While there might be better ways of doing it, I haven't seen one yet. Even the NeXT or Be dock on the right depend too much on icons--they don't show typical text very well, such as medium length document names, etc. However, the System Tray is getting out of hand--every app and its dog nowadays wants to put an icon in there, which then all collectively die the next time Explorer restarts.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Linux does support BSD, but only with the Java binaries running as Administrator. You might need to download the service pack for Linux 7.1 from Redhat.
One word of warning though - never run emacs on an unsecure connection, I read that its new rendering engine doesn't support HTTP 2.0 so it can send UDP messages to random HTML servers. Very dangerous if you ask me. Maybe those open source NETSCAPE hackers can help them fix that.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
On topic but a tangent, what would happen if someone ported GTK (or Qt) to Windows?
According to TrollTech's site, Qt is available for Windows.
Jay (=
The music sounds just as good through mpg123, and it doesn't waste CPU cycles or colormap space on effects you don't want.
Amen!
I just threw away xmms this morning -- I haven't been able to get any version beyond the prebuilt one on RH 6.1 to work right. Hell, half of the time I'm not even looking at my PC when it's running -- I shuffle a bunch of MP3s together and let it go while I read a book or something.
Jay (=
Did anyone else notice the link back to /. regarding the Patrick Naughton arrest? There was a typo in it. this was the link they had. slashdog. Funny, it's registered.
Actually, MS Windows can add (for free) most of the "common functionality" you so sorely miss - focus follows mouse & window raise/lower are free downloads from MS (either kernel toys or power toys), and there are a gazillion bits of shareware which let you alter key bindings, icons, etc.
And don't give me any grief about "but I have to download it . . . it's not part of the standard install". The experienced user won't have a problem with this - and besides, what experienced user uses the standard install?
If your linux boxes are anything like mine - hardly anything on it came with the standard install. It's all taken piece by piece - so I get just what I want installed just where I want it.
My parents, who are both in their late 50's, cannot program the proverbial VCR -- So I got them VCR+ to take care of that. Now they love sending and receiving email. But all too often I'm called upon to provide some free :^) phone/on-site tech support to undo a change one of them has made. Adding a new UI that itself is customizable, and now those two are really in trouble.
Personally, I love skins, I just hope someone creates a Windows look + feel skin for my folks -- I'm too lazy...
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
This would explain why in Netscape 6 the web page loads extremely fast but the menus and dialog boxes take forever to open! The custom interface is slowing it down.
It appears that dmg is a subtle troll. Congratulations, you seem to be the first person to notice :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Thanks for the tip; unfortunatley, I only use Windows (for anything other than games :-) ) at work, and it's already been made perfectly clear to us that we do not get to choose what (OS) we run on our machines. If we did, this wouldn't be a problem ;-)
;-) :- )
Of course, now there are a bunch of Win32 developers out there whining about this behavior, insisting that their app is so important it must pop up in the foreground, no matter what you, a lowly (l)user might think.
That is part of what irritates me about it - who gave them the right to tell me what is and isn't important on my computer?
Of course, the most annoying thing is when it happens while I'm typing, and I hit space/some other hot key before it registers, and dismiss it/start some action - especially when I'm entering a passphrase, lose my place, and have to start again. Maybe I should have shorter passphrases
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Each new generation of Windows (and some upgrade patches) offer a new user interface.
This seems to be the reverse of "It's not a bug it's a feature" now we say "It's not a feature it's a bug".
The user has total control of his computer if he wants a consistent user interface he can have it. If he likes it can be totally consistent with a StarTrek console.
I suspect the users who don't want themes and skins are the same users who let technology drag them around by there teath. Thies users use Windows becouse it is preinstalled.
They may not like certen things but they do nothing about it. They don't switch to a prgram with a consistent UI they don't refuse to install patchs. They don't do anything when things don't go there way. To them if one program dose it they ALL do it. Just stick them on Linux and they'll clame every operating system has cryptic and obscure commands.
I don't care to bother with users who won't do anything for themselfs. Thies are the users who picked Windows over MacOs in the first place. Why? Becouse someone told them it was the standard.
Tell them CP/M is the standard and lets move on with the real users.
I don't actually exist.
I think skins are great. Just walking around my office (which is primarily Windows) everyone, whether they look at the computer as just a tool or a neat toy, customizes it to some degree even if its just the wall paper and the screensaver. I think given half the chance some of them at least would love to change the look and feel of Windows all together. However, for those that don't, that just want the standard UI, applications like WinAMP, Netscape, etc. should as the default skin use the standard look and feel of whatever OS they're current sitting on. Let it be up to the user of the app to add a weird and wonderful (and potentially unuseable) skin to it. But don't force a radical new look on the user who just wants it to work and look exactly like their other apps. Snjit
Actually, the Suck article itself specifically mentioned this point, saying that the inconsistency of web pages is also a bad thing.
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Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Whatever is good for the USER is what should get implmented
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...
Sure, in general. But there's always a trade-off; if implementing this means that the code is likely to be buggier, or the executable bigger, or performance slower, than you have to ask if it's really better for the user.
[It shouldn't do any of these things, as the code really ought to be talking to some sort of meta-widget that aggregates a real widget; this makes porting *much* easier, but
What I don't understand is why the people complaining about evil themes don't create a theme which *looks just like standard widgets* and then get people shipping themable applications to use that as their default
Are you guys serious or subtle trolls?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Sorry, but to say themes are for "hackers" and tweakers is somewhat arrogant. To say the average person has no interest contradicts the popularity of the "skinz" scene. The average people download winamp skins to make them look like "Akira" or are probably neither hackers nor tweakers. They don't do these things for hack value. They do it for a personal sense of aesthetics, or some other drive such as boredom. Changing window managers wildly I would agree is done for hack value, but skins are not really much of a hack. Zul files recreate the entire browsing experience, can create programs inside of a Navigator/Mozilla window, and have the capability to make life a living hell for someone trying to implement them. If you load the classic navigator interface, you can get back some of that, but the users have no choice when they use the largely (so far) undocumented chrome protocol. But the point suck is trying to make is mozilla's and QT's interfaces are crap by default. They are already "tweaked" the wrong way.
BTW, my favourite Mozilla theme so far is the Sullivan theme from alphanumerica. It is simple and functional and aesthetic, the way things should have been.
Lowmag.net
UI guidelines and user studies are there so that controls are intuitive for a novice or a first time user of an application (without having to read a manual first). What does this have to do with configurable chrome? Once a user has mastered a program, or if they'd rather install something that looks better or is more suited to how they work, this gives them the choice of how to do so. If they find that the UI is to difficult to use, they can always go back to the default skin -- something that shouldn't be too difficult of they already figured out how to install skins in the first place.
However, programs like QuickTime 4.0 are a different matter entirely. The UI for QT4 is a disaster...
Bright backgrounds give me eye strain, and headaches. I have to use light text on dark backgrounds.
.gtkrc files provide only rudimentary control, and only from flat files (no xrdb). Worse many of the widgets ignore the gtkrc settings (ie clist). If any of this has changed since 1.2.3, I appologize. However, gtk applications with hard white backgrounds have caused me too many painful headaches for me to be very freindly towards them.
A while ago I hacked an http proxy to edit out background color codes. That helped a lot. However, SSL and java give me trouble
MS Windows has some support for people with vision problems, but it's incomplete, and the rest of the gui sucks to much to use. X used to have ok support with things like -reverseVideo in the default Xt options list. That worked for Athena Widgets, OpenLook (mostly), and Motif (mostly). However, the newer widget sets are much sloppier. Anything GTK+ based is just horrible. They abandoned all the sophisticated, time tested, functionality of Xt resources and the command line parsing that went with them. Their
If there is this much discussion on the issue, then gui design is definately not a completed problem. That means we're still experimenting. Different guis represent diverging research paths. This is good, because it means we're covering more of the problem space.
I played with some of this stuff. I also tried LiteStep, a NextStep-like replacement for explorer. I never found focus follows mouse. I did find something to map caps-lock to another control. I found that most of the mods sort-of worked in explorer and other pure MS windows things, but broke down in other apps. For example office didn't play nicely with them. Third party stuff was particularly unlikely to work with these alterations. Worse, the stability of the system was seriously reduced.
I complained to a friend who sometimes programs windows apps. His advise was "Windows is inherently broken. Nothing you can do will make it any better."
A simple UI, probably copied from windows is only a start. It's ok for casual users, and converting windows users, but it frustrates people who wish to learn and grow into hackers.
A good windowing environment should have simple set of defaults, with a rich set of expert functions available. That way, as curious users become more experianced, they can turn on more things. After they've grown up to be experts, they can still use and like the interface.
A perfect example of a user interface that cannot support experts is ms windows. It's moderately easy to learn. However, there's nothing beyond the beginner mode. People familiar with more sophisticated window managers quickly become frustrated by the lack of common functionality like good icon control, root window menus, fast cut and paste, focus follows mouse, raise-lower, and key bindings.
A good user interface should allow (encourage) the user to "play" with it. They should be able to customize everything. Then they should be able to manage and share those tweaks. In particular, it should be possible to switch between alternate saved configurations on the fly. It should be possible to post those personal configs to the net, and for other people to easily incorporate parts that interest them. Configurations should be commentable. Both simple and complex example configs should be available with the software.
Every site is different and customized. When a site is well layed out and easy to use, people come back; if not, they don't. Skins or themes are key to the web browsing experience. How interesting would the web be if could only use a couple of fonts, a handfull of colors, and a few structure tags?
The saying "Beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone" is true for applications. No amount of chrome will make a bad app usable, but it can make a good app more fun and appealing.
As for Suck. Their web site doesn't look like anyone else's... Isn't that going to cause readers problems?
I might be a total idiot here, but I think that the whole "usability" thing is pretty much a load of crap. What seems easy and intuitive to me might seem downright *wrong* and confusing to you. We always hear about designing interfaces that are so easy that my mom can use them, well lets face it, everybody's mom is different and what seems easy to my mom might seem hard to yours.
Lets face it, there is nothing very intuitive about a computer to someone who has never used one. So we learn how to use them and the interface "becomes" intuitive.
Now lest anyone get the wrong idea here, I'm not saying that haveing some common things doesn't make it easier for all people, things like menus and minimize/maximize buttons in the same place... but overall I think the usability argument is mostly a matter of opinion and opinions are not right or wrong, they are opinions.
I have a friend who had had a computer for a couple years now and he still gets confused when I tell him to "right click" on something, or to click on file->edit from the menubar. He's not a stupid guy, he just can't wrap his brain around this whole computer thing.
And quite honostly I really don't care much for the look of the netscape 6 preview, but I really don't see how it could be any more difficult to use than ie5 or netscape 4.72. Then again my standard disclaimer is that I might be a total idiot... I really don't know.
Skins are only good for one thing, to look at them. I've been drooling over screenshots of themable and skinable applications, windowmanagers and wingets.
Once you start having themes and skins in the desktop:
1. You never decide which is the good theme or skin for the next hour of work.
2. If you have different themes for different applications colors and skins clash... Change themes, download skins, test, tec...
3. You never find the correct shade of blue for window titles and the correct gray level for the buttons.
4. you end up with 10^8 themes and skins and spend hours browsing them (see #1).
Well, i could say more... but this is enough
i think...
Jbv
Netscape has a consistent UI .. across platforms.
One of the goals of Netscape (and Mozilla) has always been to produce software that runs on a large variety of platforms (Windows, Mac, Unix, Linux.)
If you view Netscape as a type of platform itself (which it is, really) then Netscape does have a consistent UI - it looks, feels and behaves the same no matter where you use it. This is very important for this type of software - it means that someone who uses Netscape at home will automatically feel at home if (for example) the touch-screen shopping guide terminal at the shopping mall uses Netscape for the interface. The same applies to whatever new device chooses to run Netscape.
If Netscape used the native UI for each platform, you would have exactly the problem the article describes - that the interface of the software would change all the time - only this time the UI would change whenever the user went somewhere else, rather than whenever the user changed skins.
Thus if you consider the needs of Netscape in this sense, having a consistent default UI for Netscape is extremely wise and very good for the customer. (To make this argument you have to assume that Netscape was intended to become pervasively used in a world filled with embedded devices running Netscape and computers running a variety of different OS's and not just Windows. This is not an unreasonable argument to make in terms of Netscape design decisions, since that is what they originally wanted, but it will probably never happen, MS is just too powerful.)
The only way to solve this is to come up with one single global standard for a UI, and then for everything after that to model itself after that.
I doubt this would ever work. Microsoft would reject it like they reject every other standard that isn't their own. Linux geeks would reject it because they like ultra-configurability of interfaces.
Rebuttal points:
# 1: In many of these cases, such as Winamp and anything hacked with Renovator, the functional and positional UI doesn't change. One of my complaints about the Winamp skinning implementation is that it doesn't go far enough: all you get to do is change pictures, and you don't get to change location, type, or triggering of functional elements. a0 gave users that aspect of UI redesign but without the benefits of skinning.
# 2: All user-customizable programs -- like Winamp and Emacs -- ship with a standard, default UI. If the user doesn't change it, this is consistent. It is up to the individual user to tweak the UI settings to their own likings, and those changes are (should be) limited strictly to either the user who developed them, and/or others who think they will benefit from them.
# 3: Skinning and UI redesign is meant for power user customization. Anyone who used X extensively before the (evil, IMO) days of Gnome and all the *DE's should know the joys of UI customization. So should power users of Emacs.
The ability to alter the UI to one's personal liking and maximum efficiency is a benefit that computers brings to us. Limiting all users to the same UI is cathartic and autocratic. The ability of a power user to define the terms of his/her own human-computer interaction is one of the greatest ways that computers help us perform tasks better, easier, and faster.
People who use my computer get confused because my desktop icons are "wrong" and my taskbar is in the "wrong" place. That may true for them, but not at all for me, and I configure my computer for my better use, not for theirs.
And perhaps if they knew more about customizing their user interface, their computer(s) would work better for them, too.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
voidzero wrote Shouldn't we get more UI designers to read and use the subtle wisdom of Edward Tufte.... Well, speaking as a UI designer (amongst other things), I have read him and admire his work. So do most other people I know in the UI field. The problem is that UI designers are usually not involved early enough (or at all) in most software projects, and very often not at all in open-source projects. Good UI design is hard, like good software design is hard, but too many hackers (and I'm a hacker too) think that UI is about skins and graphics, not about the deeper considerations of how a user interacts with the software, what controls it affords and how it presents state.
ben_ the technologist and platform agnostic
I am apparently in the minority here, at least among the moderated-up posters... I love skins. I use them constantly. Why? BECAUSE IT KEEPS OTHER PEOPLE OUT OF MY SHIT!!!!!!
When my computer-illiterate roommates and girlfriend sit down to steal time on my box at home, I want them to be scared shitless of the interface. Sometimes I even go so far as to set up cryptic menu commands that do nothing more than call up harmless xmessages asking whether they really think doing X is a good idea.
As I'm sure many people in the slashdot community do, I spend the better part of my waking hours in front of a computer, either at work or at home. I customize it for MY usability--not everyone elses. When other people start using my windows box, my stuff invariably gets lost, broken or deleted. At home thankfully the situation isn't that bad--thank god for permissions. All the same, I don't particularly care for my better half to be able to sit down at my running Xsession and "accidentally" find my email exchanges with ex's, etc...
My point is, skins allow me to make the interface something I'm comfortable with, something that scores envy points with my roommates, and something that keeps people honest. but even more so, skins are about the freedom to customize. While most of america may be content to sit in uniform cubicles staring at cookie-cutter computers all day long--indeed, this is a concept by no means limited to computer usage--those of us who desire independence should not be forced into a mold cast by the likes of bill gates.
I mean proper Unix, not some lame-ass slowed down version like Java. I'm a bit out of my depth here, tech-wise.
You need the ungraded Linux, it's up to 7.2 in some place, or 6.2 depending on your local government's level of interference. If you still can't figure it out, get the new emacs, my favourite is the red one.
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+&x
Guidelines are exactly what they claim to be - guidelines. Not rules. Not hard, set-in-stone requirements. Just guidelines.
As with the English language, if you know the rules, you can break them. You'd better damn well know what you're doing before you do it though.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I hear you, brother. When the privacy stink came up with RealJukeBox, I tried some other MP3 players, including WinAmp and MusicMatch. I wound up going back to RJB (after the privacy thing was sorted out) simply because it looked and behaved like a normal application, at least in full-size mode. Menu buttons with text small enough to fit on a grain of rice leave me cold.
The skin manager program hasn't been added to Mozilla yet, it will be coming before beta 2. But besides that, what Customize button are you talking about? I've got Netscape 6 PR1, and I sure as hell don't have one...
But what I'm thinking is that you can't always make "most" of the people happy.. If you did then Linux would have never came into existance would it?
It's not like most people (example: moms who are scared of computers?) will use Netscape any way right? I mean it doesn't come with the OS and IE does.. IE works fine so why bother? And if they are brave enough to get Netscape then they are brave enough to put up with skins or other features they aren't use too (ok so this isn't true in every case but you get my point)
(Of course if NS want's to get into the market of having their browser pre-installed on more machines then they need to learn how to target that set of customers etc.. Maybe a special skin for pre-installs? Who knows)
What res0 was saying leads me to believe that "skins" should not be a feature of netscape because if his mom some how accidently changes the skin she will be confused and not know what she is doing.. That's about stupid..
Oh and so what if Netscapes new gui isn't standard? What if the one they came up with is 10x better (once you're use to it) Should they avoid using it just because it will confuse NS4 and IE users at first?
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then...
Personally I would be pretty pissed if developers stop writing cool features such as skins into their apps just because a few moms are "scared"
I bet your mom would be scared to take a trip to the moon too maybe we should ditch NASA too.
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The reason that we have Skins and that nobody follows a standard (even Microsoft breaks its own guidelines) is because the perfect user interface has yet to be innovated.
Consistency is good for end users. You could create a skin that looks just like the standard X, but obviously no-one has because the demand just isn't there for that application.
Application GUI's need to be built for their target audience. If the target audience will be living in the application, then more guidelines can be broken as long as you keep an eye on the learning curve.
I for one know that if I only use an application once a year, I want it to be all spelled out in front of me with step by step instructions. A good example of this is when I setup my firewall, dns, and sendmail. These kinds of applications need GUI's that follow the standards very strictly because I don't want to have to deal with learning a new interface while I'm busy stumbling around trying to figure out what values I need to enter because I've forgotten what I did three years ago when I first setup my machine. (the skills are not revisited often enough and any special functionality in the GUI is useless if it isn't standard.)
NOTE: Under MS Windows this is not a problem because the machine crashes often enough to need reloading every six months. (and therefore I will remember whatever quirks are in the configuration GUIS)
However, when I use an application often enough, I don't need it all spelled out and there can be special GUI functionality that does not follow the standard. For instance, in Netscape is Ctl-N to open a new window. Does it follow the standard? No, but it is well known because of the amount of time that we all spend in Netscape.
Lastly, when applications have special, non-conforming functionality, we should look at the applicability to other applications and integration into the standard.
Sorry for the rant.
Josh
Plenty of projects, not enough developers...
Hrm...
This looks more like a hacker's theme for Windows than anything else like "Travel" and "Falling Leaves" It pushes those so-called limitations a fair bit as well. Myself, I'm a fan of simple/functional/out of the way.
The screenshot, btw, is from the GeoShell project. Google should find it for you, if you're interested.
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Following line: Good example of Fair Use.
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
How many of you have posted screenshots of your desktop on your website? How many of you lost slashdot purity points for doing so with a web browser open showing slashdot?
Guilty as charged : )
The idea is to make a program look different/cool. This should not be acheived at the expense of functionality or by breaking standard UI guidelines. There are a whole bunch of bad skins out there because people who do not know how to implement UI but have the artistic penchant decide to design skins.
MS has a good example of skins in their win 98 themes; each theme is different, but it does not mess with functionality. MS spends a lot of time on UI design and this shows in their themes.
themes.org on the other had is not a good example and granny should not be downloading themes from there!
winamp has a good many themes that do not mess with functionality.
Let good knowledge come to us from all sides
- Rig Veda, 3500 B.C.
I have to agree that all this chrome is fragmenting the market and confusing potential newbies.... But then, hey, what is (Linux|BSD|whatever) about?
Lets face it... We are geeks, nerds, and technophytes, and we want our stuff to look cool. Linux was made for fun -- the fun of saying "I am geekier than you", or as one of my friend's them states, "leeter than you".
We buy geek clothes from places like thinkgeek and copyleft, we hang out on slashdot to share our opinions (and gain karma...)... and on and on and on.
Yet windows backlash is creating a new marketplace, one full of people that want to get work done, not look cool.
How many of you have posted screenshots of your desktop on your website? How many of you lost slashdot purity points for doing so with a web browser open showing slashdot?
Get real, I say to us all. Chrome is for games, and for interfaces the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is rule of the day. Or in other words, if you want to use skins, make the default skin look like a normal interface, and let the geeks have fun customising it if they feel so inclined.
More Caffeine. NOW
They are for hackers until the skins and themes are easy to install. When all it takes is a few point and clicks they become mainstream quickly. Most "end users" I know tha thave used a PC for a little while change the way it looks drastically. Just ask anyone that does desktop support and they will tell you stories of the awful fonts and colors that people use and think look good. :) Every time I go see my mom she has a different theme and color scheme on her PC. These changes may not be as drastic as how "hackers" change themes and such but it's mainly due to limitations in Windows. If Windows could do what X does, no two desktops would look the same.
...is about Linux having no UI standard. That's a nightmare. I mean I'm the first one to agree that everybody should be able to customize their applications to look/work the way they want. But there are apps I'm not interested at all in customizing, because I don't use them really often , or simply cause I don't care. These apps should all function according to the same default standards. I should'nt have to waste my time customizing them to work/look the same way...
So this shows that, true enough, that Linux lacks a UI standard. The hard point about designing such a standard is that there's Gnome, KDE, plus gazillions of different window managers with each their own look and fell. That's good but it sure makes it a hard task to have apps following a default behavior. What's the solution ?
If future direction of applications is going to be web based (or browser based), who will decide how these should look like?
It's really very similar situation to a skins. Every web developer will choose (at least on some level) own way to implement things.
I think that's bigger issue than any skins. Skins affect only for the single user, but public website... Well..
.. unfortunately, the hard-coded link to the customise page is a 404 error! HELLO NETSCAPE! Isn't this what Quality Control is for? Somebody go grab the mozilla source and fix that thing please! =)
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' CitizenC
' WebMaster, PlanetQ3F
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For me, the "Customize" button is directly to the right of "Net2Phone" .. however, I didn't have a previous version of Netscape installed, so it didn't import any favorites or anything..
. html ..
The button itself takes you to http://home.netscape.com/bookmark/6_0b1/customize
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' CitizenC
' WebMaster, PlanetQ3F
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One of my mother's friends is a new computer user. (She grew up with a typewriter..) Well, not new -- she can find her way around a desktop and Word Perfect. She then discovered the wonder of desktop themes, and mp3s on Winamp. She began to become obsessed with customizing Winamp -- she insisted that her Winamp skin match her desktop theme (which she has mountians of.) She isn't a hacker; she just wants her stuff to look good.
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' CitizenC
' WebMaster, PlanetQ3F
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I don't want all my apps looking and feeling identical - because they're not.
No, the apps should not look the same in every way. As you say, they are different. But the controls should look, and be, the same across applications.
A button in one application should work and look the same as one in others. The same for menus, scrollbars etc and all the other basic building blocks. If you can't trust them, you will not get much done. Of course, if your goal is not to get things done but play around and have fun, that does not matter.
The problem you mention of separating out individual windows from dozens of others is a real one, and if skins helps that is good. I think that is more of an unintended side consequence of skins than the real reason people build them.
The first thing I do after each Windows setup is to go into Appearance and reduce the size of scrollbars and menu bars
or nix the buttons altogether and use keyboard shortcuts. but anyway, that is closer to rudimentary customization than it is to theming. personally, i think hideable toolbars are great, and MSIE has the right ammount of customizability.
i would like to say the following thing: "the mozilla guys should stop screwing around with stuff that dosen't matter and just make something as stable and fast as IE4.01." i would like to say that, but actually, i don't care at all. it is as painful to websurf in unix as it is to use the DOS command prompt. as far as i'm concerned, mozilla is so far behind that i don't expect it to become really relevant ever, ever again.
oh yeah, and one more thing: don't tell me why MS could only do it because they integrated IE with the OS, because i don't really care. as far as i'm concerned, that's a teriffic reason why they should be allowed to do it.
cheers,
sh_
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
I think Tufte is more of an information designer than an interface designer. There's a fine line between the two. But yes, Tufte wrote the book on visual info graphics.
Even if everybody was an expert at UI design you still end up with a myriad of designs that people think look or work best and are unlikely to work within the context of other skinned applications. That's why until recently OS shells had consistency as a primary design goal.
The company I work for is going a step further than skins.
We write web applications and let our users customize the HTML using XSL stylesheets. We license the XSL stylesheets we create under GPL to help encourage people to change them and swap their improvements with other users of our software. Users can upload their own XSL or select from a drop down list of currently available stylesheets.
We call this technology X-Face. X for XML, XSL, eXtensible. Face since a face is more expressive than skin. A face makes someone recognisable. And a face has character.
When it comes to branding products, they will be very interested because it will bring in more sales with less effort in actually making a decent product. When you're talking about business people on the back end of things such as middle management or b2b, they are likely to care less unless you're talking about intuitive as a means of more efficiency -- not waste of time in themeing your application.
Of course, general comments such as this usually have gaping holes in them.
He's wrong about ASP. You can write ASP in more than just vbscript. It's also not the de-fact standard for scripting, even on IIS (see java servlets etc. What he is right about, is standardization of desktop. The backend is irrelevant as long as the front end remains consistent. Of course, skinning and themes don't necessarily change the navigation standard. Now, if you want to provide a non standard UI setup in an application, it must be very intuitive or it is worthless.
I have to agree here. The real problem is un-intuitive GUI's (or UI's for that matter).
There is a difference between the way a UI should behave on an application versus a utility. An application is something that gets used frequently and for extended periods of time. It takes up a significant portion of the users time while in front of the computer. Because of this, the app's UI having total compliance to the operating systems UI is not as important as the user can be expected to spend a little time. The Mozilla/Netscape browser can be considered an application.
On the other hand, a utility is a program that is used infrequently and for shorter periods of time (like quicktime). It is a much larger sin for a program like this to not have a comfortable, conformant UI. Because it is used so infrequently, users don't have enough time to become expert users in an alternative UI.
My personal feeling is that a program should have as the default a UI that is compliant to the operating system that it is being used in. Just give the user the option to play around with it if they want to. I think that the UI in Mozilla isn't so radical as to be a large problem and the customizability that they offer through XUL is a great idea.
-FGP
I'm unfamiliar with DCOM, but DirectX and ASP are Microsoft "standards". DirectX doesn't even run on Mac, and Microsoft of course doesn't create a version for Linux. So what would be the point of game designers trying to use DirectX in their games for Linux? As for ASP, the browsers on all platforms work with ASP just fine. I believe though that to serve ASP pages on the server, the server needs to have Microsoft server extensions. And those extensions are only available whereever the hell Microsoft wants to write them for. If I recall correctly, they're available for Linux though.
I have yet to see where your argument holds water.
Problem is, there aren't any packages out for Netscape 6 that both look good and are fully functional. (By "look good" I mean not god-awful ugly, and the buttons are relatively small so the interface doesn't take up a large chunk of my viewing area.)
Customization is good and all, but it's not an excuse to neglect to make a good UI in the first place.
I don't really see how skins affect the interface really. The different widgets and components are specified by the underlying application.
Obviously for some users it will be confusing if the widgets all look different in different applications, but as has been said before, you don't have to use skins if you don't want to.
I think the real challenge is to get developers to stick to HCI Design principles: this is where many of the real mistakes get made. To see what I'm talking about check out the interface hall of shame.
... your very correct...
I've been doing lots of UI work lately, and although the Tufte books work fine for singular graphics, they really don't touch too much on interfaces.
Anybody know some good books on interfaces?
there is no thing
what else could you want?
Replying to my own comment, hmm. I/They've got it... Schizophrenia
Slashdot:
sad sloth or
dash lots
When I'm using Windows, I see one of its advantages being the fact that applications are somewhat consistent in its look and feel. The same is true for Macintoshes, though I don't like the implementation as much.
Frm should follow function, but only to a point. If I may be one to make a computer/car analogy, a Ferrari F-1 uld* look visually different from a Renault Twingo, but once you step inside either car, all of the dashboard controls should have some at least some semblance of consistency in design -- otherwise, the driver confuses the tachometer with the speedometer and that can lead to a bit of trouble. I think applications are like the dashboard controls...
I am not against skins, but I refuse to use them if they are controlled at the application level. My personal belief is that skins are a marketing racket for software companies, and the LocalYokel Law of Software is that 75% of all software is marketing -- I work for a company that exemplifies this...
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E2 IN2 IE?
There are several flavors of linux these days for Mac & I believe several other Unix based OS's can run on Mac's (BSD & BeOS I 60% sure of). They are not by the way 'lame-ass slowed down versions like Java' but they aren't 'true' Unix as 'True' Unix doesn't really run on desktop PC's & was never designed to. No overwhelming need to throw away your Mac (I would, but I used to be forced to fix them so I'm rather biased against them ;) ).
& DOS can be hard all told there were about a hundred possible comamnds (most weren't used day to day, but they existed). My dad still has thing she likes to do that require DOS & everytime I'm home I must reexplain how to run a program in DOS... Maybe one of these days he'll understand what I'm saying...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Actually my first response was to ask if it wouldn't be possible to have a skinning subsystem such that it is possible to write non-portable skins that actually _do_ use native widgets.
But perhaps I'm not clueful.
both Tog and the author of the Interface Hall of Shame think the mega-cascading-menu interface you're copying sucks. And they're right. So much for your contribution to the state of the art
Sorry, but I'm not copying the Start menu, but creating an application that hides itself on the edge of the screen -- a Win32 AppBar.
Thanks for playing.
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
From an everday usage point of view, the thing I most hate about Windows is the tendency for new windows to jump to the top and steal the focus. It drives me absoutely crazy, and yet, I have found no way of disabling the feature (if anyone knows of one, please let me know!!)
Upgrade to Windows 2000. When an app tries to bring itself to the foreground, Win2K intercepts the call and flashes the app's Taskbar button instead.
Of course, now there are a bunch of Win32 developers out there whining about this behavior, insisting that their app is so important it must pop up in the foreground, no matter what you, a lowly (l)user might think.
There is a way to code around this, so don't be surprised to see particularly bogus apps forcing their attention on you in the future.
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
Hrmm I turned off the sidebar the first time I ran it (menu=view|sidebar) and it never came back...
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Skinz are great! If I want something to look a certain way or if I hate the standard Windows interface (After using both KDE and GNOME, I do hate windows), I should be able to change it so I can feel comfortable with it and be more productive. I do have to agree there are some BAAAAD skins out there. WAY BAD! But if that person who created it likes it, then so what? I don't have to use it. Kind of goes along with the 95plus, 98 themes. Some of them are unusable because they have LOOOONG sound cues ( 2 seconds is too long for a menu click! 5 seconds is too long for a start up sound). The good themes are the M$ ones and the few people out there who get it (nice, short sounds, good looking icons, nice background, good color choice). Same goes for KDE and GNOME. It's weird, but my favorite themes are the ones who either emulate another operating system's look (like Aqua, MacOS, QNX or something similar), or the ones who start off with something similar, and subtly change the look (marble style buttons, different, but easily decernable widgets, or just different color defult widgets). Ones I HATE are the ones who totally try to reinvent the wheel. One example might be ones that add extra borders around the edge of a window (this can be done well, but 1/2 inch borders around the default SUCK...if your going to add extra, make it 3-5 pixels wide and that's it!). Another example of the reinvent the wheel type of themeing is Talisman for windows....UGH! YECH! Tried it cuz it looked cool, took it totally off the system because it was too weird to use for words (Must be why I hate web pages with clickable image maps...why would you click on a helmet for that.....it has nothing to fo with that except it looks cool when u click it....you get the idea). What we do need is a few, proud, theme creators to really do some good work. Not everyone can theme (I suck at it, now, but hope to get better). But I can tell what a good theme is and what a bad one is. New budding theme creators should show thier themes to as many people as they can before posting it for general consumption (some poeple say posting it may do that, but I think you should ONLY post your best!). That's what I plan to do....if your early ones suck, and you get a rep for being a bad theme creator, you may never get anyone to look at the stuff you do later. OH well, I am rambling, but I feel a computer is personal, especially one being used as a workstation. Also, with what we spend on computer parts and stuff, who has money to buy purdy pictures for the walls?? Decorate your desktop and screensaver with free purdy pictures for less...
Gorkman
If the above is not a link this time either, I guess /. has a bug.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Check out SoundPlay for BeOS, an MP3 player that uses the built-in interface or a WinAmp skin.
"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."
Visit
Pretty much. If you use the toolbox for your app, it looks like a Mac application. Furthermore, third-party add-ons like Kaleidoscope override the toolbox so they change the appearance of the standard items in all applications, not just one.
The pathetic thing about Netscape 6's "skins" is that the application doesn't respect my Kaleidoscope theme. Instead, it gives this ugly Windows-oid appearance. So to customize the look of this "wonderful, flexible, customizable" application, I can't just use the tool I already have - instead, I'd have to develop a special skin just for it, an imitation of the theme I use for the rest of the OS. If I want to switch themes, I have to (or someone has to) create a new skin too, just for Netscape. Imagine what it'll be like if every application decides that it's too good to use the system settings, it will have its own special customization language instead. Feh.
I find that the best programs are ones that can be used stock without any problems by nearly everyone while having a slew of features (like skins) for the advanced user to mess around with until his/her heart is content. Pegasus Mail has a good balence there, albeit isn't an example of a skinable program. Pegasus mail has a cute little wizard that sets up the email client for 90% of the users but has an option set that even MS outlook can't surpass (and this one has useful options). Too many options can ruin a program if noone can get the basic idea of the program without major help, snd in this case your program better be powerful enough to make up for the confusion. I've met people that pass up a program because it doesn't do exactly what he wants to do exactly how he wants to do it (read: didn't want to learn anything new). Now this sounds like it's a problem with the user; well look at all the people on WebTV because a PC is more confusion than they are willing to handle. Large market isn't it?
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
And that is one of the reasons I like Linux and don't like Windows. Windows forces me to use one interface that, while it may be "easy to learn", is a pain for getting complex tasks done quickly. Whereas Linux has... what, at least two different desktop managers and ten times that many window managers? So new users can use something like KDE they feel at home with, and more advanced users can choose an interface that does things they like.
Personally, the GUI is the easiest part of a new OS to get used to.
-RickHunter
Do you understand the implications of what you are saying? If you want it to look 'right' under each platform you're going to need a) a seperate, and probably significantly different code base for each platform. Smaller platforms like BeOS can kiss their version of Mozilla goodbye. or b) someone to develop skins for each and every platform and build each version of mozilla with it's corresponding skin as the default.(hint: B is the feasible one - but it would still take a bit of doing). I think the fact that it looks the same under all OS's IS a feature and not just marketoid Bu11Sh1t, it hints at a future where the OS that is running will be fairly transparent to the user. With the proliferation of net appliances in the near future it may be that the Joe Average User is using mozilla on a device other than a PC, and quite possibly without a clue (or a care) as to what OS the appliance uses.
I couldn't agree more. Usabilility is the key. I have no problems with the way mozilla looks. True, the widgets are not 'standard' for that platform but they still function in the same way. Pointing out (bitching) that Mozilla/Netscape6 doesn't look like a windows application on windows and a mac application on the mac is obvious and counter-productive. Of course they don't look the same. In order to keep the same code base for all the versions of mozilla they either had to either pick an existing os 'theme' and develop to it or make up their own. The choice is obvious. I think to decry the problems of mozilla looking 'non standard' on every platform is also to miss one of the big advantages. Mozilla looks the same on EVERY PLATFORM. I can switch platforms and mozilla will still look the same, no need to learn anything new to use it. On the topic of skins I think the Suck author is also way off. Skinz give apps an individual look and individual character. My toaster doesn't have the same "look and feel" as my television, but that doesn't mean I can't use them. If skins frighten you don't use them, if the program you want to use has no skins you find usable, or no 'default - no skin' option then don't use it. Many apps that use skinz do so to differentiate themselves from the crowd. If the crowd is where you want to be then go ahead.
The Netscape UI is a step backwards. It is a poor user interface with important and commonly used functionality hidden away or difficult to access as well as a lot of clunk tagged onto the browser.
My post was not criticizing the change but the poor User Interface design and the fact that more emphasis is being placed on skins and themes (eye candy) instead of on creating a usable piece of software.
Netscape 6 doesn't need skins, it needs to totally redesign the default interface. The UI has so many problems it is unbelievable. The most irritating of which are Home button reduced to 1 line of text and overabundance of links, sponsors, etc. that make it seem like on is browsing and carrying all of AOL with it from site to site.
What bothers me is that I have heard so much talk about how Netscape/Mozilla is working on this skin engine but almost nothing on UI design. The sad thing is that UI design is a whole lot more important than eye candy. Unfortunately, most hackers seem to be really comfortable with skins & themes while lacking in the fundamentals of how to design good user interfaces. Mark my words, Netscape 6's most difficult battle will not be with the entrenched IE market but with users who cannot aclimatize(sp?) to the different (from previous browsers) and unintuitive user interface.
Skins look nice, but when they are non-proprietary (i.e. sonique) they can get damn annoying.
WinAmp skins are nice because you always know where things are... The only problem is it's too damn small, the transparency sucks, and the file format is WAY too hard to do from scratch.
.sig:
http://siokaos.org/
I think you are mistaken if you believe that skins
could ever fix usability problems. If there are usability problems, they should be fixed in the app, not in skins.
For example, no skin could correct certain interface flaws in xmms. No matter what skin you have, the song title and artist is always tiny. The buttons on the playlist always have the same unintuitive interface, being buttons when they should be pull-down menu items.
Also, the user most susceptible to bad UI's is not going to be sophisticated enough to get a new skin, so making a skin more usable than the default is quite useless.
Not necessarily. I know lots of hackers that prefer their desktops to be swift and practical, not tinkery. I think it's a good sign if you're too busy hacking to bother with your window decoration. Most truly amazing hackers I know run whatever came up in their /usr/X11R6/bin first when they digged for window managers. Most will run away fast from E and friends, cherishing their precious CPU cycles for egcs instead.
Pi
but they do gain the users attention by going against the standards, Netscape 6 for example is much more noticable than ie because of its "new" look CodeKnight
"In the future, computer-using men will be the sexiest males." -- Scott Adams, "The Dilbert Future"
>Could that be because, oh, it isn't finished yet?
I don't think so. What I have in mind is the Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete context menu I get in pretty much any W95 app when I right click on an input capable field. This strikes me as an OS feature (correct me if I'm wrong). I can't do this in v6 as the default is not to allow it. This doesn't strike me as a not yet implemented feature.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
The best web browser interface I've used is MSIE5 for the Mac. I turn off all of the tool bars. The location bar drops down when i request it. All else is controlled by keyboard commands or programmed mouse buttons.
Did i mention that I hate toolbars?
Any UI designer worth their salt will have these books.
I saw that
Remember UI's should be designed around the task at hand. Great UI's help get work done. If you broaden your mind here are some Great UIs. Not all of them are 'designed': NTemacs Doom wikiWebs Slashdot (no, really) emacs JDE speedbar Python language Scheme language Squeak environment Photoshop 4 and up bash shell AutoCAD 5 and up Netscape 6 doesn't cut it. Looks like Quake with a blazer on. That damn barbers pole that hurts my eyes. No 3D cues. Skinning is defaulted. Slow as a dog (just what is it doing in there?). Still hasn't got bookmarking done right. Hasn't got newsgroup reading done right. Semantically overloaded back button. Primitive control over active web entities. Rollover circle lights are too hard to see. Why are they circles? No pop-up description of icons. The blue thing in the split bar lights up, but doesn't say why. Lots of other things don't light up and don't say why either. Two rows of drop down menus. No, wait they're actually buttons that lokk like menus, silly me. So those things on the bottom, they're...no...they're menus. Clicking on empty Go menu slots sends you to the home page. Irrelevant one time settings like char encoding at the top menu level. Vertical orientaion of tabs. Use of tabs for saving screen real estate not logical views. My sidebar, oh I thought it was someone elses. Build id is visible, who cares? Runs right into a padlock, that's logical enough. Half a ship's wheel is better than none. I suppose a pen is for writing an email...no, lets try the letter...um, lets just use IE or Opera, it has less problems. They got the preferences window right though. MacOS has traffic lights that are translucent jelly babies (Hi there! I don't the difference between stop and shut!), so it's open season on users I guess. Nobody cares about users, they're a problem not a feature.
I saw that
Can you understand why they're not interested? Business types are not interested in making things look 'cool'. But, you can spin it another way to get them to support it. "Imagine, business guys, you could have your design department customize this application and brand it for your company, making your corporate image even more ubiquitous within and without." Custom branding is the way to sell it to them.
This has always been one of my pet peeves with M$-Office. I'm happy to see that NS6 is going to join the crowd of applications that make my preferred color scheme not work on Windoze.
I prefer a light color (lemonchiffon) on a dark (black); it's easier on the eyes, and makes the screen harder to read at a distance. However, this color scheme tends to make M$-apps pretty unusable. I'm glad to know that NetScrape will also be unusable.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
if you can post a URL containing screenshots, please do. Otherwise, you could email some to me (remove the no-spam-today in my email address)...
Amazing magic tricks
Where's the necessity of having the Home button emblazoned on the screen taking up real estate when it can just as well be a singe clickable word at the top of the screen? The Print function wasn't hard to find at all, being that it's in the menu like all windows apps. As for secure indicators, look at the bottom right -- you'll notice the lock icon.
As for "frivolousness", you can turn practically anything you don't like off or customize it to your own liking.
My point is and has been that the user interface is badly designed and instead of focusing on skins and themes and whatnot, the Netscape team is should be redesigning the user interface to make it as usable as possible. Change is good but if it comes at the price of sacrificing a usable piece of software then one must wonder if it is worth it.
I have to reinterate, that usability and UI design is an entirely subjective thing. Some UIs may seem like a stroke of genius to some, but hideously overcomplicated ot others. The point I've been trying to make is that I think we're witnessing a shift away from established norms of UI design, especially to fringe stylings such as those seen in Mozilla. This /could/ just be a natural evolution for browsers to change to a more oddball yet customizable appearance. Who would have thought ten years ago that we'd see fruit colored computers?
Besides, the main advantage of skinning in NS6 is that if you don't like how it looks, go download the skin (someone has already made, actually) that makes it look like 4.72. Shazam, there's your archaic UI design. :)
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Well, my opinion on the design is that what looks good in an entirely subjective thing (maybe that's at the root of the discussion as a whole). While Mozilla may not be as graphically enticing as some people may have liked, I (personally) don't mind it, and I know that if I do ever get sick of it I can always look for some skins out there or design my own. It's definitely nice to have the option.
Regarding the suck article, I agree to some extent about not having to use skins. In this case though, I think that performance has suffered as a result of implementing that support; XUL has quite a large runtime overhead. Afaik, NS6PR1 doesn't have a lot of debugging code in it, so we won't see any tremendous speed increases on final release. I'd trade the skins support for a small, fast, stable browser any day.
I'll agree with you there. I tried it on my pathetically slow PC at home, and it crawled. But I'm optimistic that there'll be a significant speed increase between now and release. I'm sure they've already received enough user feedback to realize that most users are like yourself -- they'd rather sacrifice some nice features to have a faster, more stable browser.
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Yeah, but at least that's not a necessary part of the install. I'd like to see that ridiculous internet installer get thrown into the bit-bucket. Also an uninstaller might be nice. :)
Of course, the ultimately cool thing about Mozilla is the component model which means that we can write our own lightweight browser just using Gecko and ignoring all the other crap; I wonder if platform specific ones will spring up after release; would be cool.
Yeah, the first time I heard the size that Gecko can be pared down to for things like handheld hardware and such, I was definitely surprised. That Gecko is damn near a work of art.
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But people using programs like WinAmp and Mozilla have no choice! They can't even use a normal Windows or Mac interface if they want to, let alone having it as the default.
People can indeed choose a generic Netscape theme which looks like the same ol' Netscape they're used to using. That's what skins are all about really -choice.-Pato
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
I think that he was talking about new games. Next to all new (windows) games require at least DX6 and what comes to DX7 and windows 2000 I wouldn't embrace it yet (It surely shows some promises but at least with my hardware it's still even more unstable than win98).
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How about real standards like CORBA, OpenGL and PHP or PERL. What comes to sound OpenAL is very promising.
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I don't know much about DCOM and ASP, so I'm not going to argue with you on that.
:)
But I _do_ have first-hand experience installing DirectX on my box in NT. First of all, I have to run NT on my box because I have a Dual Celeron, so windoze 95/98 is out of the question. I use it for nothing but playing games. I use Linux for everything else, at least untill my TNT2 is decently supported, and Quake3 works on it (any tips that can help me do that would be greatly appreciated
Did you know that DirectX 7 does not work on NT? It was a pain to dig up an old DirectX 6.1 (which I could not find on M$'s webpage), and then waste some more time looking for DirectPlay 6.1a. But nowhere is that specified on the M$ webpage. They were saying that I should use ServicePack6 which comes with DirectX3!!! But Age of Empires2, the only reason why I needed it in the firs place only works with 6.1a or higher.
So much for MS "de-facto standards" and "ease of use"...
People are more comfortable with an environment they create themselves...I'm an artist and visually inclined, so the option to customize my stuff is something I enjoy. Like making my own little space there.
Winamp, I think, is something that really lends itself to skins because the default is so...Icky. QuickTime and Nutscrape don't really need skins, but then again, I haven't used them. Also, where in this argument do things like Litestep and Nextstep fall? Things that change everything about your computer?
-You're wearing...A bag? I have misplaced my pants.
Okay so here I am right at about six and a half years of computer use.
:)
That means I started out with MS-DOS Win3.1
Began using Win95 and Linux shortly there after. I have tried every window manager under the sun, I have made really purdy(tm) window manager.
Configurations in E, and tried theme after theme and all kinds of fun experiments and all, then after like a lot of thinking and my life moving towards something that resembles a professional career, I find myself searching for a reasonable look.
I dont need black granite swirling down my title's of my windows any longer just pass me a window manager with a highly configurable interface so that I can make my work time as productive a thing as possible, let me make it pleasing but not 'purdy'.
This is all opinonated but I seriously do not think in general there is a need for a lot of the flashy stuff in most WM's. Spend some of that time doing UI stuff and I think in general Window Managers would improve a whole lot. Sure Linux needs an image and 'purdyies' can go a long way to achieving this but I think there is a serious overemphasis on themes and there importance. I dont mind using themes in fact I find a lot of them nice to look at, but at some point I just found my use for things like that dwindling and my need for better interface and more ways to customize this increasing. Perhaps I am alone in these experiences but for configurability without flashy graphics I have found tvtwm, or fvwm2 with maybe pager to achieve more of my goals in work productvity and interface configurability than any other WM. Old school? Perhaps but I have not seen any major improvements in a window manager in the last 4 years and until I do.. I will stick with what works.
Jeremy
I could not agree more. In the worse case where all your applications are themable or have a different interface, you have a wonderful mess of completely confusing software for users. The time the average user loses going "Now what does this 'thing' (actually a button) do?" is unbelievable.
If theming has its place, its in the way its used in *IX/UX Window managers. Theme EVERY apps and controls, not just every application with a different look!
One of the things that actually made Windows VERY popular is that all applications look the same and behave the same (granted, Apple had this too). I'd rather not imagine what a desktop will look like when "innovation" is synonym with ruining every UI standard that's been developped over the years.
"I remember Y1K, every abacus had to get another bead"
So in the case of Mozilla you have absolutely no choice but to develop your own programming API from the ground up and implement it at the back end with your own widget set.
What I don't get is why you can't develop your own programming API and implement it with as much of the native widget set as you can. What's not there natively you do yourself, but wouldn't this still be less work than doing *everything* yourself?
In particular, what bothers me about Mozilla is not that it doesn't use my chosen GTK+ theme (although this is irksome) as much as that it just doesn't *work* as well. This is nothing against the Mozilla team's skills -- Gnome has involved many people working for years on just the windowing stuff -- but for them to think they could produce something anywhere near that quality as an afterthought to their primary development makes me wonder about their wisdom.
Skins aren't all happiness and joy, but there's one pro for them: While using a different operating system than usually, it gives a nice feeling of being home when you install skin/theme that makes the application or user interface to behave like your usual operating system.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
The first operating systems I've seen that come close to what you suggest here are MacOS and possibly even BeOS, depending on how it is configured. But when you add the ability to customize things, you add the ability for bugs. This happens with all new features. By standarizing widgets and controls, a software platform can give programmers a little help.
If only now we could have an extremely reliable, easy-to-use software platform with a small learning curve that had a standarized widget and control scheme but allowed the user to modify these... I'd be impressed.
uhh why have u got to throw the mac away to use unix?
Meesa think you taka me too seriously.
Yeah, you fool. Its spelled humur!
Hey, they might look cool, but do people really use them for their own benefit, or for impressing friends?
It's the PC equivalent of taking a rusty Ford Escort van (1.1 litre), painting it vomit yellow, adding big wheelz and turning it into a rice burner.
Jeff
stty erase ^H
Eh, I gotta agree with you in general, but Windowblinds extends functionality:
the "always on top," "always on bottom," and "roll up window" (don't know how to better describe it) features that about 1/3 of the default shipping skins have is a cool feature that I wish MS would implement.
I still quit using WindowBlinds, however, because bugs in the software made it difficult to perform basic maneuvers like the double-click to close...
I think the main problem with the linux desktop is the lack of a coherent widget library. Yes, both QT and GTK are there, but we have no one that is head and shoulders above the rest. Gnome has become infinitely more usable in the past year, giving GTK a good stable desktop environment to work around, but its still a bitch to get gnome to work on anything besides Linux. QT and KDE on the other hand seem to work well on all *nixes. But you have the problem with the QT licence (even though its supposedly Open Source compliant, its still nowhere near as open as a GPL/LGPL licence), and the fact that until KDE 2.0 comes out, that its nowhere near as customizeable as GTK/Gnome. Each has its pros and cons, and until one clear winner arises, a coherent Linux/*nix desktop won't be possible.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
That isn't Arial. It's MS Sans Serif. Except in MS Office, of course, where it's Tahoma. Or in 16-bit apps, where it's MS Sans Serif Bold. Or in Windows 2.x apps, where it's Fixedsys.
I'm using Windowblinds myself, the Elegant 2000 theme. The buttons/menu headings are inside button pictures that are brighter than the rest of the grey interface and thus are easy to recognize. The titlebar of the window has the same three buttons w/ extremely similar icons. The new items are on the left of the titlebar, those being a pushpin icon to force the window to always stay on top and a windowshade mode icon. The title of the window is centered and in yellow text over navy blue, making it easily noticeable.
The theme doesn't break conformity from the OS, it only slightly changes the feel of the windows and buttons (and scrollbars if you are so lucky). The added functionality (which I'm extremely thankful for) does not replace any of the current standard stuff, it is instead added in a place where there's normally nothing to clearly show there is something different.
I've had my parents use my computer with ease and they knew right away what the new buttons meant. I didn't have to explain it to them nor are they fantastically proficient (my mom still "uses the e-mail"). My mom really liked the ability to stamp down IM conversations with the rest of the family while she was writing e-mail.
This is an example of skinning done RIGHT. All the other crap is what you put up with to get stuff like this.
Please go climb back under whatever bridge you emerged from this morning, Mr. "experianced IT consultant". dmg pulls off the clueless idiot posts pretty billiantly, we don't need a spin-off "Dumb IT Consultant" guy.
thankyou
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
If you actually read more than a sentence or two into this item then it becomes fairly clear this is meant to be a tease rather than a troll. But then what do I know about humour (look I'm from the UK and can't even spell it).
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
Basically, UIs are to the 21st century what ink was to the 16th century, what type writers were to the early 20th century, and what language itself was to early homo sapiens. UIs are the tools through which all future communication is going to be channeled. Taken like this, I think we can already tell what will/is happen/already happening to UIs: UIs will go the way of the spoken word, the way of the writing utensil or the way of the type writer. We will neither have a single UI design governing all application nor a plethora of completely different designs. Rather we are likely to end up with some number of substantially different designs that share basic functionality (like, say, English and French) and still have room within themselves for variation (like British English and American). How will this happen? Probably through some version of natural selection (that includes things like Marketting, Monopolies, and other goodies that we have to deal with). This doesn't mean that we shouldn't emphasize good design, etc. It just means that we may already know the outcome of this debate.
the web site and I both like to suck
I can't believe there is no other gay person on Slashdot! That's unbelievable! If you are gay, e-mail me at aricmail@y
Can Netscape open source the interface so some people who are decent at interface design can fix this problem since Netscape isn't going to? I'm sure that some of us out here know what the hell we are doing in that regard. Someone should mail the people at Netscape "The Humane Interface" by Jef Raskin; at least then they can get a clue.
I don't know if all the source is already available but if it is and remains, I can't see how the whole world of coders won't extend Mozilla to be wonderful and great and useful and even easy to use by default including the inherited native user menu structures and color schemes ... fonts even... etc. and the coders will see that it is good... and the world will see that it is good and we will grow and they will grow and it will be good.
'features' may appear poorly thought-out from the start but you could be exactly wrong in assuming that the features weren't late inclusions to the project because they might be useful even if they don't integrate ideally at this point. I want to be as realistic as possible and it's hard to feel pessimistic towards open-source projects (even though many people routinely feel this way) since I still harbor hope that someday, I'll be brilliant enough to make it better... to fix what I don't like or even what I've heard sucks about it from other people. Maybe Perl isn't the best way to soup up Mozilla but it's a start. Maybe I've missed something but I hope not... er I hope that if I have, someone replies to me and is moderated highly. TTFN & Shalom.
-PipTigger
You hit a point, Microsoft has some "de facto" standard. The same "de facto" as Windows 98 is the "de facto" OS for PC, and Windows 2000 is the "de facto" OS for network server.
The problem with Microsoft standards is that they are standard controlled only by Microsoft, and often redundant with other preexisting standards. Redundant AND incompatible, it's something very important for them. Their equation is very simple: We provide "de facto" standard for something, we will made this thing to be compatible with a standard we just created and incompatible with other. Thus, our new standard will becoma a "de facto", and the previous one, which we weren't controlling, will be forsaken. As we are the only one to know the internal of our standard, our software can be optimized with undocumented functions, and other company's app will seem pitiful in comparison with ours.
For Linux to strive, it must not try desperatly to embrace and extend Microsoft. First, we can't. Second, it'll make Linux depand on Microsoft and, even if we wipe Windows out of desktops, Microsoft will find somehow a way to retake power.
What we must do is to provide open standards, not necessarily compatible with MS ones, largely documented and well designed. Developers will prefer to use them, and they will be port on every OS, include Windows. Sure, Microsoft can try to embrace and extend them, to include them in DirectStuff or ActiveThing. But we must force developers not to use MS specific extensions, AND WE MUST PREVENT MICROSOFT FROM DESIGNING A SUBTLY INCOMPATIBLE VERSION. I've wrotten once a Java program with MS J++ at uni. Later, I've tried to use it with Sun's JDK at home. No compile error, but the program was just not working. It was something that was processing a word to check if it was part of a given grammar, with JDK it was always returning false. I just give this as an example of Microsoft's tactics with standard: once you've learn something on their own slightly modified version, you'll be puzzled by strange bugs you weren't experiencing before when trying to port on original version.
Linus Torvald is not stubborn, he's realistic. Allowing Microsoft to control a part of Linux, by controlling a key set of libraries, is allowing Microsoft to change Linux into another Windows.
Hum. I think the article was about themes for apps. This whole thread become off-topic.
sigmentation fault
It will also mean it'll be easier to debug. It ought to be good also for the user, huh?
It will also mean, in this case, a clearer code which will take less space in RAM, and also less on the hard-drive. It ought to be good also for the user, huh?
And if the user isn't happy, s/he just have to re-code the prog to suit his/her own bidding! Real programmers only code for real programmer! Users are just clueless newbies who pollutes IRC with their stupid questions!
Don't worry, it's a joke.
sigmentation fault
Linux is not, and will never be, shareware. I bet you don't even have the slightiest technical insight about what you say, or that you just love to troll and be labelled as flamebait.
sigmentation fault
More simple to propose a default theme who looks like the standard, or to develop for desktop environments that handle themables widgets, thus you don't even have to write the theme engine yourself. Both GNOME and KDE now support themable widgets. If you want to develop for Windows, give a look at Qt, it's a GUI library whose widget can support themes, and the default just looks like the standard interface. GTK+ and Imlib have also been ported to Windows, and I think it can handle themes also (I don't have developed with them yet, but I'll be surprised they can't).
sigmentation fault
And Java's Not Unix (hum, not a recursive acronym); it's a programming language whose programs run on virtual machines (kinda like an emulator). It's however possible to have a true compilator for Java (I believe GCJ can process native code and Java bytecode).
sigmentation fault
FVWM 1.24 with a dark grey background works well for me. I've been using it for years, and have the hot keys for it embedded in my reflexes.
;-)
Heh -- you should see me on a Windoze box -- Oh, I need to go to desktop 4, I'll just hit ALT-F4. Whoops!
FVWM 1.24 is really small, really fast, (even compared to FVWM 2.x) and I can use it on all of the platforms I use regularly -- Linux, Solaris/sparc, Solaris/x86, and BSDI.
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Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I downloaded Netscape 6.0 "Preview" and 30 minutes later deleted all 30 megs of it.
Worse piece of UI ever ever made. Makes QuickTime platinum look like a danged masterpiece.
Worse yet, I actually adore IE 5.0.
Bill Gates 9/10 - Netscape/AOL 0/10
A fer-instance... Im using Mac OS 8.6. Why the h*ll does it not use the basic Mac scroll bars ? There are two types available proportional and fixed. They are user settable under Appearances. Get with the program AOL...
Why do we call GUI components like buttons and edit boxes "widgets?" Because they're supposed to be completely interchangeable and identical.
After your brain has seen a few dozen Win32 style buttons (grey, with a little beveled edge, Arial font with the hotkey underlined) you don't have to "see" the buttons anymore. Your brain recognizes them without even looking. Which is why it can be difficult to move to another GUI environment--your brain has to learn to recognize the new widgets.
Websites like Sony's are a good place to use skins, because Sony is trying to show off a high-tech look and feel. I don't do any WORK on Sony's website. I do work within Netscape, however, and so I need to be able to recognize exactly what the Back button will look like.
mozillazine redid their chrome section, chromezone
check the aphrodite one, it is *very* nice looking.
Don't be mean or my friend Oog will smash your head
But the problem is that only the users are making them.
--Baelmix
Do I look like I know? Someone told me that Unix was what they used in PC shops. I never even bothered with DOS (though given the calibre of dumbass that did use it, I can't imagine it was terribly difficult). Can you run Unix on Macs? I mean proper Unix, not some lame-ass slowed down version like Java. I'm a bit out of my depth here, tech-wise
-- the most controversial site on the Web
As you can tell, I'm not exactly a geek (I'm going by what I've gleaned from discussions here), but don't I need "BSD" in order to be secure, and Linux doesn't yet support BSD? As far as I can tell, only BSD keeps your data secure out of the Unixes, Microcrap is useless. And I've never seen anything about Mac security, but we've never had a problem. I would truly hate to be the guy who advocated installing an operating system that caused one of our deals to be leaked to the WSJ ahead of time!
It's not like spending money on hardware is a problem -- if we need PC's we'll just buy them. We just need something that can run WordPerfect and maybe Excel. Can I get a Unix with BSD that does that?
thanks
montoya
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Consistency of the user interface is one of the most important aspects of any complicated system in securing a dominant market position. If total domination is desired then consistency of a very high level is required to bring along the "technically challenged" that live among us. As to the application of choice in user interface design, the function I have most desired for some of my clients is an obvious choice to reset the user interface for an application to the default configuration (or some presaved config). I am constantly required to assist someone who is looking at their computer after the grandchildren have been to vist and they can't find the stock program. I encourage the customization of the interface as a way to build loyalty among advanced users, but don't forget to latch on to newbies and suck them in.
Personally, I am quite at home with Netscape6's UI. Sure it is a bit different from the previous versions, and of course a MUCH different feel than M$'s IE. But here on my Linux box... I feel quite at home with NS6. And let me be one to say that NS6 is VERY fast on Linux compared to the Windows or Mac versions. VERY FAST on Linux!
I'm personally fed up with all the hype surrounding "skins" and other little widgets. They're not necessary, and they really take away from the programmer's original vision. Why the hell should the USER decide what his program looks like? That just doesn't make any sense; they're not qualified to do that sort of thing. Does the average user have any idea about design and art? Of course not. And potential users for the program are going to see someone's display, and choose NOT to use that program because it looks ugly. Then I don't get paid, and I can't buy toast. My toaster gets lonely without bread, and eventually I pay the price. Have you EVER seen what happens if you don't appease a toaster? It's not a pretty sight. I still have the scars.
So what can we do about this? Well, for the past two months I've been protesting the use of skins. I have been gradually removing my own skin. It's almost gone now, with the exception of my left leg, which I haven't had time to flay yet. My bloody and raw-muscled face attracts attention, and immediately people understand the importance of leaving graphical interfaces to the people qualified to design them. Occasionally I pass out because of blood loss. Sometimes I wake up in places I don't remember going to in the first place. Like last thursday for example. I woke up in a gutter in Toledo. I don't even live in Ohio. I don't remember going to Ohio. I don't remember WANTING to go to Ohio. Something was quite definitely wrong, but I didn't let it get to me too much. Instead, I let the swarm of flies bother me. They haven't really left me alone since this project began. And THAT is an irritation, let me tell you.
So remember, the next time you see a skinless bloody freak walking down the street, or rather hobbling due to the swelling and scabbing which makes movement very difficult, DESIGN IS LAW!!!!
On the one hand they complain about the incredible flexibility that XUL gives a GUI designer.
...
Then they complain that it won't make the usability of the product any better, only worse.
Then they preach on and on about how GUI design is a fine art.
Well, to that I have to say:
1. GUI designers need good tools. With XUL, GUI designers actually *have* good tools.
2. If the program is unusable, people won't use it, and the program won't survive. It's that simple. If it is very user friendly ('usable'), then it'll stick around, and the GUI will have worked properly.
What they should have written this article about was the total flexibility that Mozilla gives in terms of user interface design, and what effect that will have on Explorer
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
(On a related note, I'd be more in favor of using the native controls if the ones on Windows didn't suck so much. Microsoft should see if Apple's usability lab people need work now that Apple doesn't want them.)
Why are media players so special as to require a gaudy, useless, and gratuitous "skin?" This is a "tradition" carried forward from the hideous "stereo component" UIs that come with the dreck that is bundled with sound cards. Does anyone have the spine to stand up and say "Who ordered this crap?" Are the people spec'ing these things at Apple and Microsoft such wimps they cannot question an idiotic decision made by designers much less capable than themselves? Faugh! I can't wait for the gratuitous "spine' on my e-books, and maybe cutesy "book marks," too. It's the "desktop metaphor" you dopes, not the "desktop regious fundamentalist literal interpretation."
Lazy, lazy, lazy. In fifteen years we cannot think of a better way to set margins than a visual analogue of a typewriter margin ruler? It makes you think PageMaker would squirt hot lead if it could. Or make you rub paste on your screen. And how about those spreadsheets that have not advanced significantly since Lotus made a half-hearted attempt at fundamental change (I forgot what it was called, but it made a lot more sense than equations hidden behind spreadsheet cells).
Clippy must die! And thank you for the letting me vent.
I wrote parts of this stuff
MDI has become deprecated since Windows 95. Supposedly, the UI should now be document-centric - hence the introduction of Explorer and the Start>Documents sub-menu.
Well, the idea that all applications have to look the same is the invention of Apple in the early Mac years (and least until Aqua they seemed to have a unwritten rule which said they all had to look ugly, too). I've always thought this is akin to saying that all movies have to star Tom Hanks so that people know who the hero is. I *like* diversity in applications and movies.
Ummm, so wouldn't using the themable widgets AND creating a 'crappy Microsoft UI theme' let you have it both ways without code-evil?
Nope. maybe you should go back and read the article, right where it said:
"Oh, sure, somebody will labor mightily to produce a skin that looks just like each native OS, and he or she might even come close to pulling it off. But close doesn't mean much in a world where subtlety and nuance actually matter. Common, native controls exist for a reason, and that reason is not to serve as a model for crude simulations."
Swing, the new UI package that ships with Java <blink>1.</blink>2 (and is also avaialable for 1.1), uses "lightweight" components for almost everything. It comes with a Windows 95-esque "look and feel", but it isn't the real thing. It doesn't feel like the real thing, and it doesn't quite look like the real thing. And if you mess around with your desktop settings, or upgrade to a version of Windows where the components look different, the emulation fails miserably.
That said, I would have nothing against a desktop that was "themeable". The main requirement is that the "themes" should affect everything. Why should my MP3 player look any different from my chat client? Sure, if I want different apps to use different themes, that could be an option. But my point is, the theming/skin system should not be in individual applications. It should be in the UI system itself, so the user can easily have a consistent look and feel to their environment.
GNOME and KDE are making some progress towards that goal. Unfortunatley, GNOME at least (I haven't tried KDE yet) still makes a distinction between "toolkit" themes and "window manager" themes. This is insanely dumb.
Of course, X's problem is that every frigging application uses a different toolkit, so all the widgets look different. And my window borders are rendered by yet another program. My desktop ends up looking like a garage sale, unless I'm very selective about which programs I run. Oh joy!
The UI of your typical X application is rendered by two things: the toolkit that the app uses, and the window manager. The toolkit applies its own look-and-feel, and the wm applies another to the border.
If users chose toolkits, they'd probably pick the one that was easiest to use, or most aethetically pleasing. Users don't choose the toolkits though, developers do. So the toolkit is often chosen because it's easy to program with (eg: KDE), available in the Developer's programming language (eg: Tk), fits with the developer's politics (eg: GTK+), or is some sort of "corporate standard" where the developer works (eg: Motif). None of these reasons matter to the user, yet the user is the one that's ultimately affected. Even if the Develper does try to select a toolkit based on usability (one or two of us actually care about things like that...), the developer's sense of aethetics and usability might not be the same as all of the application's eventual users.
So how do we fix that? In an ideal world, applications would merely provide functionality, with a UI that was specified in terms of what they want to say to the user, and what they need to know from the user. A user abstraction layer (UAL), so to speak. The system would have a UI Manager (UIM) that would act something like a super-window manager. It would handle all of the things that today's window managers handle, but it would also handle the look and feel of window contents as well. The interface between the UAL and the UIM would be standardized, so that users could install a different UIM if they wanted to, and all of their existing apps would benefit from it. The UAL would also be standardized, so that numerous toolkits could exist for it. Developers could then choose any of these toolkits, based on what matters to them. Users could choose whatever UIM they wanted, and configure it however they please, knowing that their customizations will affect all of their applications.
So is that hard to implement? Yes. Is it impossible? I don't think so. It pretty much requires that toolkits have a fairly abstract view of the UI though. Many toolkits probably aren't abstract enough. It would also be important to be very flexible and extendible. If someone needs a new type of "component", it should be possible to add that to the system, without breaking old UIM's.
And exactly how sensible is it that I have to relearn a UI for every OS I use? Unless we standardize on a single OS (and who wants to do that?), this guarantees the balkanization of UI's for all time.
No one has really capitalized on the power of skins yet -- and they won't, until they become even more ubiquitous. But even so, suck misses the point -- having the UI for an application change across OSes is a bug, not a feature.
Of course, so is having the UI change across applications (unless the user has a good reason for changing it). In addition to giving the user unlimited choice, skins offer us a way to abstract the UI away from everything, including the OS. And the eventual result should be, after a democratic shakedown, a unifying UI standard across all platforms. Eventually, the user could probably not even have to be aware of which OS they're using -- as long as the UI is standard across apps and OSes, it doesn't matter.
The OSes had their chance to buy into this, and they didn't. (Heck, Mac could possibly have stopped this cold if they had freed their UI the way IBM freed the PC architecture. Maybe they would have gone bankrupt, so I don't really fault their decision -- but UI balkanization would probably have been a moot point.)
In fact, it seems to be accepted dogma that you have to totally rearrange your UI every upgrade, or users won't think anything's new. Skins give us the opportunity to stop this silliness. Think Aqua sux? If you had the power that skins and XUL promise, you could reconvert to OS 8 with impunity.
It's not got any kind of centralizing authority, and that probably needs to change. But maybe not yet -- the most advanced stuff out there is XUL, and it's not ubiquitous enough. It might still be time for experimentation on the best way to implement skins, until a broad consensus arises.
Then it will be time to come to a consensus on the most usable interface, independent of the ideal OS for a given application. And that will be that, except for occasional innovations (and perhaps the Next Big Thing(tm), when we finally name a successor to WIMP), and optimizations for the way certain people work. (I expect graphic designers could benefit from a slightly different UI than coders, for instance.)
At least, that's the best-case scenario to suck's worst-case. The truth will probably fall somewhere in the middle, but skins offer real potential to improve usability as much as they do to trash it.
phil
If you need low-color XMMS, go to the xmms.org skins page and grab XawXMMS. It only uses two colors (black and white), blends in with other Xaw apps, and is quite readable on 2-bit and 8-bit displays. There's also a Gtk+ skin floating around somewhere that makes XMMS look like a standard Gtk app, it would probably do OK on an 8-bit display too. Of course, you don't have to use XMMS, there are a lot of more "basic" MP3 players out there that don't do the eye-candy skinning and visualization that XMMS does. The music sounds just as good through mpg123, and it doesn't waste CPU cycles or colormap space on effects you don't want.
0 1 - just my two bits
One of the reasons so many of us chose Linux was the freedom to manipulate our UI environment the way we wanted to.
I do not really see the fuss about choice versus cutomization. Why? Well, the choices given do not confuse the newbie because they can stick with the default views if they care to. How many people do you know that still have the plain jane grey winamp skin? I know a lot of folks that are stuck in this view.
The idea that we have gone too far with allowing the customization of UI in the operating system or various applications is one to ponder but for only half a second. As long as the functionality remains the same then changing the look of different buttons and such is not a great big deal.
The real annoyance in my opinion is how radically different the actual functionality of buttons and options are under many GPLed apps and window managers. That is a major annoyance for the casual or home user. Unless, I want to go completely KDE or GNOME in my choice of applications then I have to go through the time of re-teaching the shortcuts and such to my wife so she gets the full functionality out of the applications.
She could just hunt and peck her way through the app but believe it or not there are home users out there that work on computers all day long that prefer keystroke shortcuts and want to be truly proficient in the use of their applications.
Skins are not an issue. The real issue is that under Linux at least there are so many divergent development tools that no one application looks, feels or acts the same. Many times the apps do not even bother to work together (can anyone say cut and paste into oblivion?)
The debate over development tools becomes even more complex. KDE in my opinion is too windoze like. Other people swear by it and say that development is easier than Gnome. Other people love the GTK tools and I personally like the look and feel of the GNOME apps a lot. Then there are developers using a hodge podge of various tools from all over the GPL landscape each with their own strengths. I love the OpenStep, GNUstep NeXt feel but the apps just are not as robust as some of the GNOME alternatives in terms of their feature set.
With no all powerful company calling the shots on look and feel the desktop with be a tough frontier for the Open Source community to take. However, none of us want one company calling the shots so the whole thing becomes the complex mess of GTK, KDE apps living in conflict with wx, xform and a half dozen other development widget set and tools to make apps.
ACK
Sorry, but this article sounds like a bunch of crap. First it starts ranting about being "
:)
buried in toolbars, insulted by assistants"--now, I don't claim to be an expert in this area, but after having to use a great deal of MS products where I last worked, you can get rid of those toolbars and assistants. So what is he bitching about here? I agree the assistant is annoying, and almost nobody likes it, but you take away those toolbars users are "buried" in, and they start crying that they don't know where to click.
Then he starts bitching about X widget/wm themes. To me, this is totaly different. I don't need slack-jawed, knuckle dragging, mouth breathing, protohuman lusers insisting that I can't change the way I interact with my computer. Yes I use X; yes I use E, and I do have it themed. And there is almost no left-clicking, center-clicking, or right-clicking involved. I've set up most everything to work with the keyboard, and it is 10 times faster. So woe to the man who wants to get work done. Sounds like this guy thinks that if someone themes X, that theme then infests everyone else: "But who are we to judge if someone's got a thing for nubile teens? Unless, of course, the desire to serve that fetish starts to interfere with our ability to use the damned software." And he links to a winamp skin, bitching like someone is forcing him to use it.
Then he starts complaining about Mozilla. "But on another level, Mozilla is an unmitigated usability disaster. Running on Windows, Nagivator 6 looks nothing like Windows. Running on MacOS, Nagivator 6 looks nothing like MacOS." Now, while I agree on some level here that it would be more favorable for Mozilla to pay attention to some systemwide theme, one has to remember that it is supposed to run on many platforms--putting in code to make it look like every OS it runs on would be impossible. And last I checked, the fact that it doesn't look like the rest of my X apps didn't make it hard to use. It may be ugly right now, but it isn't hard. Personaly, I'm just glad I won't have to stare at Netscape 4.x's ugly face for much longer.
Sounds like whoever wrote this article just downloaded some shiny new app for his doze box and couldn't find his local geek to help him figure out where to click.
This sig is false.
Haha! I love it! A backfired troll! You even followed the troll how-to by proclaiming yourself an "IT consultant", mispelling Linus Torvalds and praising Microsoft. You should have followed its advice and gone off the deep end in your last paragraph instead of saying something fairly true. B+ overall, but try harder next time. The moderation gave you bonus points, but you really need to generate some replies.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
I find this article a bit self-contradictory.
Because you haven't quite grasped the point of the article.
The author complains about skinnable apps because it allows people to make skins which are usually ugly and it complains also that Apple did a bad job for its Quicktime4 player.
See the contradiction?
No.
The author's point is that we're seeing an increasing trend towards bad UI design in general. Skinnable apps are bad not because someone can write bad skins for them, but because the coders don't seem to put any real importance on the UI. A user shouldn't have to tweak skins so that Netscape 6 is usable on their system.
I personally think the best quote in the Suck article is:
My fondest wish for Linux GUI apps (and this isn't a "Linux needs [X] to win the desktops" or "Linux will never be adopted commercially if they don't do [X]" -- though I think it would help a lot):
Consistent keystrokes for menu commands. This was Apple's bread-and-butter on the Macintosh. Command Q always closed an application. Command-Z was "undo", command-X was "cut", command-C was "copy", and command-V was "paste". Command-S was "save", command-W was "close", and command-P was "print". Were these intuitive? No, but they became intuitive through consistency. I remember when Mac trade magazines would dock applications for not adhering to the standard Mac guidelines; I hope they still do.
Should I have to remember if an app uses...
...to close an app?
True, I think also that many skins sucks. So what? The author who created it must have liked it otherwise he/she wouldn't have released it.
Hmm. Wasn't it Lazarus Long who said "Writers who read their work in public may have other nasty habits"?
Jay (=
I find this article a bit self-contradictory.
The author complains about skinnable apps because it allows people to make skins which are usually ugly and it complains also that Apple did a bad job for its Quicktime4 player.
See the contradiction?
If the Apple's app was skinnable, it would have enabled the users to customise it at will, so they wouldn't have complained as much.
True, I think also that many skins sucks. So what?
The author who created it must have liked it otherwise he/she wouldn't have released it.
With some kind of ratings of skins on websites, it allows people to find easily popular skins, and one could imagine websites which would "link" skins ie "you liked skins X for this app, have a look at skin Y for that app, you may like it..".
In the end what matters is that the default look and feel of this apps is good and that distro makers include for each apps a handfull of really good skins...
What I would like also would be to choose a skins as a base and to be able to tweak it at will with a simple point-and-click utility.
for me, a graphical utility makes more sense for tweaking the appereance than a command-line, but both are NOT mutually exclusive.
My favourite quote from the the article,
The year 2000 is going to be 1983 all over again, with user interfaces a confusing mish-mash of whatever strikes a coder's fancy the day before the product ships.
This really does sum it up, UI seems to right a sine wave. It goes from really crappy interface to a fairly decent and standard one back to a crappy one. At first the developers want it to just work without being pretty, then they want it to work and be pretty, after the pretty stage they go to gaudy because they want to test some sort of artistic mettle and be original. Theres also different kids of users to screw things up, people just learning a program want a simple interface thats easy to use (basic), more advanced users want all the buttons and widgets they can, while real power users want the starkest yet functional UI because they are on the clock. I like my UI stark yet functional and upfront.
On topic but a tangent, what would happen if someone ported GTK (or Qt) to Windows? I mean if it were possible to port it would probably be a boon to everyone. If you make a program thats ported to several OSes you could have the same UI for each of them meaning professional environments could more easily make a transition from one Unix to another or from Windows to Unix or however you want to do it. Besides that the GUI library would be free of charge which means lower development costs on said piece of software. Oh well, I need to do a make.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
XMMS would be much better without skins. Even an option of not loading a skin would be nice. If you've tried to load XMMS on 8bit display you'll understand...
I'm always amazed at the crap that gets produced for kaleidoscope for the Mac. How many people *really* want a bright pink window border? :)
Actually, the thing that amazes me is the amount of time that people take to make their MP3 player skins: just how much time do you spend *looking* at your MP3 player? IMO, the best GUI is the "invisible one": once you learn the few basics, you should never spend any time looking at the GUI, just using it. So, I find the vast majority of skins and themes quite stupid: they all force the user to look to much at the pretty graphics and distract from simply using the damn computer. Though I did make myself a desktop picture, simply because patterns weren't doing it for me anymore.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The Linux desktop, Gnome, has some odd features...
GNOME is not the Linux Desktop(tm)! This can be easily refuted by the presence of other equally popular desktops, and the fact that GNOME runs under non-Linux systems as well.
What is needed is a simple, easy to learn and intuitive UI
Yeah, GNOME is working on it. They're getting closer. (they may already be there, I haven't used GNOME in a while...) But in the meantime, look at KDE/Qt. All the applications have the same UI, hotkeys, menu structure, etc. (unless the developer chooses otherwise). Even a vanilla Qt application looks and feels like a KDE application.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Until the article writer actually uses the skins option (which isn't available in PR1),
Skins support is available in PR1, but is a bit flaky. I got it to work with the Sullivan skin from Chromezone with the usual command line :
netscp6.exe -chrome chrome://sullivan/content/
Doesn't work perfectly (menu options are messed), but at least it gives a more pleasant view than the ridiculously ugly default Mozilla skin (doesn't Netscape have a single decent graphic designer in the entire company?)
Regarding the suck article, I agree to some extent about not having to use skins. In this case though, I think that performance has suffered as a result of implementing that support; XUL has quite a large runtime overhead. Afaik, NS6PR1 doesn't have a lot of debugging code in it, so we won't see any tremendous speed increases on final release. I'd trade the skins support for a small, fast, stable browser any day.
Personally, my team and I are currently working on a cross-platform XML representation that uses NATIVE widget sets with platform-specific code. My ideal crossplatform app is one which renders in the native window manager (win32, gtk, qt, whatever), and not a cross-ported effort. Just looking at a GTK-win32 app gives me the shivers; it just looks so out of place.
I'm sure they've already received enough user feedback to realize that most users are like yourself -- they'd rather sacrifice some nice features to have a faster, more stable browser.
... at the moment, the default browser is pretty bloated ... I dont _want_ a mail client, a news reader, Instant Messenger, blah blah in my browser.
Yeah
Of course, the ultimately cool thing about Mozilla is the component model which means that we can write our own lightweight browser just using Gecko and ignoring all the other crap; I wonder if platform specific ones will spring up after release; would be cool.
For me, it depends on the time of day. In the daytime I prefer light backgrounds, but dark backgrounds are too dark. In the night, I prefer just the reverse. So I've settled on light backgrounds.
;) ?
Perhaps people who prefer dark backgrounds use their computer a lot at night
I absolutely hate MDI, for the same reasons you seem to like it. I switch between apps in windows using the alt-tab feature, and I really like the way it sorts items by last use. I generally don't even have to look at the icons, much less read the titles, because I unconsiously remember the last few apps I used in the order I used them. Really handy skill when you've got half a dozen xterm/gvim windows open from a seperate unix box.
MDI kills that, because every application has its own way of selecting documents. And some of them don't even have keyboard accelerators. I absolutely despise Word for this. What makes it worse is that you can't easily tile documents side-by-size, only top-bottom, and because of the MDI nature, you can't layer a Word document over/under another window without the whole app layering over/under it.
Virtual desktops are the more elegant solution to the problems you describe. It gives you more screen real estate, and it doesn't require one to learn every MDI app's window management techniques. In MDI apps I tend to maximize the top-level window anyway, so how is that worse than switching screens?
I wish I could do more customization with my Win98 (especially get rid of My Documents...
But you can! See this piece at Monkeyland
Its always sad to see people misinterpreting whole ideas this way. Themes, and web design, have originally not at all been about developer control. It has been about taking control over design and layout out of the hands of the developer and putting it in the hands of the _USER_. The theme developers usually understand this, altho the web developers seem to have some difficulty grasping the idea of the users deciding what their page looks like.
The USER is the person doing the interaction with applications and webpages. That is who should ultimately control how things are presented and how the interface works.
Real operating systems have user accounts which can be set up any way the user wants. Ideally, you should be able to just pull your setup with you and have the same UI in another place, whichever OS happens to be running. YOUR UI.
an elitist. Just look at this article's disparagement of the aesthetic taste of the average user.
After over ten years of hearing pretty much the same homilies, I have to ask the question: Where are the success stories? Now that Apple has abandoned its own HCI guidelines, where are the systems that can be held up as whole examples of UI excellence (and I don't mean a screenshot of an individual dialog box)?
I think a lot of the things the UI purists tell us are worth listening to -- how can you be against consistency? How could making an interface manifest be a bad thing? When is clutter beneficial to the user?
But I've pretty much had it with the attitude of most self appointed UI gurus, who don't seem offer the average person anything other than a sneer and an extended palm. They have no right to be contemptuous of the Mozilla intiative, which is working hard to accomplish something positive.
The tools now exist to put their money where their mouths are. Why don't they put together a UI snob's Linux or BSD distro?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
>MDI is, IMHO, not a suitable interface for anything at all.
That's not a very humble opinion.
IMNSHO, MDI is very useful to avoid screen clutter. As a programmer, I often need to switch between viewing/editing a dozen or more source files at once, all as part of the same basic task. If I had each of these documents in separate windows, they'd be overlapping every which way and I'd go nuts trying to find the file I want. Virtual desktops don't offer a solution either, because these files are all related to the same task and I'm not going to split the views for one task arbitrarily across two screens. A simple tabbed-MDI interface provides the only reasonable way for me to manage this scenario. It's the same interface that generations of emacs programmers have used happily and productively, even if they never called it MDI.
Personally, I'd rather live in an all-MDI world than an all-SDI one, but I can accept that both have their place. Perhaps you can explain to me why it's A Good Thing to have a bunch of separate top-level windows instead of hierarchical windows, because in general I find the former a pain in the ass. Virtual desktops give some but not all of the benefits I derive from MDI, and generally strike me as a mere kludge to make SDI a little less awful, when a solution to SDI's problems already existed.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
>I don't, in this case, see how a tabbed MDI interface is much better than a tabbed SDI interface. In fact I've seen many Windows users work exactly like this; all windows maximised, and switching between them using tabbing or the taskbar.
When I referred to a tabbed MDI interface, I meant something much like the taskbar provided by the application (EditPlus) rather than using the Tab key. I want to be careful of comparing anything to bad SDI here, but the main reason I can't really get the same effect with virtual desktops and the original taskbar is that the original taskbar has some pathologically stupid behavior when it comes to things like clicking on the icon for a window that's already open but not frontmost.
>What MDI - in full, subwindow mode - does is to restrict the control I have over placement of windows, by confining all windows owned by one application to a rectangle, which itself obscures everything under it.
Well, yes, that's kind of what MDI is all about. I don't find MDI very useful except with subwindows maximized, and I can't recall seeing anyone else use it much that way either. Seems to me that it reproduces the original screen-clutter problem in a much smaller space, which only makes things worse. Again, this is a matter more of implementation than approach.
>With MDI, you're limited to grouping by owner application. I do not often find such grouping terribly useful.
Yes, this is a problem/limitation, which brings us back to the "one window, one application" fallacy. In a more component-based approach, such as a web browser or DevStudio, it's much less of an issue because components (rather than applications) which perform multiple tasks are allowed to coexist harmoniously within one frame and don't have to each open their own top-level windows to interact with the user.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
First off, I've already explained how MDI solves the particular problem I face better than virtual desktops do. It's a common problem. I'd think it would be hard to argue that virtual desktops are better than MDI without addressing that scenario, but I guess that here on slashdot anything is possible.
>MDI kills that, because every application has its own way of selecting documents.
>...
>What makes it worse is that you can't easily tile documents side-by-size, only top-bottom, and because of the MDI nature
This sounds like a complaint about _poorly implemented_ or inconsistent MDI, not with MDI in general. I could create an SDI application that pops up 18 different windows to perform one task, and it would be every bit as annoying as MDI could ever be, but that doesn't invalidate SDI in general. Comparing well-done SDI to poorly-done MDI doesn't prove much of anything. The Office apps are notorious for flouting MS's own interface guidelines; despite their prevalence, they're not good examples when discussing the _inherent_ advantages or disadvantages of MDI.
This is why user-interface guidelines are a good thing. Such guidelines often don't so much say "do _this_" as they say "_if_ you do this, do it _this_ way" so that the user is presented with consistent and predictable behavior.
>Virtual desktops are the more elegant solution to the problems you describe.
I'd say about equally elegant, and then only when VD works (which it often doesn't on Windows, where any number of programs seem to circumvent the hooks that VD code relies on). More in a moment.
>It gives you more screen real estate
No, it does not. My screen is still exactly the same size, capable of displaying exactly the same amount of information simultaneously.
>In MDI apps I tend to maximize the top-level window anyway, so how is that worse than switching screens?
That's sort of my point: that virtual desktops and MDI are mostly interchangeable. If people - including Microsoft, adhered to UI standards in implementing MDI, much of the reason for having virtual desktops would go away, especially since you can have as many MDI windows as you want but very rarely is the number of virtual desktops dynamically changeable. The only thing VD can do that MDI can't is allow windows from multiple separate programs to be grouped in a workspace, and even that wouldn't be much of an issue if plugin/component interfaces were more commonly used. We could have some fun discussing the "one window, one application" fallacy that underlies much of the MDI vs. SDI debate, if we want.
An interesting question might be: how much would you like SDI if you didn't have a virtual-desktop crutch to lean on? Personally, a system without either MDI or virtual desktops (which I have also used for many years, BTW) is significantly less usable than a system with either one. We're really arguing MDI vs. virtual desktops, which is a fun exercise, but not really the same as comparing MDI vs. SDI.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
>For one thing, there's an index to all toplevel windows, the taskbar
...which gets filled up rather quickly if the user has even the slightest ability to multitask. At that point the icons in the taskbar become indistinguishable from one another (which one of these telnet windows is on the test machine I need?) and the only way to resolve it is to use a multi-row taskbar - sucking up more precious screen space.
>M$'s idiocy in tying focus to stacking order
Interesting. The other pro-SDI advocate seemed to like this behavior.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Even though skins are in a way quite lame - having pictures of cheese on you gimp does not look good - they are a byproduct of good code. The fact that GTK can load a theme engine, which shapes & color all widgets is quite a feat. The fact that we have a gui toolkit which doesn't break applications when themeing them just shows how good code there really is underneath. True, we should put more effort into GUI design, but that is no reason to squash themes.
I personally don't like themes with pixmaps etc. they either look dumb or you get bored quite fast. But hey, the truth is that some people like windoze scrollbars, some people like motif scrollbars, some like gtk scrollbars. The fact we can change fonts, colors and widgets cat not bad a bad thing.
It might look like the default Windows theme but it doesn't behave the same at all. My mother prefers the 'rainy day' colour scheme and Mozilla's theme can't be expected to understand that. Following the base windows UI there is a chance (on that platform) that blind users/visually impaired users could get spoken what each button does via reading out the tooltips - but with each bit of software having it's own way of themeing it does limit scope.
Considering Mozilla's Gecko is entirely seperate though, I see no reason why Netscape/AOL can't just embed their rendering component into a windows interface as an option.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
With regard to the lack of Linux examples on the sight (I can only recall one), this certainly has nothing to do with lack of material. They are Windows users primarily, and not many Linux users send them examples. If we all started sending Linux examples to them, I doubt that they would be able to keep up with the volume.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
I doubt that this will be true, generally; although a very few exceptions may turn up. The people who like skins are not generally those who value UI consistency highly. I, for one, am part of the latter group.
When I'm looking for a new app, I deliberately seek out those which use gtk because that's the primary toolkit I use on my system. The look and feel is just how I like it and I can control that globally from a single preferences dialog. I don't want an application-specific skin for each program on my system.
Back when the Mozilla project made the decision to use gtk as their toolkit, my reaction was, "Great! It will fit right in with my system." But then they went and invented their own widgets. What's the point of using gtk (I'm not sure that they still are) if they were just going to scrap everything about the toolkit that made it useful?
Now I understand that they are using the gecko rendering engine to make the widgets and menus and such. And that's cool and modular, but it's also bothersome and inconsistent. Take a look at this and see if you can find the application that looks out of place.
I can probably find a skin to make it look and feel like the rest of the system, but it will probably do so imperfectly. And why should I have to? Everything else follows the look-and-feel rules I'v established without my having to go find a workaround to make it behave.
[As a side note about the default Mozilla/Netscape skin: Does anybody else miss the back button history, which allows you to go back past the previous page that just redirected you to the current page? Just an example.]
In the end, all I can do is sigh and wait patiently for someone to take gecko and develop a http thin client which does only web browsing and does it well. Not one that also wants to be my mail client, newsgroup client, address book, and web publisher; I have other applications which do those things well, and I don't need or want a web browser that soaks up many megabytes with duplicated functionality. I wish I had the spare time to develop such an app myself.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
The general theory is that some people don't want to use their computers for anything except reconfiguring and customizing software. Occasionally those people run out of things to do and do something productive. But do we really want this kind of person being productive? Who knows what drivel they'll produce. Skins are an ingenious way of preventing such idle hands. What we need are more skinnable applications and more skins. Perhaps someone should write a robot to pull images of the web and generate thousands of skins. This will keep skin-happy people busy even longer, downloading, installing, and deleting, and generally out of society.
All this bemoaning the death of consistent GUIs neglects one thing.
Users are already exposed to an infinite number of themed interfaces;
they are called web sites.
No one expects websites to have a consistent look and feal. In fact,
their variety is one of the things that makes the web such a vibrant
place. By adding configurable eye candy Mozilla is simply blurring
the distinction between the web and the desktop.
Let's face it, if something CAN be done -- someone will want to do it. In fact, a whole group of people may find they like it.
Give people the choice! X Windows 4.0 should already have skinning capabilities built in.
Instead, it's going to have to be an add-on and further fragment the desktop/window-manager world.
Do I want my desktop to look like a scene from Star Wars? Not all the time, but it is cool when I'm in the mood. Having my computer configured the way I want it does increase my productivity.
About that mother that is scared of change, I say so what? If they don't want it, don't make them -- but I do, so I should be able to.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
I don't get it. I've used Netscape 6. Yeah, the scrollbar has a little = in the middle of it. So what? The buttons change to a solid box when you move the mouse over it. So what?
Everything works the same! You press the left mouse button on a button and hey, it does what it's supposed to do.
I fail to understand how everyone equates it to a "new GUI OS". If someone can't figure out that a scrollbar with a = in the middle of it works the exact same as one without an = in the middle of it, this whole planet is in trouble. Everything works the way you'd expect it to. Or, at least, everything works the way I expect it too.
And to be honest, I kind of like the "different" look. It seems alot more crisp that the sloppy Win32 gui.
I thought I must be the only Linux user who hated skinable apps!
I use Linux all day every day. And I want my display to be as clean and as clear as possible. I want my widgets instantly recognizable, equal in size, and consistently laid out.
Don't get me wrong, I am quite happy to change my GTK theme or Enligtenment theme occasionally, as long as everything remains consistent (and clear - why are most of the Enlightenment themes unusably dark? Too much late night hacking? The Sawmill selection seems better). But I usually end up back at Default, because Netscape 4.x and Xemacs don't use GTK widgets, and Default looks closest to their native appearance.
Gecko I love. But Mozilla and Xmms insist on making their own separate (if mutable) identity and sacrifice usability by smothering themselves in decorations which don't reflect the rest of the UI.
Xemacs has the right idea - you customize not the appearance, but the functionality. I want to add buttons to mozilla which turn off images, or disable cookies, I don't want to change what the buttons look like.
Fortunately they are open source. When someone writes a conventional GTK frontend to gecko, I will be first in the queue to beta test, or maybe even code if some of my other projects let up.
Yes, the solution is to either get some human factors experience or hire some people who do, and can design a good UI.
From there, the developers should work to the standard of the customer/user requirements documents (i.e., user manuals, screenshots, prototype interfaces [you're creating them during the process, RIGHT?]) instead of the developer requirements documents and manuals.
Otherwise you may get something that seems intuitive to a group of technically minded programmers but completely misses the mark on customer requirements.
"On the other hand, themeable individual apps (winamp, xmms, etc) seem a bit daft to me"
The standard user interface in an OS may be counter-intuitive to the normal user when considering the ease of use paradigm in many applications. There are many examples of this for strict "everyday consumer" type applications, which use non-standard interfaces, but are more intuitive than the standard operating system interface. Of course, they often hide the power of complexity to improve ease of use.
Example of this are, Adobe PhotoDeluxe (www.adobe.com), MGI Photosuite - Videowave (www.mgisoft.com), anything from MetaCreations (www.metacreations.com), dreamweaver (www.macromedia.com), etc etc et al.
I have a touchpad. Its right and bottom edges are programmed to control programs' scroll bars. I think it is cool. I don't have to move my pointer to drag the scrollbar. My wrists don't hurt as much. They don't work on skinned scrollbars. I don't like that. If that isn't a problem with usability, I don't know what is. I can't use tab and space combos to move around controls, check and uncheck chkboxes, do stuff with dropdowns, etc. Sometimes some functionality like arrow keys are imitated. Sometimes they are not. They could have used real controls. They could use callbacks to change the appearance of them. If they had done that, all our fancy hardware would still work. All our shortcut keys would still work. We would all be happy.
After reading the article, I don't really agree with it. If someone wants to have teeny tiny dark blue print on a black background that's their own perogative. I think more customization is a GOOD thing. I wish I could do more customization with my Win98 (especially get rid of My Documents and Temporary Internet Files) and according to things I've read, it seems that MS is getting rid of some customization that users used to have (I always rearrange what's under the start menu to have just 5-6 folders with just the executables - I don't need a folder for EACH company, in addition to all the READMEs and Uninstallers they want to put under there. Even if they close up folders you don't use very often, it still isn't how _I_ want it to be.) Once I get sick of all my windows games, I'll put Linux on there...
Anyways, I don't think that all your applications HAVE to look and act the same. Who is the Grand Pooba of interface design who says that all the applications have to look like Microsoft windows? Just cause MS designed it doesn't mean it's so great and then some. Just because I use Windows doesn't mean I want all my programs to look like Windows. I think that other companies CAN do it better than MS can, so what the hell, why not try?
"nobody wants a hammer with racing stripes and a horn."
Maybe YOU don't... a horn might be interesting, and racing stripes would probably ensure that your neighbors wouldn't steal it. My mom has baby blue spraypainted tools.
MY computer is MY computer.
It was an Honest one though. I don't think I have any Humble opinions. ;-)
(Blimey. MDI can open. Worms all over floor.)
I don't, in this case, see how a tabbed MDI interface is much better than a tabbed SDI interface. In fact I've seen many Windows users work exactly like this; all windows maximised, and switching between them using tabbing or the taskbar.
This does not meet my needs.
I also work with many source files open at once, plus documentation, man pages, and so on. To program efficiently, I need to keep more than one open at once so I can edit one whilst reading information from another. This is what windowing was invented for, and a single-window-tabbed interface, whether MDI or SDI, just isn't good enough.
What MDI - in full, subwindow mode - does is to restrict the control I have over placement of windows, by confining all windows owned by one application to a rectangle, which itself obscures everything under it.
(an AC wrote:)
Having used WMs that obey this, ones with separate stacking order and focus, and ones with focus-follows-mouse, I'd have to agree with this. Many's the time I want to enter something into a big text window or something whilst looking at information in a small informational window positioned on top of the main one. Windows MDI makes this situation even more common.
(It also probably makes things considerably harder for the novice, as positionable windows within positionable windows can get terribly confusing.)
I rather prefer using emacs in SDI mode though. That is, running more than one copy in X.
later in thread...
That's an interesting point. I think the difference is that with virtual desktops, you can choose how to group your windows, by project or task, and easily start doing some task on a different virtual desktop without affecting the others. With MDI, you're limited to grouping by owner application. I do not often find such grouping terribly useful.
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This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
Gimmie a break. I guarantee you, at the last company I was at (600+) I was the only person who knew what the hell GREP was (although the funny thing is, b/c your Mac comment, it was unsing grep in BBedit on the Mac)
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
"In my opinion, those people who most use themes and stuff of that nature are the kind of people who enjoying using their computer for hacking and learning. Those who just see the computer as a tool for typing documents are not
going to go mad over a pretty new widget look. Therefore, those that are most likely to use themes are the most likely to adapt to the changes without any problems."
You know I haven't written a single really good program (I think that's the definition of a "hacker") and I like pretty things. I just have a shitty machine that dosn't like me at all. Dosn't like to work well, and generally can't handle all the really cool things that people like to do nowadays.
I figure by the time I actually get a machine to do decent theming and such all of the world will have moved on. One of the things that I notice is that even though I have a 256 color compatable X server I don't get all the nice little effects and such (transparent gizmos, non-grainy pictures, any sound, etc).
This is not for a want of use but because people generally set their sights too high recently.
Computers have I think generally betrayed mankind into forcing various aspects of humanity to become much, more difficult and at the expence of functionality.
Also it seems like people like to also do a lot of configuring out of distribution. That really is bad news. In general to get all of the function out of linux you have to sit there and download 50+ Mb of code because it's not in the standard distribitions. Then you end up eating up your space with that wonderful 100Mb source package that you needed for that one little tic-tac-toe program.
Over at themes.org (as it cited in the abstract of the article on the main page) they are using an alpha/beta version of blackbox that apparently seems to not be in the standard version of debian. Also themes are not really in any distribution except a few basic simple geometric/color combinations.
I do more on my computer than just typing documents (that's why I like xemacs and not vi). And I would like better support for my machine. Personally I like svgatextmode and the like to make the console better (however the author betrayed that little program). I am now able to get a very nice small font on my console (132x80x8) with a gr8x6. Works well except for some wacky problems with long lines that spill over and overwrite the beginning in bash.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
No.
That *is* a problem with skinning as a implementation, but *not* with customizable UI as a concept.
Sure a skin can make my desktop look more "mine" but that is only skin deep (pun intended). Skins give me no chance of configuring what I really want to change, like keyboard shortcuts, tab order, defaults etc.
Those things are not as easy to configure as a simple bitmap and what's worse: A skinned application makes it harder to really configure anything, since the visual aid (skin) might not be compatible with the altered functionality. (if a button says "Play..." but it's keyboard equivalent is "L" for example)
Skins are a fun add-on. Let's keep it at that.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
I suppose it depends entirely on what the individual considers to be important functionality. If you're talking of items normally found on the browser window which have been removed, well how many times did you click on that Shopping button?
Here's a screenshot(bitmap) of Netscape 6 for windows. You will notice that besides being jam packed with options everywhere for every bit of frivolousness AOL can throw at you several key browser features are gone or in hiding. E.g. the home button is reduced to a line of text in the midst of other lines of text, there's no print button, it jars with the rest of the OS by looking like a glorified Java app, and no visual indicator to show if a site is secure or not. These are things I spotted after using the browser for an hour or so. After a while it got so irritating I switched back to Netscape 4.72 & IE 5.5.
My point is and has been that the user interface is badly designed and instead of focusing on skins and themes and whatnot, the Netscape team is should be redesigning the user interface to make it as usable as possible. Change is good but if it comes at the price of sacrificing a usable piece of software then one must wonder if it is worth it.
The article mentions Netscape 6 as an example of skin usage gone bad. Exactly how do people form opinions on an option that isn't even implemented yet? Until the article writer actually uses the skins option (which isn't available in PR1), I wouldn't put too much faith in it. On a discussin of interface design, stagnation is never a good thing. Ok, sure Netscape 6 is a huge divergence away from standard browser design, but my personal opinion is that this is not a bad thing at all. In fact I actually find the design less cluttered and therefor more usable than before. You can use or not use entire sections of the window as you see fit, and remove them if you don't want to. Again, there's choice involved here.
--
*Please note I am not a UI/GUI programmer, so most of this thinking is from the position of using the apps*
Consistancy among apps is important but I think the reason that there is none is because the computing world hasn't come to an agreement on a best UI. If there was such an agreement, there wouldn't be such a problem. I think THAT is the real problem rather than skins. Skins/Skinnable UIs, especially the ones that seem to remap keys (which is what they bitch about in the fourth paragraph) are more of the search for the best one. From what I've experinced with Skins/Skinnable UIs, I consider them a good thing. I use KDE as my desktop and I routinly browse kde.themes.org for good themes. I'm using Photon, while my brother uses Matrix on his box, and we're both happy. I have no problem using his X, and he has no problem using mine, although they look quite a bit different. The simple fact is that yes there are going to be REALLY bad skins. This author is complaining about skins for ICQ that ruin the UI. There have been skins that ruin the UI of the program since Winamp started the trend ( or someone else, the point remains the same ). Some people use skins because they DO want their DragonBallZ pic over ICQ. Thats part of why skins are so popular. This author cares more about using the program than it looking cool. That is their perogative (sp). I feel that way also. The answer? Don't download and use skins that do that! I'm sure there are PLENTY of skins that look cool and don't ruin the UI. I have one for winamp, Xmms, KDE, so I'm sure there are plenty of them for ICQ. In the extreme that there isn't, you can make your own! If you're not an artist you can contact the author of one of the skins you like and ask them. Thats the point of opensouce -- no only can you do things yourself, you can talk to people that can help you with things.
-- What doesn't kill you hasn't tried hard enough.
OK, I'm going to throw my opinion into the ring, even though I slept in today and there are already too many comments on this thread for anyone to give a shit.
Sometimes Suck is right on, and sometimes they kind of miss the point. In this case their core argument is pretty sound, but unfortunetly they sort of missed the idea that no one is forcing users to download an ugly skin. Furthermore, the reason there are so many skins out there in the first place is not based on "the whim of a developer"...developers usually don't make too many skins, rather they are generated by the users based on demand -- that's right, demand -- if no one wanted to have their entire desktop look like cheese, then we wouldn't see 5000 cheese themes.
The main problem is that UI design is mostly subjective, but UI "professionals" want to make an objective science of it. It would be nice if we could decide on absolute tenets like "All Widgets Must Look Alike!", dub them the 10 commandments of UI design, and then hunt down and shoot anyone who doesn't conform to them, but unfortunetly life doesn't work that way. The Open Source scene, which most clearly reflects the user's UI desires without interference from focus groups or marketing teams, is indicative that different people like different things. People still use vi for God's sake -- and don't ever, EVER try to convince them to stop using it because some self-labelled UI "expert" said they need a scrollbar to be productive. Likewise, it's true that Netscape won't look the same as your native OS widgets, but on the other hand, Netscape will always have the same L&F no matter which OS you're using, so people who dual-boot won't have to learn two interfaces.
Furthermore, it's true that OSS people generally consider standards to be a good thing, but theming everything is an effort to help create standard desktops, not the other way around. For example, most E themes nowadays have an accompanying GTK theme...if you use both at the same time, then your entire desktop looks coherant (except of course for that ugly copy of Netscape 4.x...blech), and more importantly you chose what you wanted it to look like.
Which brings me to the most important point, which is why themes exist in the first place. Put simply, regardless of whether or not really ugly plain grey widgets increase usability (I think you'd be hard-pressed to prove that they do), they're still extremely boring to look at. If Suck had their way, we wouldn't be back in 1983...but we might make a pit stop in 1984, with slogans like "User Unhappiness is Usabilty!". Obviously the users are getting bored with the same drab widgets all the time, so who are we to tell them that they can't have their way?
Well, that's about all I have to say...oh yeah, read OSHate.com! Have a nice day.
-W.W.
"Well it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology...
Now, see how long that user can survive in a web where stupid designers set background color to white while allowing the user to keep their preferred font color (which is white, in this case.)
Might be worth noting that ie5 corrects for black text on black backgrounds and similar crimes against common webdesign sense. I guess you could call it a feature...
Don't ask me how I know this
Real hackers don't give a damn about themes
I don't think thats quite true. Although I'm not sure if I count as a real hacker, I care about themes. The problem is that there aren't any themes designed for me.
My demands are different from most other people's. I want to have as little screen space taken up with title bars, menus, taskbars, launchbars, winebars as possible, as much of the control as neccesary pushed to the sides, and I want it to be very fast and responsive. I also want to have immediate access to any application I might need. When I use a different app that does something similar to the one I'm using Iwant it to be usable in the same way. I want a text editor and a word processor to have the same keyboard shortcuts. And for some reason I can't find a desktop theme that suits me. None of my demands are about the aesthetics. Just the ease of use.
a) the type of software you are writing
Bussiness aplication should be standardized as much as possible, tools and "fun" programs should be more tunable/configurable.
b) the type of users you are writing for
What is the target audience of your software:
Bussiness type users or hackers/nerds: there is quite a difference in what they want and use.
"are ignoring visual and interface standards that users have come to rely on"
What standards, those in Windows, where every program defines it's own standards?
For a very good site on GUI design and common errors therein, look here br
You're completely wrong, of course. Like all other GPL'd software, Linux fully satisfies the ShareWare Foundation's "ShareWare Definition[SM]. It's a bit inexact, but not a falsehood, to refer to Linux as Shareware. Check the Jargon File if you don't believe me.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I was recently involved in marketing a configuration management tool to some CEOs of a fortune 100 corporation. When I showed them the cool GUI customization features, they seemed uninterested, and in fact kept trying to change the subject onto the boring nuts-and-bolts issues. They did not seem to understand they could make the app look really cool, and customize it however they wanted.
Anyway, we are now questioning whether the development investment required for "configurable GUIs" is actually money well spent.
We may even try marketing our next tool by stressing the elite hacker nature of its command line interface.
thank you
dmg
As an experianced IT consultant working on a research project on the small but growing phenomenon of "freeware" projects, as exemplified by Linus Torveldes operating system Linux, I read Slashdot for insights into the "open source" community.
My professional view on the matter of UIs is that this fragmentation of interfaces is very bad from the customers point of view. What people want is a great, innovative UI, sure, but they want it to be the same for everything they use. The Linux desktop, Gnome, has some odd features which require users to think carefully, and many of Linux's applications break these rules to implement their own.
This situation is intolerable from a customer's perspective. They do not want to have to relearn a UI for every application they want to use, and they to not want some of the so-called "features" which Gnome supports. What is needed is a simple, easy to learn and intuitive UI such as Microsoft's Windows UI, which is constantly innovating whilst remaining simple to use and consistant. Until Gnome comes up with something equivalent, Linux will never succeed in the marketplace like Windows has.
All I want is a consistent user interface. If people want to skin and customise their browser, more power to their elbow. But what I happen to want right now, more than anything in the world, is for Netscape 6 to have standard Windows menus and buttons (or standard KDE menus and buttons if I'm at my Linux box).
Sure, if I had not grown out of my penchant for late 80's Pop Will Eat Itself album covers, I'm sure I'd love the "new" Netscape 6 interface (well, I would if it wasn't as slow as a bucket of sick, that is- on my P500 I drag my mouse across the menus and they all momentarily open at once forming a horrid Java-like mess).
As it happens, I want to be able to sit down with new software and use it straight away with no nasty surprises. If I learn how to use Notepad, I'm 99% of the way there to learning Paint Shop Pro or any one of thousands of Win95 applications. With Netscape 6 it's like learning a whole new GUI OS all over again.
If someone REALLY wants to force a skin down my throat by, AT THE VERY LEAST I WANT THE ABILITY TO TURN IT OFF AND GO BACK TO THE DEFAULT GUI/OS SKIN.
Yay, open source rules! But so do standards. Nescape/Mozilla chrome sucks!
Oh, and it would help if Netscape 6's cascading style sheets actually worked properly (try changing the colours of A:LINK.FOOBAR and see what I mean).
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Yes, I know that, but since when has writing applications been about the developer? Shouldn't it be for the user?! Whatever is good for the USER is what should get implmented.
Maybe people who are used to UI inconsistency are fine with the Mozilla interface, but as a Mac user, I expect my applications to FEEL like Mac applications. I don't even mind if the buttons and text fields look different, but they need to feel consistent, and the UI in Mozilla does not.
The Buttons are tolerable, but the way Mozilla ignores my text-highlight-color setting, the way its popup menus work and feel, the ugly use of Helvetica in the interface instead of optimized-for-screen Geneva, etc., really bug me.
I've always been a huge Netscape supporter since I've always liked the page rendering "feel" of Netscape better than IE, but if this is where Mozilla is going, I'll have to switch to IE. I understand the ease of cross-platform development brought on by XUL, but it is not, to me, worth the crappy interface.
But people using programs like WinAmp and Mozilla have no choice! They can't even use a normal Windows or Mac interface if they want to, let alone having it as the default.
I think the way to do things is to have the default look use the standard OS widgets, then have the option of using skins if you really want to.
Now that's one of the funniest things I've read on slashdot.
Too bad I cannot moderate.
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
Anyways, onto my original rant. I like skins, I like that you can change the UI easily, sometimes without any programming effort. It can let people who know UI focus on UI. UI is the most important aspect of a system. If the user can't use it, the application is worthless, regardless of what the app can do.
The great thing about themes is that the people who want to use them can, and the people who are afraid of them probably don't even know they exist to begin with!
The problem with Netscape is they are planning to have a default theme which breaks current GUI standards, thus leading to possible confusion for the latter group.
I think Netscape has to (and really already has) two points:
1) Making your program look flashy gives the impression to the newbie user that your program is somehow "futuristic" and better than the competition without really getting under the hood (sports car syndrome).
2) Giving your program a flashy look may confuse newbie users and give IT managers headaches having to retrain their users.
I think the default skin Netscape chose is at least intuitive enough so (2) is not a very large issue. One of Mozilla's major strengths is its support within the hacker community, which is rewarded with the ability to make it look whatever f'ked up way they want.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
The basic principle of all UI design has been for years and years Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) or reductive design to give it an academic name. Anything on the interface that does not add to the information is detracting from the information so should be removed. Some people will bitch and moan that it doesn't look "pretty" and they nicely fall under the heading of "Well I Like It" WILI design.
Look at slashdot, bugger all colours, a few Icons for information and basic basic tools. And guess what its pretty much ideal for its target audience. Take a "Tomy" toy for a 4 year old. Big and Bright with easy controls. Take the TV Remote, some people have got only 6 buttons on theirs. Simplicity IS an effective interface.
On the other end of the scale is Themes, their entire concept is based around what looks cool, this isn't the same as an effective interface.
The Mona Lisa is a cracking painting, but it sucks as a User interface.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The interface problem with Mozilla/Netscape has nothing at all to do with skins!
The problem has everything to do with the difficulties of building a large, complicated, GUI for multiple windowing systems. The only way to get fully native look and feel for each operating system (those that support such a concept, that is) is to hand code the interface for each system.
This, in turn, leads to several subproblems. The most obvious is that you need the staff to code for each of these platform. This problem is fairly well solvable in a commercial shop where you get get all the GUI programmers in the same room with the developers. But with Mozilla, everyone is both a code functionality developer as well as a GUI developer. It is hard enough to find people qualified to work on Mozilla, but can you imagine if they needed to know multiple GUI programming systems as well?
The first reponse of the clueful person will be to ask why an abstraction layer to the native GUI is not possible. It is possible, and in fact there are several commercial packages that do this. Unfortunately, you are stuck with the whole lowest comon denominator problem. Every feature missing from each windowsystem must be removed from the abstraction library, and what you are left with just reallt isn't usable. From a technical perspective, there are enough differences in API paradigms pretty darn tricky to begin with.
So in the case of Mozilla you have absolutely no choice but to develop your own programming API from the ground up and implement it at the back end with your own widget set. And once you've done this, it becomes trivial to make it themeable. Even the people that hate themes and think they are just plain silly must admit that themes and themeable apps have a great popularity which must be catered to.
It is unfortunate that it is so easy to draw the conclusion that the interface is as fubared as it is on Win/Mac systems just to obtain themeability, but nothing could be further from the truth.
And mostly I'm surprised that after almost 200 comments nobody has actually mentioned this yet (or if they did, that it has not yet been moderated up to level 2, a threshold I never read below...)
-p.
If changing some of the really bad GUIs in the Hall of Shame was as easy as a 50k download, how long would those interfaces last?
I suspect most truly bad UIs are due to programmers with little HMI experience or training. I know I was guilty of crap GUIs at one time. I'm better now I hope.
Splitting the UI from the actual code could be a great benefit. It should let the people with some talent in that direction concentrate on GUIs without having to be able to code the actual app. Meanwhile, the coders can get on with the nuts and bolts without "wasting" time on the interface. Think of it as open-sourcing the UI seperately from the application.
You may get a lot of junk skins, but you'll also get some very good ones. Some will be better than the OS norms. If we're lucky, we may even see some truly useful UI innovations appearing from people who couldn't otherwise contribute. Actually, I suppose this depends on how much flexibility there is in XUL (or similar GUI languages). Are you limited to combining existing widgets in new ways or is there scope for actually making new ones without actual coding?
- Blah blah blah, missing scientist. Blah blah blah, atomic bomb. -
HOORAY FOR SKINS!!! SKINS GOOD FOR LINUX!!!
Skins themselves are not necessarily a bad thing. Global, desktop-wide skins where all apps are automatically customised to have a certain look, are clearly a Good Thing. Separate skins for every application causes nothing but pain. As the UI hall of shame repeatedly tries to get us to notice, no application is so important that it justifies having its own, completely different, style of UI. That includes Mozilla. Unfortunately, the desirable default state of "use whatever the current style settings for Windows or GTK or whatever I'm running on" is not easily codable.
James Sherman wrote:
and though I agree with everthing he says, I still commend Microsoft for moving away from MDI. I just wish they'd done it by having a global option for MDI-or-separate-windows, rather than just stopping using it. MDI is, IMHO, not a suitable interface for anything at all.
One good use of skins and customisation in general, though, is to cut down on useless clutter. When you've got toolbars and toolbars full of crap put there by marketing people, as advertising space and to show the range of bloatware features available, it's great to be able to get rid of it.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
The review of NS6 at c|net said that the ability to change the chrome will be enabled in the final version (slated for late this year). I too think the default chrome is ugly, but I can deal with it because this is a beta release. I also wish I could find how to get it to start without the sidebar.
As far as learning a new UI...not really. All UI's have gone through some amount of convergence. Because Mozilla's source code is ~95% identical across all platforms, a greater amount of UI convergence is to be expected. As far as I've read about XUL, even the menubar can be changed. This is obviously not intended for browser use, but an allowance for application design in general. If skinners want to abuse this, then don't use their skins.
There have been some skins made for the milestone releases. Check out http://www.mozillazine.org/chromezone/. I tried installing the Navigator Classic chrome, but NS6 just crashed.
Let's hope someone at Netscape realizes how ugly the default chrome is, and changing it is enabled in PR2.
Dracos
"Integer: a number that represents any valid floating-point value"
Most of the theme writers have one goal - to make a cool looking theme. They certainly do this most of the time. However, usability is almost always lost in the process.
These are the top problems with themes that I have found (mainly from using xmms themes, and I have yet to find a good one):
1) Radio buttons should have distinguishable on and off states, and any user should be able to tell if the radio button is on or off. Seems simple, huh? It doesn't ususally happen. Most are overly 3-D ized, and when a user presses the radio button, it is supposed to be depressed, and turns slightly darker. "Darker equals on" is not exactly intuitive.
2) Are the buttons even visible? Again, to those using overly 3d displays, the buttons are invariable the same color as the background, but beveled. In xmms, as a bonus, the buttons are also extremely tiny. I can't even see the "close" button, I just have to guess where it is. Contrast is your friend, make use of it.
3) For god's sake people, when make sure all the buttons have some indication of what they do! This frequently is a problem with window manager buttons. You present the user with 3 buttons without labels, because it looks sleeker that way. But it's unusable.
4) Is the text readable? Please make sure it stands out...
I'm sure others can come up with more suggestions...
I think some of us here might be missing the point. While a lot of skins might be a little whacked-out, the only folks who are likely to use them are people who know what they're getting into in the first place. Any weirdness that follows is the user's own fault, & he can always switch it back.
However, the issue raised in SUCK about non-standard interfaces (Quicktime, most any web site) is hugely important. Folks get so used to seeing things in certain places, that changing them around can cause all kinds of problems. I see that all the time when someone in one of our workshops (I work in a university where we have a lot of faculty "click here, do that" workshops) who is normally a Windows user sits down at a Mac. They often can't figure out how to close windows, and assume that if the window goes away then the application must have also quit.
This is something I see as a potential problem for Mozilla/Netscape, unless they develop platform-specific skins for Windows, Mac, etc. Apps should always start out with the default behavior expected on a given system...from that point if the user wants to apply his own look & feel, more power to him. In the case of Netscape 6, I would even go so far as to recommend that they mimic Netscape 4.x to a great extent, to lessen the learning curve required by Joe Average User.
-- "" - Harpo Marx
Edward Tufte wrote a series of books on visual portrayal of information. In them he analyzes how people actually perceive images & text, and examines high (and low) quality examples of doing the job right.
I made a distinct effort to follow these principles in my last UI project. Other developers fought aginst it, sticking to their pointless and distracting 3D buttons, poor word selections, etc...because that's all they knew and they wouldn't (couldn't?) even consider that there might be a better way. The resulting design, rejecting the de-facto "we've always done it this way" standards, was superior to previous designs.
When designing a UI, take the time to carefully review the actual requirements, and study the right way to do it. Pick up Tufte's books and open your eyes.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
The newer HTML/CSS/etc. specs require certain standards in size and placement of controls, and other such things, and the only way to accurately match the specs is to implement the same controls on every platform, instead of relying on all platforms to have the same native controls (which is not gonna happen).
By that point, they were already pretty much there as far as themeing (sp? theming?), so they figured "what the hell?" and made a uniform engine for all of the controls in mozilla.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
I'm not against consistancy by default; I don't want my GTK windows popping up with random themes in each. But I want to option to make special apps stand out with the use of skins for a variety of reasons. I believe skins are just a tool. Though they can be abused quite easily, I think they have some good potential also.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Software exists to please the user, for most users this simply means getting the task done without confusing them. You are only one user. There may be a couple thousand like you, but you are still in the minority. It is fine if developers want to create skins, but they should realize that if they make this the default (or the only option), it has negative consequences for most users in most cases (except for most of these open source projects, which appeal mostly to "geeks").
So if I designed a "cool" (obviously subjective, but so are themes) bus with obstacles that only a jock could clear, this is fine by you? Forget old people, handicap people, geeks, etc. Because "you" are scared, maybe we should ditch modified busses to? Sounds pretty reasonable, if your intent is to serve as many people as possible.
Personally, one of the things I absolutely adore about Linux is that so many things are customisable to a degree simply not permitted by Windows.
:-)
From an everday usage point of view, the thing I most hate about Windows is the tendency for new windows to jump to the top and steal the focus. It drives me absoutely crazy, and yet, I have found no way of disabling the feature (if anyone knows of one, please let me know!!)
Not so under Linux - with WindowMaker and Enlightenment at least, this and a whole host of other features are completely customisable. I can set it up just the way I like it - I can even have shaped window borders, which I love (yes, I know you can have similar things under Windows, but so far, I've only found two programs - WinAmp and Yamp - that allow you to do this...).
The same thing applies to skins. Yes, I know that there are an almost unbelievable number of bad ones out there - but no-one is forcing you to use them. The ability to apply a skin/theme to a program lets the user make it look more pleasing to them, which helps make using it more enjoyable. More often than not in my experience, the default skin/theme(s) that ship with any given program (mp3 player, window manager, whatever) are "plain but functional" at best. That's fine; I'd much rather the programmer(s) concentrate on getting it working well than looking pretty. Let others do that; after all, that's part of the Open Source way
I agree that we need to be careful about designing UIs, to try to make them as easy to use as possible, but that shouldn't be at the expense of customisability and aesthetic considerations.
Surely good software can look good too?
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
While skins are simply obnoxious most of the time, they are finally making UI designers consider flexibility. I find it depressing that so many UIs rely on their own hard-coded interface, especially when that interface sucks.
Take, for example, the humble web page. Assume the existance of a user who has figured out that the monitor is not a piece of paper and would prefer white text on a black background. Now, see how long that user can survive in a web where stupid designers set background color to white while allowing the user to keep their preferred font color (which is white, in this case.)
Many programs make this assumption. MS Word uses your preferred background, while forcing a black font, going for a HGTTG-style black-on-black interface. Ghostview for unix used to do this too.
Skins are usually annoying, but if a designer is considering skins, they're far more likely to use the appropriate UI toolkits and implement the extendability properly. This, in my opinion, is better for everyone.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
I think anything that offers the user a greater choice is a good thing, as long as it is not at the expense of decent performace.
I would say though that many themes are implemented in the wrong place IMO. Themeable widget sets for example are an excellent idea (even better if the theme can be selected at application level like with MUI for the amiga for example (does gtk+ allow this?)), because the application programmer doesn't have to do any extra work to make his/her app themeable (and ithe code is also therefore smaller and probably more easily maintained)
On the other hand, themeable individual apps (winamp, xmms, etc) seem a bit daft to me. If your widget set doesn't allow the themeability you want in your app, why not propose some changes to it, or consider a new/different widget set instead of potentially effectively bypassing a users desired appearance.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
I doubt the validity of this statement. People using their computer primarily as a tool for typing documents probably don't customize their machine because they don't know how. If they did, I would bet they would. I've worked at various companies, and "regular" users who only use their computers for word processing and excel also like customizing their desktop with a background picture of their family and their favorite colors, just as they would customize the layout of their desk with personal belongings. There are probably thousands of users using the skin customization program for IE, based on the easy install through activeX and the relatively easy install of skins.
The only barrier is understanding and effort. Of course, some people like decorating their house, and some don't.
As for the number of bad themes around, I would base that on the fact that, a) it takes effort to make a nice looking theme; and, b) one man's trash is another man's treasure (within an obvious bounded range).
--
Is the default score to browse at 1 now, or is it just me?
...freedom!
The freedom of the user to choose what he or she wants what appears on their desktop looks like.
What the Suck crew have got right is that where you have to use skins to use an app you want to use - one very important choice is taken away from the user, and that is the choice to have that app look the same (consistent, not boring) as every other one on their desktop.
But that is a problem with specific skinned apps, not with skinning as a concept. As a concept, skinning works, Richard Stallman said "users should always have a choice", he was talking about free software, but it applies to user interfaces as well. If a person wants their desktop to look like the Star Trek LCARS system, let them - it doesn't mean the rest of us have to. Similarly, if a person wants Netscape 6 to look like the rest of their (Windows|Mac|Linux|etc) desktop, they should be allowed to.
You can't legislate for what people find easier to use, or more pleasing on the eye, or more useful for impressing their friends (or whatever reason people customise their desktops), all you can, and should, do is allow them the freedom to do so anyway they choose.
--
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
winamp has a good many themes that do not mess with functionality
Winamp, which popularized this whole app theming thing, is an excellent example of an application where themes, while they may not help functionality, certainly don't hurt it. It's a simple app, with a few buttons and an information display area. Most people who cannot program their VCR can use it to play tapes. They also don't have a problem using the CD player, and that's really all Winamp is, so making the buttons look like brushed aluminum doesn't really slow most users down.
Additionally, Winamp is a parasitic application -- meaning that it usually runs alongside other applications, and the user rarely runs Winamp exclusively. The user spends little time working with Winamp itself, they're busy using their main applications, with Winamp playing in the background.
What's needed is to spend more time working on the basic usability of applications and widgets. Go read (as mentioned before) the Interface Hall of Shame. Read AskTog's rant about the differences in how Windows and the Mac handle cascading menus.
Lemme tell you about my little improvement to widget usability. I'm working on an application that works as a Win32 Appbar (like the Start menu). It can be docked to any edge, and can be auto-hidden, staying out of the way until the user moves the mouse over the edge the appbar is docked to.
When I first started testing it, I set the appbar properties to auto-hide and stuck it at the top of the screen (my Start bar, like most people's, is at the bottom). This sounds fine, but turned out to be a major irratant -- every time my mouse pointer hit the top of the screen (like, say, when I was going for a menu), the damn appbar would drop down! I'd then have to move the mouse pointer down, wait for the window to retract, then, slowly, move back up to the menu (without moving too high!), then make my selection.
A simple timer, with a user-defined delay, solves this problem. When the mouse moves to the appbar's edge, a timer is started. If, when the timer expires, the mouse is still on the edge, the appbar will show itself. If the user clicks on the top edge (indicating they want to see the appbar immediately), the appbar will show without waiting for the timer.
That's the kind of work UI designers should be doing.
Alan Cooper once said that the web has set user interface design back 15 years. I agree. Instead of ensuring that your applications can be themed by every 31337 h4x0r with a warez copy of Photoshop, make the interface work better.
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
I like to skin winamp as much as the next man, but skinning things as fundamentally core to the os such as basic windows and menus does not lead to a productive environment.
WindowBlinds had a novelty value for about 5 mins before it was rapidly removed. I need a clean, consistant and clear interface to get work done.
Finally, haven't we learned anything from the bad web pages of days past? Pause the playing in winamp and the single most visible feature, the track time, begins to blink. I had paused the playback because I didn't want to pay attention to the player and now it forces my eye to come take a look. And while I'm on a rant, since when has the exact second of music that I'm listening to become the most salient feature of the interface? In my winamp window I find that I'm listening to "Funkadelic - Good Thought," with half of the title truncated, but I well informed that I've stopped at 7:12 (blink, blink, what, no milliseconds?) and that this particular stretch of music is encoded at 160kbps and 44kHz and that it is in stereo (no, not, mono that word is greyed out). I've got a volume slider that I know is a volume slider only because the volume changes when I move it, I've got a similarly unlabled balance slider for all of those critical balance changes that I always need to apply while listening. And finally, I'm happy to report that the "shuffle" button is twice as big as the "play" button, because, of course, you use it twice as often. Here's an improved winamp skin in only one line of ascii:
too bad I can't really make this a skin. If I want to "pause" the music then I press pause; if I want to "stop" the music then I can exit the application. I added the "forward track" and "backward track" as convinient chrome. If I want encoding details, I can pop a menu; if I want to shuffle, same thing.Okay, I think I've gotten that off my chest.
While I like skins as much as the next guy, I have some serious problems with some projects which are using them as a replacement for good UI design.
For example, Mozilla. For months myself and others had been providing dozens of reasons to implement native UI widgets instead of the hacked up bitmaps they are currently going with. Reasons?
- Non-native UIs are generally slower than native ones, for whatever reason. I guess this could be fixed with enough work.
- The 'look' of the UI is not consistant with the rest of the OS for those who choose not to use themes. Most people, believe it or not, will probably never switch their theme - or want to. Why should their browser stick out like a sore thumb?
- If the look matches, the 'feel' usually does not. This is more important than it may appear to be at first. Something as subtle as how hierarchial menus are handled will often annoy or frustrate even advanced users.
- Using non-native widgets (basically, bitmaps) often stops system-wide skin/theme programs from working. Your non-standard look and feel is rendered internally inconsistant.
- Using non-native widgets is usually done so that less effort is needed to go cross-platform. Laziness. Do you want your Linux or MacOS program to behave like a Windows one, or vice versa?
In the end, I have rarely/never seen a non-native interface, outside of the occasional game, that didn't look like a really ugly port.
After much time conversing with the Mozilla folks, who presented a laundry list of reasons for the UI that were refuted time and time again by myself and others, the truth came out: AOL is giving these guys very little in the way of a budget to make an acceptable cross-platform browser. The way it was explained, we'd only end up with a Windows version if they DIDN'T go this route due to funding shortages. I fully blame AOL management for this.
However, I still feel it is a mistake. Already reviews have been very mixed, even for a beta quality release (Netscape 6). It's not the obvious bugs and performance issues that bug me, but the so-called 'features' that appear very poorly thought-out from the start. Some of it is very very cool, but without a decent UI design, it's not looking good.
I just hate to see AOL/Netscape's internal politics breaking the browser before it ever had a chance. If only Mozilla were truly 100% autonomous...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
i think this site was posted as a quickie a while back, but i'll post it here since it applies to this story:
http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
this site is loaded with examples of poor UI design. they do a good job explaining exactly whats wrong with each example; its actually quite educational. its mostly windows and mac stuff, but i think i remember one or two examples from linux apps...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
Keyboard not found.
Press F1 to continue.
In my opinion, those people who most use themes and stuff of that nature are the kind of people who enjoying using their computer for hacking and learning. Those who just see the computer as a tool for typing documents are not going to go mad over a pretty new widget look. Therefore, those that are most likely to use themes are the most likely to adapt to the changes without any problems.
Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.
Most skinnable applicaations Suck(tm) because:
- They require skins. I can't make WinAmp look like a normal Win32 application. Skinning should be an option.
- Being bitmaps, they are resolution dependent. WinAmp on a 1280x1024 desktop is ridiculous, the controls are about a micron high. Double-size? Oh great, ugly pixel jaggies. You say I can just get a "bigger" skin? Well, what if I switch res? Why can't I just use it without having to go find these silly extras!?
- They don't use standard controls. Oops, you can't use tabs, alt-accelerators, or the arrow keys,to navigate the controls. (Sure, accelerators work, but they are hidden, unlike the visual cues.) How many times have you been typing in a stupid homebrew text widget, and all the standard keys like Home/End/etc. don't work? GTK doesn't even always get this right.
- People with visual or motor disorders probably can't use it. If I use a standard control, I can make the font larger if I can't see it; or if I might be blind I can attach voice navigation to it. Not on a skin.
- They tend to ignore components of good UI design as much as most cruddy web sites do.
UIs are UIs, including the web, including apps, including skins. A lot of UI research has taken place over the years. As computers go mainstream, we shouldn't be ignoring it, but heeding it even *more*.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I am personaly starting to get concerned about the advent of skinning along with some of the other changes in UI design. A couple of years ago you could sit down at a windoze machine and use just about and applications main features without thinking. Now even microsoft break their own UI guidelines (Have you noticed the way the latest office bypasses MDI?). GUI's under Linux has been struggling with the lack of any decent rules for UI design (At least none anyone pays any attention to) and I feel that something should be done to create a more consistent interface.
For the rest of us who want to get things done, something simple would be enough. I propose that judging on useability standards be applied to the DEFAULT (or default few) skin/desktop/window manager. For all others, go ahead and customize it to your desire. (It is customizable, right?)
There is no reason to bitch about skins. The thing to bitch about is poor UI design.
The average user wouldn't know what the hell I meant by "skinned app." If you're going to get into skins, you probably know enough about computers to not get terribly frightened when suddenly the 'look' of your program changes.
If there's anything that can be rightfully bitched about it's poor design in the default interface. We Geeks may know enough to get a better interface/skin, but the average user may not. If the default breaks consistency, the average use is stuck with a crappy UI. (example: Sonique though cool looking isn't rectangular in it's default start-up state; they make up for this in coolness and still putting the X in the top-right)
The ability to change the interface/shape of the app is a little worse, cause things will have both moved and changed looks when you change a skin (eg: Sonique, K-Jofol), so even a Geek will get lost from time to time. It's a hazard we put up with.
The biggest advantage to skins/shape changes is they allow you to update the interface about as easily as you update the program. If I release an app that's got full skin/theme/shape support and my design is royally crappy, I can shift stuff around based on user feedback really easily. It's almost like the OOP applied to UI design.
Computers are fast becoming the multi-purpose appliance of today. They are the typewriter, the fax, the e-mail, the internet, the jukebox, etc. If you look at all of those equivalents in real life you will find totally different designs. I see no reason why this can't be in a computer. The best design of all would be to make the computer totally transparent to the user, but that is a far way off.
So.. do not bitch to me about how skins are the downfall of useability. It's just the fact that we're entering a period where computers are used by everyone, not just those of us willing to 'train.' Programs are still being programmed and designed by programmers, not UI experts and designers. Hell, the easiest way to remedy this is to make it as easy as possible for the aforementioned to change stuff about the app and move it around and.. hey! Isn't that what skinning is?
Never do that. Just because they're your parents, doesn't mean they can get a free ride. Lawyers learn this early on in their training -- if you want your advice to be considered valuable, charge for it. Ask the most popular cheerleader in your high school -- once you've got a reputation for giving something away, it's difficult to charge for it in later life.
Yeh, but it's your mom and dad, you say. You think you have a point, but you don't. First it's mom and dad. Then it's bro and sis. Then it's Aunty Murtle. Pretty soon you're getting woken up at four AM (after being out drinking martinis to three) in order to get down to some fucken city drunk tank to knock out a misdemeanour plea bargain, gratis, for your third cousin twice removed's stepchild from her third marriage. And it's always "Oh Johnny, could you do this just once? We're faaaammmilleeeee! Have you forgotten where you came from?" Yak yak yak. No, I haven't forgotten where I came from, it's just that now I don't have to fucken go back to that craphole in South Bklyn, I choose not to.
The way I play it, is that I don't make my family sign a check. But if they want my professional services, they should be prepared to give me some of theirs. So I get my car washed, my plumbing done, my dinner cooked, and on occasion a little recreational fellatio (only from relatives no closer than first cousin, naturally -- I'm not a fucken pig).
With more and more people having net connections, and all manner of what have you, it strikes me that technology types are going to be almost as much in demand as lawyers in the next few years. So I'd advise you guys to learn a few lessons from the legal profession. We learned the lesson from the teamsters -- Gas, Grass or Ass, nobody rides for free.
--just call me streetlawyer, ma'am
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