The Condescending UI

theodp writes "Paul Miller has some advice for user interface designers: Don't be condescending. 'The Ribbon in Microsoft Office products,' complains Miller, 'is constantly talking down to me, assuming I don't know how to use a menu, a key command, or an honest-to-goodness toolbar.' Miller's got some harsh words for Apple, too: 'And of course, there is the transgression of the century: Apple's downward spiral into overt 1:1 metaphors. The physical bookshelf, the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page), the false-paginated address book...these new tricks are horrible and offensive [and likened to Microsoft Bob]. They're not only condescending and overwrought, they're actually counter-functional.' So, how does Miller cope while waiting for his UI knight in shining armor? 'I recently switched my Windows 7 install over to the Classic Theme', Miller explains, 'which is basically Windows 95 incarnate, just with all the under-the-hood improvements I've come to rely on. I really like it. It feels right, and if it isn't beautiful, at least it's honest. I wish there was a similar OS 9 mode for OS X.'"

Comments

Users disagree with him

[InsightIn140Bytes]

Many people like how easy and straightforward Mac OSX is. I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's. It does take some adjustment if you've used the old ones, but that's true for every kind of change. And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface. It would be stupid to drag using bad interface because old users hate change. Everything is displayed much more clearly. I noticed this especially when I used Office products I haven't really used much before. If I had used them, it was always more work adjusting. But when they were new to begin with, there was no problem. I think Ribbon is still a great idea, especially for non-geeks. I guess they could include both interfaces though, like Opera does (not with Ribbon, but with hiding menu).

Re:Users disagree with him

[TheRaven64]

Many people like how easy and straightforward Mac OSX is

But how many prefer the 10.7 version of iCal to the 10.6 one? With 10.6 I could quickly skip to any given month. With the 10.7 one, it decides to show me that it's like a real calendar by showing a page-flipping animation on every transition. It turns the sidebar into a pop-up, making inserting and inspecting appointments more difficult. It removes the small calendar display, making navigation harder. The same is true of the 10.7 Address Book. It now looks like a real book (so, once again, slow page-turning animations rather than instance changes) and the two-page metaphor means that you can no longer see groups and individuals at the same time. Using groups to navigate is harder. I was going to say that they'd removed the groups functionality, but on closer inspection it is there just less discoverable and requiring more mouse clicks and more mouse movement to use.

I agree on the ribbon though - it is a menu, just one that stays open all of the time and presents larger targets. I'm not totally convinced that it's better than menus + toolbar, because the hierarchical nature of it means that you need more mouse clicks and movement to use two actions that are on different menus. The only real complaint about it I have is the amount of screen real-estate it takes up - this is not a problem on a desktop, but Word on a laptop with a smallish screen ends up with less than 50% of the screen usable for actually displaying the document...

Re:Users disagree with him

[Kagetsuki]

Actually I very much agree with him, and I'm a user. I feel like OSX is trying to make me do things with mittens on, the freedom of my bare hands obstructed with a warm fuzzy enveloping layer. And I absolutely disagree that the Ribbon is a better interface as well, I want to know exactly where things are and have them there all the time even if they aren't related to the current context I'm working in.

I am not however rejecting "new" interfaces - now that there's an extension to add a taskbar to GNOME 3 (shell) and after tweaking it a bit I feel like I can use it more efficiently than GNOME 2 now, and like it. I'm an old user, and though I resisted a bit I'm all for change and I'm enjoying change that lets me take more control and work more efficiently.

As for the Ribbon and new users, I have clients who hated it so much that when I showed them OO/LibreOffice they immediately switched. That says a lot if you ask me.

Re:Users disagree with him

[InsightIn140Bytes]

This is why it should be important to have something like Google Analytics for applications. There's already several such solutions for games, like Playtomic, but there only seems to exist such for mobile applications. This could give app developers and UI designers great information on how exactly users use their application.

But truth is, users need clear interfaces and sometimes they really need help doing even simplest things. This is why Ribbon is better for new users, and design goal Apple has too. I own several websites and we use heatmaps to determine how users navigate and where they click on site, collectively. Things like that provide good information on how optimize applications or services.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why it should be important to have something like Google Analytics for applications. There's already several such solutions for games, like Playtomic, but there only seems to exist such for mobile applications. This could give app developers and UI designers great information on how exactly users use their application. But truth is, users need clear interfaces and sometimes they really need help doing even simplest things. This is why Ribbon is better for new users, and design goal Apple has too. I own several websites and we use heatmaps to determine how users navigate and where they click on site, collectively. Things like that provide good information on how optimize applications or services.

Not sure if you are implying otherwise or talking about it being avialable to 3rd party app developers, but Microsoft most certainly have this and use it extensivly to inform their development (including the ribbon), as referenced in detail in many of their developer blogs (where building Windows 8 is the latest example).

Re:Users disagree with him

[DarkOx]

I will agree with you I don't know where all the ribbon hate comes from, at least from a UI perspective. Now the API interface, for it SUCKS, if I wanted to use XML to build my interface, I'd write a browser based app, thank you very much. I don't see the ribbon as being much different from the old toolbar from a user perspective though. If anything its how tool bars would have been if displays had been higher resolution in the past.

The modern Apple and MS Bob like one to one metaphors are wrong headed. The author is dead on there. It does not scale at all. It works ok for things that have a good one to one metaphor with near universal familiarity, but it falls down for more esoteric things.

I struggled for nearly a half an hour the other day with an OSX machine. I wanted to add a new certificate to the system wide trusted roots. I have a pretty solid understanding of the functional elements of public key cryptography the stumbling block was entirely UI. I knew what I wanted, but the UI was not easy. First finding the darn thing, then trying to make sense of the really forced key chain metaphor. I suppose the key chain makes sense of user certificates but falls down when it comes to roots and intermediates. Perhaps something like a notary stamp icon would make more sense, but how many users would recognize that? Computers are all about abstraction all the way down, both in terms of what we do with them and how they operate. One to one metaphors don't offer a flexible frame work for things that don't have a physical analog.

  Its terribly inefficient from a developer perspective you have to create a new interface for every task, or its terribly confusing from a user perspective you force something on them that really does not make any sense. It also means that every application is different with its own rules, users can't take knowledge with them from task to task. Not only do they have to know what they want to do, but they have to know the unique mechanics for doing it. Instead of just going ok I want to store my changes, I am sure there is a save command on the file menu, now its um ok I drag the icon to my book shelf?

Re:Users disagree with him

[SiliconSeraph]

It really is more of a question of how it's deployed and targeted. Some software users (many many Office customers) don't actually know their way around their systems. Visual Studio on the other hand isn't known for nagging in the same manner. Just keep letting people who actually know what they're doing disable the inane tips and guidance.

Re:Users disagree with him

[DJRumpy]

The calendar has a Go To Date functioning the menus under the View menu (Shift + Command + T). It goes directly to the month, or day in question without having to switch through various months.

On the address book, if you double clip the bookmark ribbon (placeholder) graphics, you can see both contacts and groups in the left pane (Command + 3), although selecting one or the other will show you that specific view in the right side (Command +1, Command + 2, & Command + 3 toggle these views respectively).

I actually prefer my groups to be partitioned from my general contacts, but as with all things, everyone has their own opinion as to what is functional and what is fluff.

Re:Users disagree with him

[robmv]

There is one for Android applications at least

Re:Users disagree with him

[DJRumpy]

This is what happens when you post prior to your first cup of coffee. Oi...I can't believe I butchered not one, but two sentences and never noticed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Real people use toolbars to get real work done.
Kiddy office users use broken Ribbon interfaces to write postcards to granny.

The interface is obtuse and was designed by the idiot Vista team who created an absolute mess stuck between traditional UIs and a touchscreen orientated UI. (or people with extremely terrible eyesight)
It is, quite literally, a freak child.

Anyone who praises it doesn't do serious work or is from Microsoft. It is completely backwards.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that it hides, shifts, and obfuscates functionality. It increases the base mousclicks by at least one to do a task.

Basically it is disorganized and makes work harder to get done.

It's only designed this way so they could shift to touch interfaces.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Jarik C-Bol]

you know, the slow page flips and whatnot are usually toggle-able in the settings somewhere. (sure, that means you have to know what a 'settings' is, but it is sort of assumed at this stage that you are not just drinking the apple juice)

Re:Users disagree with him

[stewbacca]

You're complaining about a page turn animation that takes a tenth of a second? Try viewing by year if you need to see months without animations.

I'm convinced the 10.7 Address Book development team was kidnapped by Microsoft.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Double click on the ribbon and it will fold up into a single bar and the full tabs won't open until you click on an entry. That should solve the screen realestate issue since it don't take up any more space unless you are actively using it.

Re:Users disagree with him

[TheRaven64]

They're never visible settings, but they're often undocumented user defaults. One of the reasons I use OS X, however, is so that I don't have to waste time poking undocumented settings to get a usable system, and so this rather defeats the point.

Re:Users disagree with him

[foniksonik]

Just use spotlight search next time. It will take you right there, no UI nav needed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[stewbacca]

Ahh, the whole, "real people use Product X for 'serious' work" argument...That one never gets old!

Re:Users disagree with him

[MightyYar]

I don't see the ribbon as being much different from the old toolbar from a user perspective though.

That's how it should have been executed, but instead things move around and it is less customizable than the old toolbar system. And while there are some genuine improvements in Office 2007/2010, mostly they just used the ribbon to polish a turd. Usually a ribbon click brings you to the same old dialog box that you got in Office 6 in 1994. Some things are overdue and welcome - names manager in Excel for example. But other things just scream half-baked... like how you can't add a secondary axis title by right-clicking on the secondary axis in Excel. Instead you have to have the totally obscure keyboard shortcut memorized or you have to do the ribbon search game. In 2007, they had the gumption to put a copy command in the paste menu! Fortunately that has since been fixed, but it serves as an excellent example of how f'd up some of their decisions have been with this interface. Basically the only application I curse more often is Matlab.

Mainly, I've never been a huge fan of Windows keyboard shortcuts (it's VI vs Emacs or something), but my impression is that the ribbon now forces you into them to be productive.

The real irony in all of this (in the Alanis sense) is that the Mac version of Office has the ribbon as an option as well as the full menu set.

Re:Users disagree with him

[nospam007]

"It really is more of a question of how it's deployed and targeted. Some software users (many many Office customers) don't actually know their way around their systems."

75% of the users don't know that you can search a document, so they _read_ it to find stuff.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Livius]

"Everything is displayed much more clearly."

That's completely missing the point. I made the effort to memorize the keyboard shortcuts and menus because I don't want 'everything' displayed. I consider the on-screen real estate too valuable for that. The ribbon exists because other users are lazy. That's their choice, but it's unjust to force me to compromise because of them.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Nursie]

Please enlighten me as to what it is people do with office software that is much more advanced than this?

I haven't used MS Office in many years so I have no idea what the interface is like, but for me an office suite is good for writing letters, resumes and occasionally technical manuals. These latter require sections, tables, an index and... that's usually about it.

I often wonder what the other 10 million settings and options in office suites are for, and if anyone uses them. What do people do with a word processing program that requires scripts FFS?

Re:Users disagree with him

[cellocgw]

The Ribbon is a disaster. Examples (from Office): Excel: wanna add a worksheet: go to home/cells/format . Boy , that was obvious!
Or, to Copy Special, go to Paste Special (or is it the other way around?).
But more to the point: when you can no longer customize your menus, you can't even move the ribbon to the vertical edge instead of the top of the window, and you can't customize icons for, say, buttons to run your macros, the ribbon's gross failures become quite obvious. The ribbon is eye-candy for the kind of people who never learned about the menu items (in Office 2003 or earlier) that were hidden by default unless you hovered long enough on the menu list.
And BTW, using hundreds of new, multicolored, nonintuitive icons for the buttons does not a better interface make.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Hatta]

Many people like how easy and straightforward Mac OSX is.

Many people expect and require condescension and don't know what to do when their hand isn't held. That doesn't negate the fact that the UI is in fact condescending.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

I agree on the ribbon though - it is a menu, just one that stays open all of the time and presents larger targets. I'm not totally convinced that it's better than menus + toolbar, because the hierarchical nature of it means that you need more mouse clicks and movement to use two actions that are on different menus. The only real complaint about it I have is the amount of screen real-estate it takes up - this is not a problem on a desktop, but Word on a laptop with a smallish screen ends up with less than 50% of the screen usable for actually displaying the document...

Also, we've all widescreens these days, and under the ribbons, everything looks really claustrophobic and letterboxy.

Anyway, larger targets than what? Because in software with menus, I use keystrokes to get wherever I want to go. The ribbon is the graphical-only endstate of the process that caused Microsoft to drop visual underlining of hot-keys by default: no-one is willing to train anyone to use a computer properly. The average computer worker is woefully underefficient due to relying on mousing to do even simple everyday tasks such as switching between italics and plain typeface, or to send an email, or to lock, log off or switch off a computer.

The problem is that the ribbon interface has given up the advantages to the true power users in order to make undertrained desk jockeys marginally more efficient.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

Double click on the ribbon and it will fold up into a single bar and the full tabs won't open until you click on an entry. That should solve the screen realestate issue since it don't take up any more space unless you are actively using it.

I tried that -- unfortunately it made the interface completely unusable.

The ribbon comes up when you want it. You click on something. Great. But it doesn't disappear until you click in the edit pane. But when you click in the edit pane and the ribbon disappears, the whole page scrolls up, and you're not clicking where you want to click. Moronic.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Stormwatch]

Well, if they were doing 'serious work', they would be using TeX, not MS-Word, right?

Re:Users disagree with him

[jedidiah]

> This is why OS X ships with a fully functional UNIX environment

If you need to use it, your GUI is broken.

It's nice that it's there but it really shouldn't be the first excuse you make for bad and incomplete interfaces. Most users are simply not going to bother.

It's funny how some ideas get eviscerated in one product and bragged about in another.

Re:Users disagree with him

[AliasMarlowe]

It really is more of a question of how it's deployed and targeted. Some software users (many many Office customers) don't actually know their way around their systems.

75% of the users don't know that you can search a document, so they _read_ it to find stuff.

Alas, this is likely true. And of those who do know of the ctrl-F shortcut, I'd wager barely half know how to insert a cross-reference. Based on the documents and emails produced by allegedly native speakers of English, I'd also wager that the majority don't know how to use a spell-checker (or don't know how to switch off the autocorrect function and its amusing stupidity).

Re:Users disagree with him

[schwinn8]

Agreed. I still use Office 2000 because it's less bloated, and doesn't have that MS activation nonsense. The only feature I "miss" is the compress pictures feature in the newer versions. I have Office 2007 at work, and it's really not much different or better, other than it "looks prettier"... which is really not a big deal. The real reason I continue to use MSOffice in any form is because everyone else uses it, and when I have to send it along, it's just more compatible. In other words, the problem is that import/export between doc/docx is not great... and MS's implementation of standard formats that LibreOffice supports is just crap. I will admit that for Graphing (Excel) LibreOffice really doesn't do as well. However, LO can handle large files (O2k can't)... so it's still rather usable for the most part, and good enough for my usage (speaking as an engineer, so I use a LOT of Excel).

Re:Users disagree with him

[hjf]

Carrier IQ?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point that he is making is beyond what typical users 'want'. By dumbing down the UI, that makes users even less able to do anything that isn't presented to them in a button to push. There's the valid argument that for a lot of people they just need any computing device to very basic things, but at the same time by giving them only one option, the 'click on this icon to do whatever', that means they'll never be able to do anything more than just that one function. Finding the balance between making computers useful AND making them usable is not easy, and that's why a good GUI is so important. So your view about the Ribbon works out in your situation, but what happens when someone who is only able to work on computer using MS Office and the Ribbon needs to use a different computer that doesn't have the Ribbon?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

In the 20th century, one of the goals in the IT world was "context-less computing" -- ie you shouldn't have to switch "modes" to do different tasks. The ribbon has reintroduced modes in a very clumsy way: the ribbon's idea of "context" is the last section of the ribbon you were using. It doesn't matter what you've been doing since you last used the ribbon. You could have been typing constantly for two hours without touching the ribbons, but they're in the last place you left them. You might have forgotten the context, but the computer hasn't. This leaves you unable to work by instinct, because it's random from the user's perspective what you have to do and when.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hedwards]

Ribbon just sucks. It's completely inexcusable to change the interface of a mature product by that much. I've found that I can effectively no longer use Excel without completely relearning it as they've moved absolutely everything around. I used to use Excel fairly often when I was in college, but lately when I load it up I find that the things I need or want to use are almost always buried in a hard to find sub menu.

Sure ribbon is fine if you don't actually want to accomplish any meaningful work, but let's face it it's designed for people that never want to use the functionality they've paid for. Better would be to just release a version of Excel that removes most of those extra features.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hedwards]

Hiding functionality can lead to a more usable interface. However it has to be done in a logical way and needs to be extremely carefully considered. Vuescan does it and it's quite well implemented. Basically the options that don't apply aren't just greyed out, they're removed in modes for which they don't apply. It can be a wee bit confusing at first trying to find an option that's disappeared, but one doesn't typically have to scroll through hundreds of options that don't apply.

As for Ribbon, it's so bad that I won't be using a copy of MS Office ever again, and not even if I'm given a copy either. Office has been getting worse over the past decade. I don't use it often, but it used to take me a half hour or so to find the option to turn off autocorrect through the horribly organized interface. Ribbon might be an improvement over the older interface, but that's purely because it was poorly organized and hard to locate things. Unfortunately by the time they released Ribbon many people had already memorized where things were.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hedwards]

I hate to break it to you, but Ribbon gets progressively worse the more obscure the options you're using are. It's definitely worse than the older system as they can't use the entire height and width of the screen for the menus. Meaning they'll pick and choose the options that they think are important. And yes, they're widely used, but I rarely use any of the things I've seen in the Ribbon more than once or twice editing a document. Most of the time I'm cursing because they've moved an option or function to a buried menu and trying to remember where that submenu went is infuriating.

Re:Users disagree with him

[berashith]

I was doing quite a bit of work in photoshop when widescreen monitors were first appearing. I was happy to be able to undock the menus and place them to the side on the new real estate that the widescreen gave me. My canvas was free for me to work. I havent found many other apps now that allow the interface to be removed, and everything on these damn monitors is compressed. The new ratio isnt new anymore, but no one has decided to actually make things usable within the available size.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hitmark]

Basically any UI is easy once one learn it. In that way it is easier to adapt the human to the UI then the UI to the human. This is also why the real issue with going from MS Office to Libreoffice, or Photoshop to Gimp, are not the features but the keyboard shortcuts and menu entries.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't upgrade to a new OS until you've read the reviews.

Look I've heard just about every complaint on user interfaces for 40 years. My advice is stick to what you like and don't upgrade until you have no choice. It's the early adopters who bitch the loudest.

The geeks here at Slashdot are likely to complain the loudest online. But you've never heard whining until you work on industrial HMI screens and listen to operators bitch about it. Like little girls.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hitmark]

Keyboard shortcuts are to be memorized for often used actions. And i think there is also a user customizable ribbon tab...

Re:Users disagree with him

[Filip22012005]

This doesn't work like that for me. A hidden ribbon should project over your document, nothing scrolling. Then it should disappear after you select a function. Something is wrong with your install. Or with the way I interpret your comment.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Kagetsuki]

While I personally dislike working on OSX Hatta does have a point in that you have a functional terminal and all the tools you should have (ssh, decent shells, scripting facilities and editors) on a basic system. The fact is in Windows you need to install Cygwin for that and even then it's a mess. Of course for people writing documents and editing photos that's all completely unrelated, but for people like me who hate the standard interface it's nice to know I can just open a terminal and have the facilities to do what I need to and be done with it. ... I'd also spend 10 minutes trying to get rid of that damn dock because it bugs the hell out of me and that's the same 10 minutes I'd spend installing Cygwin...

Re:Users disagree with him

[RealGene]

The first thing I do at any Win XP machine is turn off "transition effects".

Re:Users disagree with him

[JMJimmy]

Speak for yourself. UI is the most important factor for me in any piece of software.

Windows 7 Start Menu, the problems:
- The quick icons... it's a great idea to have, unfortunately just because I access a program frequently doesn't mean I want it in the start menu. It also seems to arbitrarily exempt certain programs from being in there - like Notepad.
- Windows Explorer - I've never used the default libraries, I'm not interested in it. I don't store information in that manner and it's great that a lot of people do, however, I used to be able to do it my way not the popular way. It refuses to default to anything but 'Libraries' and if I manually adjust it it resets frequently.
- Right click doesn't always right click. Granted this one may be a bug, but I'll often find that desktop icons can't be right clicked until they're given focus. Mouseover is supposed to give them focus but in some cases it doesn't.
- Mouse position actions are SOOO annoying. Examples - the most common resting position for the mouse is off tot he bottom or right of the screen. This is because there's no gutter on the left for the mouse to disappear into, nor top. This means that the most common resting position for the mouse is also where they decided to put a mouse over desktop preview. Try bottom left? The open items on your start menu, as I type this message the mouse moves due to my thumbs touching the mousepad (granted this is bad design by Samsung but it's a common that the mousepad is directly under the space between the H and J on laptops with a full keyboard). Because the mouse movies it pops up the program preview over what I'm typing. Try top right? Oh, the close menu is there and accidentally closes your programs with an accidental mouse tap when you hit space. Middle right? Same deal as top right except it hits the scrollbar and moves you to a random spot in your document.
- Control over context menus is entirely with individual developers. Control is great, but part of what makes an operating system an operating system is a common set of controls you can use for all programs. When I right click->close, it should close the program not minimize it.

Office Ribbons the problems
- Clutter. Plain and simple. There are so many different colours, shapes, sizes, and wrapping text that it's a jumbled mess. They also assume which buttons you use commonly. Most common functions I use, I use key commands for because I use them commonly and that means I want them as fast as possible. Buttons I use for less frequent items, that I would have trouble remembering which menu they fell under, those I want as buttons.
- The whole point of a button is to provide a small icon representing the function you want to use to make a convenient shortcut to it. Reduces memory work required to operate a program. I don't need to see the text below it, otherwise what's the point of the icon itself? You might as well make it a grouping of text.
- Overall desktop real estate. Ribbons are massive compared to other menu styles. They also don't take advantage of the fact that most screens are widescreen now and the UI would be much better along the sides of a document (CS5 style).
PS: Menu hiding is bad.

Re:Users disagree with him

[oji-sama]

Well, the learning curve is much lower for the ribbon than the menus. I had some trouble getting used to it, especially with the proofreading tools. On the other hand, my mother a few years ago told me that she 'really liked the new Windows', as she now understood how to use text styles and so on... So I wouldn't call it a disaster, but having an option to use the old layout would have been nice. (I don't know if one exists, and personally don't really miss it, except when unsuccessful in trying to locate some specific function I remember being in a specific drop down...)

Re:Users disagree with him

[Sperbels]

I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's. It does take some adjustment if you've used the old ones, but that's true for every kind of change. And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface.

Ahh, the ole "you just don't like change" argument. It's an immediate win button isn't it?

I've been using it since it came out....and I still don't like it.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ILongForDarkness]

Agreed the ribbon is a superior interface. It wasn't MS talking down to users I've saw several talks on Channel 9 talking about UI design. Have you saw those little "do you want to send feedback to MS" dialogs you get when apps open? Well they get giggity giggity amounts of data showing who is using what and how many clicks it is taking them to find the right toolbar etc. They also get lots of feature requests, 80+% of them are already in the product the customers just didn't know it and couldn't find it. So ... the ribbon. Common options are grouped together right on the main "page" of the app, things are context dependent etc. You might not like the particular choice in solution but it worked: some features have had orders of magnitude more usage because of this I seem to recall. Literally very useful features that were always there just know one knew them. I imagine Apple is the same why with the added benefit that they always tried to make the computer "friendly" aka were specifically not targeting "power users" that wanted to discover every little setting in a complex UI.

Anyways UI doesn't have to stay the same because "that is the way it's always been" and it is easy because people don't have to learn new stuff for the simple fact that new computer users are constantly entering the market. The PC market is still growing quickly (10+% a year) with a big proportion of the excess in developing countries where they might never have had a computer before, or kids. If it is the first time you used a word processor than the ribbon might become the "that is the way it is always done" feature you don't want to change. Regardless at some point companies need to get the innovations into the product and someone is going to have to learn them.

That said what could have been done is keep the old UI as an option. You could have the classic "skin" and the new ribbon skin probably would have been the way I'd go. I suspect MS went they way they did for a couple reasons: less bugs because less things you have to keep consistent with eachother, and user discoverability: users hate change, they would quickly turn off the ribbon, and then continue to not find the features that would help them, send in support/feature requests for things that have been in the product since the early 90's (I'm not kidding there are feature requests for things like "I want to make a form letter"). It might be big brother deciding the users are stupid, but after terrabytes of data comes in and is studied you can only say that the results show that the average user is an idiot or at least is only discovering and using a small percentage of the features that could help them (eg. menu->copy menu-> paste rather than keyboard shortcuts) so you bubble them all up so that they are at least only one click away. Designing good UI is hard, the best is when you get things right and the thing the user wants to do is one click away sometimes that means you need to admit that the average person has no clue what the difference is between "editing" and "formating" is and can't be bothered to look through 20 buttons on each toolbar to see what they do. Heck a lot of coders can't be bothered using the features in their IDE eg. Visual Studio: do you hate it when your intellisense goes away and you want to get the dropdown list again because you chose the wrong thing? Most developers just keep back spacing till they get back to the period than hit period again, there is an easier way: ctrl shift, most people don't know this, most don't bother to look it up but is saves dozens of key strokes an hour (at least with my clumbsy coding).

Re:Users disagree with him

[hairyfeet]

Exactly, take the Win 7 UI. You have jumplists and breadcrumbs, libraries and being able to slam windows to one side or the other to make them half screen. There are a ton of little cool features in Win 7 and thanks to integrated search they are easier than ever to find, such as my dad learning that Win 7 had speech recognition and trying it out simply because he typed "microphone" into control panel looking for his mike settings.

One thing I will agree with the author on though is it should come down to the USER not the OS on which way to work. If they want to keep classic it should be easily accessible and if they want the new version that should be fine too. If they include the Win 7 GUI with a simple way to make it default i might use Win 8 but if the only GUI is that cell phone ripoff that is metro? I'll hang onto Win 7 until Win 9 comes around and hopefully gives us choice again.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people are also idiots.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ATMAvatar]

Agreed. I have found that it is usually less effort to code up a TeX document nowadays than continue to use Word because I seem to have had a penchant for using obscure features. I used them often enough in older versions of Word to remember where they were in the old menu system, but not so often as to memorize keyboard shortcuts, so they are effectively unusable with the Ribbons.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jo_ham]

This hits the nail on the head.

Apple, on the whole, make very functional UIs but just occasionally they mess up their good work - the rework of iCal is just one of them. I mean, it still does the job and so and and is pretty intuitive, but now if I want to make a new event that's not on my default calendar I have to pop open the menu and click, rather than simply clicking (or seeing at a glance what calendar I have selected already).

I've taken to just making events in the default and switching them to the correct calendar when I'm editing the details.

FWIW regarding the Ribbon, I think it gets a lot of hate for being a new way to use Office, when everyone had already hardcoded the old, crappy way into their minds. I know familiarity can hide many ills, but the love and devotion for the old interface is quite bemusing.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still use the keyboard. New combinations but the classic ones still work too, at least in 2007. So go ahead and minimize the ribbon and live happily forever after. Nothing to see here, please move on...

Re:Users disagree with him

[xystren]

Well said my friend! I was about to post something very similar, but you said it much better than I.

I also get frustrated with trying to find some particular option. And god forbid, if your trying to setup a custom header and footer than happens to not follow the "styles" that are included - Many of my classmates want to hang themselves with this frustration - I don't worry about that, b/c I pull out my good old 2003 era laptop, wait the not so timely boot-up, and make the changes with office 2003. It saves a lot of stress, headache, and frustraton.

The largest oversight with the new version of office, is the inability to maintain the old style interface. There is something to be said for a logical hierarchical interface, rather than an interface based on what MS thinks you want to do. There is not good reason why they couldn't have a setting that would maintain the old interface.

But Microsoft is notorious for making changes like this. Changing the names of control panel applets? Come on, where it was "Add Remove Programs" it is now "Programs and Features" - is that a change that was really necessary? Nothing worse than trying to support someone that is freaking out because they can't find the "My Computer" icon, when they have renamed it to just "Computer" - changes just for the sake of change don't seem to make a lot of sense. MS in the past has worked so hard as maintaining downward compatibility, but seem to forget that when it comes to the user interface.

Re:Users disagree with him

[zootie]

IMO Office 2010 is considerable better than 2007. The ribbon was polished more, adding commonly used commands to dropdowns. IMO, it is what the ribbon should have been from the beginning (in 2007, it was little more than a nuisance, with o 2010, it can actually help)

Re:Users disagree with him

[ILongForDarkness]

As a third party you get a bit of info back from MS already: when your app crashes and someone clicks the "send info to MS" MS forwards that on to the developer. There is even talk of making the Windows logo process for apps revokable if the developers don't fix the problems. It would be nice if they put it right into the APIs not sure technically how it would work but it could just be a runtime constant needed to turn on logging in the UI of a .Net app say. Bundles everything up and sends it off to the developer. I imagine it isn't being done already because of security concerns but I think they could make it so it goes to MS so that they can have some sort of control to make sure that identifying info isn't being sent, etc. It would be great for devs because you'd get to see what features the users are using, what ones you think they are missing that would help their workflow etc. No more spending time working on a buried feature that know one is using, or fixing bugs on a rarely used feature over a highly used one because you didn't know.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ninetyninebottles]

No-one running Office software in a production environment would pick LibreOffice over Microsoft Office for anything other than the most basic of mundane word processing.

I worked at a place that switched to OpenOffice (before LibreOffice existed). We left three MSOffice boxes for translation and everything else moved over. It was a very successful and beneficial transition. One of the main problems it was solving was the needs of the documentation team. We needed dozens of engineers to have the ability to modify very large documents. The problem was, above a certain size Word regularly corrupted the files on save and the next time someone opened it we ended up having to roll back to the previous version of the document, losing all the work of the last person. Before switching to OpenOffice we had to institute a policy that everyone had to save a document, then (without closing it) send it elsewhere and test opening it before they could quit and save. It was ridiculous and I still see people complaining about this same issue in professional writing forums. After the switch this annoying and very costly failure was no longer wasting our time and money.

My current client, my co-workers and I, and an outside consulting firm for regulatory compliance, often exchange MSOffice documents. Using Word and the native formats is horrible. Templates, TOC, comments, headers and footers, they all break all the time switching between various versions of Word for various platforms. The manpower waste is easily in the tens of thousands of dollars already and project is in the early stages. With LibreOffice (which we use on other projects) we have no such problems because clients can always upgrade to the same version and the same document format in short order given the free nature of the licensing.

And finally, I'm a bit confused about what tasks you think users hould be employing Word for where it is more suitable than LibreOffice. I see Word misused a lot for tasks where a proper CMS and/or Framemaker or Indesign or Quark is the real type of tool that professionals use. If you're using Word for "advanced tasks" from a publishing or documentation standpoint, you've already failed. For the tasks Word is actually suited, LibreOffice seems a fine replacement.

Re:Users disagree with him

[guttentag]

I struggled for nearly a half an hour the other day with an OSX machine. I wanted to add a new certificate to the system wide trusted roots. I have a pretty solid understanding of the functional elements of public key cryptography the stumbling block was entirely UI.

This isn't exactly something a typical user does every day (99% of the population will never do this, ever), therefore it's not one of those things that you're expected to intuitively figure out. This is like saying, "it took me nearly half an hour to figure out which wire I needed to splice to install a remote starter in my car. I have a pretty solid understanding of the functional elements of starters the stumbling block was entirely wiring." This is slashdot... we don't care if you RTFA, but for pete's sake, RTFM... better yet GTFM (Google The Freaking Manual).

Re:Users disagree with him

[zootie]

Indeed, the hidden extra functionality is infuriating. A way around it is to use Addintools Classic Menu for Office

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

Unfortunately, I learned my classic keypress sequences visually, through menus popping up. I don't know all the old keypress sequences, so if I want to learn a new function, I have to learn the new keypresses -- I end up with an inconsistent mush of two systems.

Re:Users disagree with him

[AmiMoJo]

The calendar has a Go To Date functioning the menus under the View menu

It amazes me that Apple hasn't moved menus from the top of the screen to the actual window they are attached to yet. If the apps window is at the bottom right of the screen you have to go all the way up to the top left to access its menus. I gather some apps have context menus which partly make up for it but since you only get a one button mouse they require two hands to use.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the ribbon takes up too much screen area..
then click the little up caret icon on the right of the ribbon.. to the left of the help question mark..
It will minimize the ribbon when not selected to the equivalent of a file menu..

Re:Users disagree with him

[war4peace]

I agree on the ribbon though - it is a menu, just one that stays open all of the time and presents larger targets. I'm not totally convinced that it's better than menus + toolbar, because the hierarchical nature of it means that you need more mouse clicks and movement to use two actions that are on different menus. The only real complaint about it I have is the amount of screen real-estate it takes up - this is not a problem on a desktop, but Word on a laptop with a smallish screen ends up with less than 50% of the screen usable for actually displaying the document...

Um... position your mouse over the ribbon and start scrolling, you don't even have to click to go through different tabs. And you can hide it with one click as well.
Point is... UIs can be well designed and badly designed; this is not equal with simple versus complex; I've seen great complex UIs and badly designed simple UIs, as well as pretty much everything in between.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BasilBrush]

With the 10.7 one, it decides to show me that it's like a real calendar by showing a page-flipping animation on every transition.

The problem isn't the page turn transition, the problem is the implementation that means that the animation has to finish before the UI will accept another click. A real diary isn't like that. It'll let you bend up the corner of a few pages and then let you turn them together. So actually it's a failure to implement the metaphor well enough, rather than a problem in using the metaphor.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BasilBrush]

It amazes me that Apple hasn't moved menus from the top of the screen to the actual window they are attached to yet.

Clearly you're a Windows or Linux user that's got used to the screen wasting and Fit's law conflicting Windows mutation of pull-down menus. Apple don't change it because Mac users overwhelmingly appreciate that this way is better.

Re:Users disagree with him

[0100010001010011]

1) Hold down the alt key while flipping between stuff. No animation. (Hold down the shift key for a very slow animation).
2) Click on year, double click on month.

Re:Users disagree with him

[nightfell]

Are you also amazed that the Mac doesn't boot into a text mode by default, or that it doesn't require a reboot if you move the mouse to a different USB port?

Seriously, the menubar at the top is a key aspect of the Mac. You say "have to go all the way to the top", but the top is an infinite target. Just a flick gets you there, and you can't overshoot it.

Re:Users disagree with him

[stewbacca]

That me be the case, but we're talking about the page turn transition in Apple's OS X iCal app. For the most part, Apple transitions are for a purpose (genie be damned) and Microsoft's are for the "oh-look-at-me!" purpose.

Re:Users disagree with him

[AmiMoJo]

Also, we've all widescreens these days, and under the ribbons, everything looks really claustrophobic and letterboxy.

I like having a nice wide layout of functions rather than a huge drop-down menu that covers up the document when you open it.

Anyway, larger targets than what? Because in software with menus, I use keystrokes to get wherever I want to go.

Most people don't use keyboard shortcuts, beyond copy/paste and bold. The ribbon targets are larger than both menus and little toolbar icons, and as an added bonus they give you a better idea of what you are getting because they can show previews, so rather than scan for "header text" on a drop down you can see a preview of it which requires less cognition to recognise. It also reduces the number of clicks through sub-menus.

no-one is willing to train anyone to use a computer properly. The average computer worker is woefully underefficient due to relying on mousing to do even simple everyday tasks such as switching between italics and plain typeface, or to send an email, or to lock, log off or switch off a computer.

We are supposed to be making computers easier to use, and clearly there is demand for that. Most people have got more important things to worry about than saving a few seconds here and there by memorising keyboard shortcuts or even the names of obscure features that are better represented graphically. All the evidence is that graphical representations are easier for people to process than text alone, and Microsoft found that most users barely used 10% of the features available. That increased after the introduction of the ribbon is it appears to have worked.

The problem is that the ribbon interface has given up the advantages to the true power users in order to make undertrained desk jockeys marginally more efficient.

I think what you mean is the ribbon helped 99% of users get more out of their computers and work more efficiently at the expense of annoying some power users who claim to know all the keyboard shortcuts but for some reason still want long lists of menu items to be there.

Re:Users disagree with him

[nightfell]

Sorry, disregard my previous reply. I didn't notice your "one button mouse" quip at the end. I didn't realize you were just being ironic.

Re:Users disagree with him

[AmiMoJo]

Should have used preview...

Also, we've all widescreens these days, and under the ribbons, everything looks really claustrophobic and letterboxy.

I like having a nice wide layout of functions rather than a huge drop-down menu that covers up the document when you open it.

Anyway, larger targets than what? Because in software with menus, I use keystrokes to get wherever I want to go.

Most people don't use keyboard shortcuts, beyond copy/paste and bold. The ribbon targets are larger than both menus and little toolbar icons, and as an added bonus they give you a better idea of what you are getting because they can show previews, so rather than scan for "header text" on a drop down you can see a preview of it which requires less cognition to recognise. It also reduces the number of clicks through sub-menus.

no-one is willing to train anyone to use a computer properly. The average computer worker is woefully underefficient due to relying on mousing to do even simple everyday tasks such as switching between italics and plain typeface, or to send an email, or to lock, log off or switch off a computer.

We are supposed to be making computers easier to use, and clearly there is demand for that. Most people have got more important things to worry about than saving a few seconds here and there by memorising keyboard shortcuts or even the names of obscure features that are better represented graphically. All the evidence is that graphical representations are easier for people to process than text alone, and Microsoft found that most users barely used 10% of the features available. That increased after the introduction of the ribbon is it appears to have worked.

The problem is that the ribbon interface has given up the advantages to the true power users in order to make undertrained desk jockeys marginally more efficient.

I think what you mean is the ribbon helped 99% of users get more out of their computers and work more efficiently at the expense of annoying some power users who claim to know all the keyboard shortcuts but for some reason still want long lists of menu items to be there.

Re:Users disagree with him

[nightfell]

The problem is that the ribbon interface has given up the advantages to the true power users in order to make undertrained desk jockeys marginally more efficient.

And which is going to have a greater overall impact? Making "undertrained desk jockeys" (what elitist tripe!) more efficient, or making "true power users" (more tripe) marginally (two can play at this game) less efficient?

I'm terms of greater impact overall to more people, you're on the wrong side of the equation on this one.

Re:Users disagree with him

[mrsquid0]

The point is that many, if not most, Mac users like the simple OS X Ui, and like not having to think about it too much. Apple is, for the most part, giving them what they want. This is not good for power users, but we are not where the money is.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ninetyninebottles]

Basically any UI is easy once one learn it.

In the study of computer-human interaction one quickly sees there are design compromises made between how easy an interface is to learn and how flexible and fast it is one learned. A UI element no one ever learns to use is useless, but likewise an easy to discover UI element that is very slow gets in the user's way just as much. A good example might be using a modifier key and tab to switch applications. Windows and OS X both have this user interface with a slight difference. Windows has a single layer modifier that switches to each window in turn. This is easy to learn but can be slow to use. OS X has two modifier keys, one to switch applications and one to switch windows within an application. This is harder to learn, but once learned, much faster for users with multiple apps and multiple windows per app. For power users the latter is much better, but a larger percentage of novices use the Windows feature because it is easier to train themselves on.

Re:Users disagree with him

[epyT-R]

unfortunately, this attitude of 'we must make it as simple as possible for new users' is quite prevalent today. this newage fisher price UI crap puts a cap on the user's potential with the machine by preventing the application from growing with his skill. While it might make things a tad easier initially, the user doesn't get a chance to learn more of the skills and processes needed to get more adept at getting what he wants. I think the society groupthink needs to relearn the old 'you get out of it what you put into it' adage...and we should accept that sometimes it's best to tell people to RTFM if they lack remedial skills. idiotproofing is a stupid race to the bottom.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hairyfeet]

Spreadsheets, VBA, or how about having complex documents with header and footers and inserts not come out as word salad? I'm personally gonna give the LO guys a couple of years before really complaining simply because they just got handed a real mess of a monolithic code from Oracle and now they are probably gonna have to do a top to bottom rewrite and that takes time, but that doesn't excuse the problems. Like it or not the rest of the world uses MS Office and if your docs turn into word salad when they open it or you get word salad when you open theirs? its a problem.

Now if one of the Excel jocks would please come on here and explain to them why calc don't cut it I'd be grateful. i'm not a spreadsheet guy so i don't know the lingo but the spreadsheet guys at the SMBs I've worked for says calc is like a bad joke. I can say that it looks like, at least under Sun and oracle, that Writer got all the love and the rest was treated like the red headed stepchild.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at an investment bank and the place ran on Word, Powerpoint, and Excel.

Excel for modeling (you'd regularly have spreadsheets with 20+ tabs and pivottables).
Word and Powerpoint for presentations.

Where Libreoffice falls flat on its face is actually in the niche formatting options. For example, if I want a graph of X vs Y, LibreOffice is fine. If I want a second series with another Y axis, and the labels formatted _just_ so, and legends on some of the data points, and the title bar with the company template.... you get the picture.

Re:Users disagree with him

[sqldr]

What do people do with a word processing program that requires scripts FFS?

Automatically insert data from an SQL database, usually.

Re:Users disagree with him

[RealGene]

I understand that. The complaint was about the time required for the transition/page turn. I find the time-wasting fade-in of any UI element extremely annoying.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BasilBrush]

Many people expect and require condescension and don't know what to do when their hand isn't held. That doesn't negate the fact that the UI is in fact condescending.

Interesting use of the words "condescending" and "fact" here. Condescension is a quality of human to human communication. It's subjectively judged by the receiver from the speaker/writer.

For sure where there's a text message from the the developer to the user such as "You look like you're trying to write a letter, would you like me to..." that would be recognised as condescending by most. But non language based aspects of UIs? I don't think "condescending" can be used there. My microwave oven is easy to use, but "condescending"? That word just doesn't fit.

But it's a very subjective topic. What the hell is the word "fact" doing in there?

Re:Users disagree with him

[DarthBart]

They're using Word for desktop publishing and (god help us) web page design. They're using Excel as a database application front end..

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

Hmmm... maybe I've got the details wrong then. All I remember is that it kept obscuring what I was trying to do.

Re:Users disagree with him

[multisync]

The first thing I do at any Win XP machine is turn off "transition effects".

The first thing I do on any Win XP machine is add the following to the registry:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]

"EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000

which disables all the annoying balloons. Switching to Classic view, as the summary suggests, makes the UI a lot snappier.

If I'm going to be spending any amount of time working on the machine, I'll usually do some or all of the following:

set the default Explorer view to List, enable Display contents of system folders and Show hidden files and folders, disable Hide extensions and protect operating system files, set the Sound scheme to No sounds, disable Hide inactive icons in the system tray. Actually, if I'm smart, the first thing I'll do is enable RDP, add my user account or admin group and note the hostname so I can do all the above from the comfort of my own machine. Also, the above assumes the account I'm using has local admin privileges.

If the machine is on a domain and I'm logged in with my own account, when I'm finished I'll either blank the DefaultUserName and AltDefaultUserName registry keys, or set them to the regular user's account. This stops the user from repeatedly inputting their password with my account name until they lock out my account if I'm not there the next time they log in.

Of course, there are dozens of other tweaks, depending on the machine and my reason for spending time on it, and I'm sure a lot of this could be scripted, although not as easily as it could be done in bash. Going through my little routine of tweaks, as well as scanning firewall exceptions, running services and installed programs, gets me acquainted with an unfamiliar machine, and often reveals issues such as spyware etc. Being unable to change certain settings while logged in with admin privileges is a sure sign something's wrong.

Finally, you need to consider the user when deciding how many of the tweaks to leave intact when you're finished, and which to return to the default.

Re:Users disagree with him

[master_p]

I will agree with you I don't know where all the ribbon hate comes from, at least from a UI perspective.

The Ribbon requires more clicks than menus and toolbars for the same functions.

I don't see the ribbon as being much different from the old toolbar from a user perspective though.

Toolbars did not have tab pages.

Re:Users disagree with him

[zootie]

Learn where menu and toolbar commands are in Office 2010 and related products
And complementing this. MS has a plug-in based interactive tool to map from the office 2003 menu to the Office 2010 ribbon. You can just click on the Office 2003 menu, and it will show breadcrumbs of where to find it in Office 2010 (and display it when you click on it)

Re:Users disagree with him

[RogerWilco]

Yeah. And that's why I don't like the ribbon interface. If I wanted to have to constantly switch context, I'd use vi.

Re:Users disagree with him

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

The ribbon hate comes from the fact that ribbons are to help new users. News flash: It turns the old users into idiots by changing where everything was. My 6000 person organization has not deployed office 2007 because of the ribbons. I'm a beta tester (for two years now), and as someone who used ooo and MS Word for many years, my most common way of understanding how to do something I knew perfectly well how to do in Word/Excel/Powerpoint 2003, is to Google ''office 2007 " and then follow the instructions from some random site. I am still finding I need to do that fairly regularly. so to make something better for 1% of the user base, you are gratuitously turning the other 99% into frustrated idiots. When you learn how to use any precision tool, like a lathe, or a grinder, you get basically proficient pretty quickly, but it takes years for things to be automatic, and for instincts to develop. Similarly, the new interface abuses and disrespects users by throwing out their hard earned instincts. Why would that ever be considered an improvement?

Everyone already knows how to use a computer. There aren't any new users. the ribbons are essentially user abuse. Besides, the only new users are 8 year olds, and they pick this stuff up whether there are ribbons, menus, or feathery hats in the interface. Learning the interface is a non-problem. The real problem

slashdot car analogy: Ya know. now that automobile transmissions are almost entirely electronic, it would probably be pretty smart to put the shift lever on the ceiling, out of reach of children, and dogs. You can have bench seats with more room and flexibility. Also you could also use forward pressure on the steering wheel as an accellerator impulse, and thus have only a single pedal (the brake.) Many accidents are caused by people who, in a panic situation, step on both pedals. Would be much easier for new users to have only a single pedal to deal with. We can also add a blender between the seats for make snacks while on the road in the space made available for new functionality between the seats.

I don't disagree that the above a probably good, absolute improvements in the automobile driving interface that would, in a world where there were no existing vehicles, and no existing practice, likely make it easier to learn how to drive, and perhaps reduce the frequency and severity of accidents. But we don't live in a world where there is no existing interface that people are already experienced with. How do you think that would do in the market? How about people who use different cars? How about training reflexes (will you cause accidents because someone who learned in the new car, suddenly has to use an old one and is confused by the extra pedal?) How big a problem are you solving, versus the one being caused?

Re:Users disagree with him

[jpmorgan]

That's just... factually wrong. The ribbon doesn't do that in any Microsoft product I've ever used.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

actually the ribbon provides FEWER visible options than the meus did

Re:Users disagree with him

[theArtificial]

My thoughts exactly. I'm surprised this hasn't been modded up.

Re:Users disagree with him

[mikelieman]

But truth is, users need clear interfaces and sometimes they really need help doing even simplest things.

Remember when people used to get TRAINING on new, complex systems and processes?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Fri13]

And BTW, using hundreds of new, multicolored, nonintuitive icons for the buttons does not a better interface make.

And not to forge that every tab on Ribbon has one fundamental problem and it is that there are different kind buttons mixed.

1) Buttons with icons only
2) Buttons with icon + text under icon
3) Buttons with icon + text aside of icon
4) Button taking all vertical space
5) Buttons at 2-3 different rows
6) Preview buttons changing their showing data

The old toolbar way is much better, as it gives one same kind look for everything. If then wanted, you can have multiple toolbars (2-3 taking as much space as Ribbon) and they don't change position or look depending what size the window is. Neither there is mixed icons+text look.

Only one thing I like with the Ribbon idea, and it is from Lotus and Macromedia times (1998 if I remember correctly...) who invented the Ribbon interface, that you had tabs with informative actions.

Like "Add", "Formating", "Layout" "Actions"

So when you wanted to add something, you went to add tab. When you wanted to format something, you opened formating tab. Layout for changing the whole document look and if wanted to do special actions, you opened actions.

And everything was from left to right order in the workflow manner. So you start from left by inputting data. Then you formated the data, then you chose layout and then you assigned actions (URL's and so on) to it. And after all, you published/shared/printed the document.

So it was workflow from the beginning with step by step manner. Now with MS version of Ribbon, it is mixed again. That you start with inputing data and formating it same time, then you insert some elements and then you change layout and after publishing, you do review...

Re:Users disagree with him

[xero314]

If the apps window is at the bottom right of the screen you have to go all the way up to the top left to...

...hit an infinitely wide/tall menu item.

Accessing an OS X menu item is faster than hitting any other button on the screen accept the one directly under the current mouse position, or in one of the four corners. There for contextual menus are the fastest to access, but require some learning to even realize they are there and what is in them. Corner menus would be the next fastest, but they would only hold a single button, which would be an odd interface. So there for your best bet are screen edge menus, which is exactly what OS X has.

Windows menus are the absolute worst possible way to implement a menu. The are not directly under the current mouse position and are not in any of the easy to reach in a single motion, areas of the screen, and lastly they are relatively small (sometimes ridiculously small). And even with their bad placement and small size they waste important screen real estate.

Re:Users disagree with him

[he-sk]

The sad truth is that iCal has been getting progressively worse since OS X 10.4. The same is true for Address Book but to a lesser extent.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Alex Belits]

Please do that!
I dreamed of Microsoft destroying its own market for years, and now it's within reach.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

I don't use calc extensively, but I've tried to create a couple charts in it while I was in unbuntu (just because I was there). Their chart making interface is just simply atrocious. I needed error bars, lines of fit, legends... I just couldn't find anything. It's all hidden in right click context menus and drop downs. In excel you click on the chart and it's all right there in front of you. Also I hate how when you hit backspace on a cell it always brings of a list of ways to delete the cell. I know the delete key will just clear the contents, but in Excel when you hit backspace you can then type in the cell. I find this very convenient.

Although I will say one thing open office in general is very good at is crashing and not being able to recover my work. Office has crashed on me rarely, but it's always been able to recover my work when I re-open.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

Care to elaborate on exactly what these features are? You know you can also customize the menu now, or make your own shortcuts to these features.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Blakey Rat]

But when you click in the edit pane and the ribbon disappears, the whole page scrolls up, and you're not clicking where you want to click. Moronic.

Liar. The Ribbon goes *over* your document, it doesn't push your document down.

I mean, maybe you were using some weird non-Microsoft psuedo-ribbon in an app developed by an idiot who didn't understand the concept. But your complaint doesn't apply to the actual Ribbon as used in actual Microsoft products.

Re:Users disagree with him

[TheRaven64]

I agree. 10.5 removed the ability to mark appointments as tentative / confirmed and, worse, removed this data from existing appointments. I filed a bug, marked it as 'data loss' and had it closed with 'works as expected'. I gave up filing Apple bugs around then.

Re:Users disagree with him

[IrquiM]

Agree when it comes to Word, but Excel is another story

Re:Users disagree with him

[aztracker1]

I'm pretty sure the UI, and much of the codebase for the Mac version is not shared with the windows version.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Oligonicella]

"That word just doesn't fit."

Yeah, it does. You even agree.

"It's subjectively judged by the receiver from the speaker/writer."

The receiver of the UI perceives it as condescending. Therefore, it's condescending. In this case, condescension from the UI designer.

"But non language based aspects of UIs?"

UI are communication. That's all that's required for condescension, communication. Making all my controls look like Fischer Price toy buttons is condescension.

For instance.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

And god forbid, if your trying to setup a custom header and footer than happens to not follow the "styles" that are included

This is not a problem at all... what exactly are you trying to do? You can create your own custom headers and footers or if you're into presets but not the default ones, there are plenty available online.

The largest oversight with the new version of office, is the inability to maintain the old style interface. There is something to be said for a logical hierarchical interface

The ribbon is a hierarchical interface. It's just graphical. For example, in Word the top level hierarchy is File, Home, Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View. Then for example the next level in the Home tab is Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, Editing. Then each of those is broken down further. This is no different from a textual menu system except that the 3rd level in the hierarchy is visible all at once, so you're always within 2 clicks of 90% of the functions. In the old menu system, it's 3 or more.

rather than an interface based on what MS thinks you want to do

So Microsoft didn't lay out the pre-2007 menu system for you? Not to mention in Office 2010 the ribbon is fully customizable! So if you don't like th way Microsoft chose the layout, you can make your own! What more exactly do you want?

Re:Users disagree with him

[bipbop]

It irritates me too, and I'm not sure what purpose they're supposed to serve.

When I updated from 10.4 to 10.5, I had to abandon the hack-ish multiple desktops solution I'd been using, because Apple included Spaces, which was less hack-ish but also less functional. I've been using multiple desktops since the mid-90s, but I had to give up on using Spaces, as being intolerably slow is not an option you can disable, and the GP will have a damned hard time convincing me that being unable to disable the animations is for my own good.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

the ribbon's idea of "context" is the last section of the ribbon you were using.

This is not true at all. Context ribbons appear in color, and they are relevent to the task at hand. When you're writing an equation, the equation context is available. Likewise for tables, graphics, charts, etc. What's more, say you're working on a picture within a table. Both context menus are available then. If you click away from them, they disappear. The ribbon tabs that are always there are nothing more than menu titles in the old menu system... except that one is always open at a time. They essentially have no context. Why exactly is that a problem?

Re:Users disagree with him

[ILongForDarkness]

How so? How would helping developers figure out what users use and what they would likely need more training/more obvious presentation in the UI hurt MS? Presumably the infrastructure to report generic user stats already exists because it is used by Windows Office etc. They would just have to publish the API and find a way to determine who to send the info to (for example the registered developer in the Win Logo program). It's not rocket science and it isn't any different than what MS users have been used too/willing to do for the last decade or more.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I filed a bug, marked it as 'data loss' and had it closed with 'works as expected'.

The thing to do then is to refile your report as a feature request to return the functionality. File it both in the developer bug tracker and in the user feedback.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash: It turns the old users into idiots by changing where everything was.

1) News flash? Seriously? 2) Perhaps your old users were idiots all along. Even a monkey can be trained. So you change things up a little and they're completely bewildered? Bunch of certified geniuses you people are.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ricera10]

Did you single-click on the ribbon? That temporarily reveals it and makes it hover instead of moving the document around.

Re:Users disagree with him

[MightyYar]

My point is that some people defend the ribbon-only approach by saying that it would take too much effort to support both interfaces, yet the lower-volume Mac version supports both and it still seems to be profitable.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Larryish]

For most users the UNIX CLI backend is sort of like the pistol in your sock drawer.

It feels good to know it's there, but you hope you never have to use it.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jeremyp]

Don't whine on Slashdot. Apple has a feedback form for most of their applications (Address book is strangely missing, probably to stop the server from melting). If you don't like the iCal UI fill in the iCal feedback form. Tell them what a miserable pile of shite it is.

Actually, do whine on Slashdot, but tell everybody else about the feedback page.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Guy Harris]

The same is true of the 10.7 Address Book. It now looks like a real book (so, once again, slow page-turning animations rather than instance changes) and the two-page metaphor means that you can no longer see groups and individuals at the same time. Using groups to navigate is harder. I was going to say that they'd removed the groups functionality, but on closer inspection it is there just less discoverable

Bingo. That "click on the bookmark to switch between the two views" nonsense is a steaming crock of shit.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever just pressed Alt with a ribbon application open? It shows you tooltips for each tab with the keyboard shortcut letter. Press the letter and it will switch to that tab and show you the shortcut for each item in the menu.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Guy Harris]

On the address book, if you double clip the bookmark ribbon (placeholder) graphics, you can see both contacts and groups in the left pane (Command + 3), although selecting one or the other will show you that specific view in the right side (Command +1, Command + 2, & Command + 3 toggle these views respectively).

Somebody at Apple had apparently forgotten, or never learned, about "discoverability".

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Push alt. In my opinion, the keyboard commands with the ribbon are far superior to underlined letters in menus.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people find it stupid to have to install a separate program in order to differentially compare two files. That same operation takes like 30 characters of typing in a terminal, and the output can be saved to a file for later analysis. One of the things I love about Mac OS X(even though there are tons of things I hate) is that they don't remove this functionality and think that their users are better off without it. Some people prefer the metaphor, and some people prefer to just tell the computer what they want it to do.

Mac OS X and Linux both allow you the flexibility to do both, which is something that all of their users learn to appreciate in the end.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that you mention that. Jensen Harris's blog contains information about how his team used an internal Microsoft technology called SQM to do exactly that when designing the ribbon.

Link is here.

Re:Users disagree with him

[geekprime]

If Microsoft is indeed using tools like Google Analytics for applications they are completely ignoring what those tools tell them, Windows 8 is the windows mobile interface that everyone hates on a larger non-touchscreen. I predict that the FIRST thing anyone will do with windows 8 is shut that damn thing off.

Re:Users disagree with him

[adonoman]

So double-click on the ribbon to make it auto-hide, and use all the same keyboard shortcuts you memorised. None of those have gone away.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BasilBrush]

That's all that's required for condescension, communication. Making all my controls look like Fischer Price toy buttons is condescension.

I don't think so. It might be inappropriate design, depending on what the app is. But it's not condescending. The app designer doesn't know whether you are a 3 year old toddler or an adult. It's you that choose to use that app, not the designer. If you feel the app is at an inappropriate level for you, then that's your fault.

You might feel condescended to by the writer of TeleTubbies, but did the writer choose for you to be watching, or did you choose it? The writer was aiming it at toddlers, not adults he wanted to condescend.

Really, you shouldn't be looking for insults from people who don't even know you personally exist. And I suspect you're not. Which is why the word "condescension" is wrong for this use.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Professional looking pitchbooks and other marketing documents. If you're just doing text, frankly you could probably do better with LaTeX. But if you want to have logos, diagrams, custom formatting, etc., then having the power that Office gives you is important.

For example, any large-ish company is going to have templates for different kinds of pages (e.g. page of text with company logo at top, page with charts, page with chart + text), a standard set of colors and shapes, custom text styles, etc. Being able to quickly format stuff according to your company's standard is super important, and being able to easily tweak things is equally so.

Re:Users disagree with him

[LO0G]

To add a worksheet in Excel 2007, I go to the bottom of the document (where the worksheet tabs are listed). The one on the far right has a tooltip which says "Insert Worksheet (Shift+F11)". That seems much more efficient than the "home/cells/format" thingy you described.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's.

Wake me up when the ribbon can be moved to the side of the screen instead of the top. Many laptops come with only 800 pixels vertical real-estate, and losing 15% screen height between the ribbon and the taskbar is just ridiculous.

Re:Users disagree with him

[mcgrew]

Users disagree with him

[citation needed]

I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's. It does take some adjustment if you've used the old ones, but that's true for every kind of change. And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface.

The question is how is it better? I ask this as someone who hasn't used it. People like change when it brings a positive benefit. Nobody turns down a raise because they don't want change, but nobody wants to learn a whole new interface unless it's a demonstrably better interface. There's too much interesting useful things to do and learn than how to use a new interface.

If they did offer both, that would indeed be an improvement.

I'd like developers to know that I want apps and programs to be user-obedient. I don't care about how shiny or "friendly" it is.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the ribbon interface has given up the advantages to the true power users in order to make undertrained desk jockeys marginally more efficient.

You're joking, right? The Ribbon has a much easier path towards power-userdom. Tap your ALT key and you get distinctive letter hints for each section, and each step thereafter. EVERY ITEM on the Ribbon has a keyboard shortcut in this fashion. It used to be that only some items in menus had shortcuts. So now there are shortcuts for everything, and they're more obvious than they used to be. AT the same time, there are larger GUI targets for beginners. This should be a win-win.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple sold dogshit on a stick, you'd say: "Mac users overwhelmingly appreciate that this way is better."

Re:Users disagree with him

[canajin56]

The Quick Icons: The method for picking what goes in there is magical. Sometimes I use something once and it's there a long time, sometimes stuff I use all the time is never there. But you can "pin" things to it so they always appear at the top of the quick icons list.
I've never had your right-clicking problem with icons, but I'm annoyed that in "list view" of directories, you can't click anywhere on a row of data to select the file, it has to be on text, not whitespace. So if you have "foo.txt" then the amount of the very wide name column you are allowed to click on is pretty tiny.
It annoys me that the show desktop button cannot be moved or removed. Microsoft's response is "right click and uncheck 'peek at desktop'". If you say "I don't want the button there at all, please actually read what I asked" they say "Unfortunately our users want the button there so the design choice was made to make it mandatory". WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Right click, Close sends the Close Window signal as opposed to the "Kill Application" signal. Sometimes applications have a valid reason to stay running in the background even with all windows closed, like an IM client, virus scanner, etc. This is proper behavior, though it would be handy if like OSX the right click context menu also had "Force Close". I personally wouldn't use it very often though, except as a faster way to kill instead of doing it from Task Manager. There's probably a shell extension that does that.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jrminter]

I could not disagree more. Do you work on complex documents or spreadsheets? As a scientist in an analytical lab, I do so all the time. I could work productively from the old user interface because it was easy to get where I needed to go with a minimum of key strokes/clicks. That coupled with a VBA macro recorder made automating tasks reasonably painless. The new Office interface is horribly inefficient. Having to code VBA from scratch (since they removed the macro recorder) is more time consuming. They really screwed up the scatterplot and regression functions. After trying to use if for a year, I still abhor it. That, coupled with the objections from the statistics community concerning the unwillingness/inability of Microsoft to fix some errors and misleading choices in several algorithms has caused me to migrate away from their products to the older (but better maintained), open source tool chain of R / Sweave / LaTeX. Yes, there was a BIG learning curve, but my work is much more modular and reproducible now. And I don't need to pay Microsoft for "improvements" that I don't need and don't want.

Re:Users disagree with him

[cjb658]

IMHO, Windows 8 looks like it's going to be Vista 2.0.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a power user, the ribbon sucks because it slows you down. It takes up a lot of screen space. The hotkeys tend to be longer than they were pre-ribbon (which is really the most important thing, since 90%+ of the commands I do are keyboard shortcuts). Operating the ribbon with a mouse requires much larger movements than menus did--sometimes you even have to click to scroll the ribbon to see more commands! To make a starcraft analogy, it's like I went from 30 APM to 10 APM going from menus to ribbon (yes 30 APM is a reasonable estimate of how many menu commands I might do).

But the worst is trying to find stuff. With a menu, I can quickly skim down a list of commands--I can examine the ENTIRE contents of the menu in, say, 10 seconds. With the ribbon, I have to examine a bunch of hieroglyphics which take much longer to parse, and it seems a lot easier to miss things. (And frankly, using icons is just stupid, idiotic, moronic. In excel, there are like 10 different colored book icons for different types of formulas: trig is purple, lookup is blue, etc (or whatever). Come on, is that supposed to help at all?) The increased amount of context-sensitivity since office 2003 also makes it hard to find stuff--you need to have the right thing highlighted to find some commands.

Also the implementation of the ribbon has been a headache. Since each tab of the ribbon is limited size, some commands ended up on tabs where the connection isn't obvious. I want to change the background color of a text box, so I go to the "format" tab. But it's not there. I keep looking... oh it turns out it's on the "home" tab. For chart formatting, is really bad, because there's several tabs of conceptually similar things, like "format" and "layout". So I have to remember all the quirks about which commands are where.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft is indeed using tools like Google Analytics for applications they are completely ignoring what those tools tell them, Windows 8 is the windows mobile interface that everyone hates on a larger non-touchscreen. I predict that the FIRST thing anyone will do with windows 8 is shut that damn thing off.

Even though you claim to speak on behalf of everyone, so probably already know this, here is one example of how they are using what user telemetry tell them to informs design decisions. Here is another

Re:Users disagree with him

[hitmark]

Actually, Windows have ctrl+tab that changes sub-windows within a MDI program. But MDI have largely been abandoned for tabs and one window one file designs.

Re:Users disagree with him

[cjb658]

As much as I like the eye candy newer GUIs provide, I miss the old days when you had to be smart to use a computer. Sigh...

Unfortunately, computing is going to be like TV - if you want to maximize profit, you cater to the lowest common denominator. Hopefully Linux will continue to be Team Discovery Channel.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ottothecow]

That is one thing that I still have been unable to get used to with the ribbon.

Some of the tabs are quite frequently home to single use items...for example sometimes do other things on the data tab in excel...but 90% of the time when I go there, it is to do a "refresh all" and be done. But then it hangs out on that tab forever.

To make matters worse, the active ribbon is switched by keyboard shortcuts. So even if I never click on the data tab and instead use alt-ARA to refresh all, now my ribbon is hanging out on the data tab...

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

the Office 2007 & 2010 ribbons are even less context-aware than the old toolbars/menus were.

The Ribbon...fail.

Re:Users disagree with him

[PhunkySchtuff]

I can hit the menu bar at the top of the screen 100% of the time without even looking. Move the mouse upwards and it stops automatically when you get to the menu bar. It's a far easier target to hit than a thin menu attached to each window.

As for the one button mouse - every single Mac that ships with a mouse, ships with a 2 button mouse with X/Y scroll capabilities. Macs have shipped with 2 button mouses as standard for near on 10 years now, so that's a bit of a tired meme to try and use.

Nearly every single app on the Mac uses right-click context sensitive menus - however there's a big difference with the way they're implemented. In most cases (ie, if they're done right) the context menu has functionality that's also available through the normal user interface. It is very bad design to have functionality that exists and is only accessible from a context menu and this is heavily frowned upon on OS X.

Having said that, I really don't like the new skeuomorphic user interface design that Apple is using on Lion - it kind-of works on an iPhone or iPad where you're in a single-task mode and you are more closely replicating a physical object, but on the Mac it just looks like balls.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

ctrl+tab and alt+tab difficult to learn? really?

so next innovation will be onscreen virtual keyboard someone could use mouse to swipe with because they can't cope with a real keyboard? and the OS will default to this to "unify" mobile, platform (ex: XBOX 360) and kiosk (having replaced the desktop metaphor)?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Gothmolly]

They're called Democrats.

Re:Users disagree with him

[fyngyrz]

Seriously, the menubar at the top is a key aspect of the Mac. You say "have to go all the way to the top", but the top is an infinite target. Just a flick gets you there, and you can't overshoot it.

Oy. Wrong in so many ways. I have six monitors on my Mac Pro. The menu for any one app probably isn't even on the same monitor. It is a HUGE pain in the neck to navigate back to the display that (currently) contains the menu. The menus belong on the window(s) of the app that owns them. Period. Top-of-the-main-monitor is a complete foul-up. Not just because you have to move the mouse further in almost every case than you would if the menus were where they belong -- on the app windows -- but because they'd at least be on the right monitor, and because there'd be no guessing late in the game if you're quitting the right application.

And then there's OS X's inability to send keystrokes to any application other than the one in front. What a huge UI fumble. Got the ability to remotely control an app by sending it keystrokes? Too bad. Won't work under OSX unless the app is already active, in which case, you're not remote controlling it, because the app attempting the control has lost the focus.

And then there's the whole one button mouse thing, although there are so many ways around that today you don't really get screwed solidly by it unless you buy an Apple mouse / trackpad. Even then, there are options besides the brain-dead "control-click."

And page animations... really? Seriously? You're going to exchange my TIME for eye candy? Unbelievable.

Seriously... Apple's UI designers all needs to go take a long walk off a short pier.

I love my mac pro for what it can do, but there are ui-specific reasons that constantly limit what it can do as well, and I sure as heck don't appreciate those. The stupid, stupid menus-at-the-top feature pretty much serving as the poster child for exactly how NOT to do something because it's BROKEN and gets in the user's way and requires more mouse travel and is less clear and breaks the multi-monitor paradigm.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Word (.doc, .docx) is not a presentation format.

Using a word processor means "I don't care about layout." It is a bad tool *by design* for jobs where you care about layout. There are other, better tools for that. The printer driver can further modify layout of word documents.

They're probably not going to do much with the Oracle code. Calc theoretically has most of the features but there are a few critical exceptions and the UI is probably where the "bad joke" comments come in.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

an office suite > word processing program. just sayin

Re:Users disagree with him

[xs650]

"The ribbon was polished more, "

Polishing the ribbon is like polishing a turd, it still stinks when you are done.

Re:Users disagree with him

[tepples]

Some people find it stupid to have to install a separate program in order to differentially compare two files.

I didn't have to install fc.exe, Microsoft's answer to diff(1), separately. It came on every Windows machine I've tried.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BlueWaterBaboonFarm]

It amazes me that Apple hasn't moved menus from the top of the screen to the actual window they are attached to yet.

Clearly you're a Windows or Linux user that's got used to the screen wasting and Fit's law conflicting Windows mutation of pull-down menus. Apple don't change it because Mac users overwhelmingly appreciate that this way is better.

I like not having to mouse one monitor over to get the menu. I also appreciate being able to use keyboard commands to open menus. I could never find a way to do this on OSx. I not really a Windows fan boy, but OSx menus are a big fail with multiple monitors in my opinion.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

The ribbon is the graphical-only endstate of the process that caused Microsoft to drop visual underlining of hot-keys by default: no-one is willing to train anyone to use a computer properly.

Press (don't hold) ALT
it'll then show you what key to press to jump to a particular ribbon menu item
once you press the key for the ribbon menu item, it'll show you shortcuts for the graphical elements

as a quick test, fire up paint
tap alt and you'll get File, Home, View
(note that you can hold ALT and press F to open up the file menu straight away)
press H and it'll show you the shortcut for the ribbon items
press and key to activate the ribbon item
note some items use 2 letters, so you'll need to end both letters, in order, to use that ribbon item
alternatively, you can use arrows keys to navigate across the ribbon to pick the item you want

the main thing missing i see are the 'Ctrl' shortcut accelerators
while they show up on the File menu, the Home ribbon doesn't indicate what the shortcut for Cut, Copy, or Paste is

Re:Users disagree with him

[westlake]

Well, if they were doing 'serious work', they would be using TeX, not MS-Word, right?

For pre-press work, maybe.

For the countless hours of routine clerical work that keeps your business afloat, maybe not.

Re:Users disagree with him

[adonoman]

the main thing missing i see are the 'Ctrl' shortcut accelerators while they show up on the File menu, the Home ribbon doesn't indicate what the shortcut for Cut, Copy, or Paste is

Try hovering over the ribbon button for a command. Then the 'Ctrl' is usually part of the tool-tip.

Re:Users disagree with him

[he-sk]

Don't get me started. I too had a bug report resolved as "works as expected". Another one of mine was closed as a duplicate, but Apple's bug tracking software won't let you view other people's bug reports. So I couldn't follow its progress anymore.

Apple's bug reporting policy is a joke. On the user.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Switching to Classic view, as the summary suggests, makes the UI a lot snappier.

No it doesn't. Enjoy your confirmation bias.

Re:Users disagree with him

[mobby_6kl]

How does it feel to be so wrong about everything?

Speak for yourself. UI is the most important factor for me in any piece of software.

Windows 7 Start Menu, the problems:
- The quick icons... it's a great idea to have, unfortunately just because I access a program frequently doesn't mean I want it in the start menu. It also seems to arbitrarily exempt certain programs from being in there - like Notepad.

If you don't want an application on the start menu, you can remove it from the list with two clicks.
Notepad does show up on the list, however this depends on whether you launch it a way a normal user would, through the start menu, task bar, explorer, etc. It can't just stick every executable that is ran as it would end up with a bunch of crap that gets loaded by other programs, for instance.

- Windows Explorer - I've never used the default libraries, I'm not interested in it. I don't store information in that manner and it's great that a lot of people do, however, I used to be able to do it my way not the popular way. It refuses to default to anything but 'Libraries' and if I manually adjust it it resets frequently.

You don't have to use libraries if you don't want to. Explorer's starting location can be changed via the shortcut properties, it never changed itself for me, plus it seems to default to "My computer" when launched with Win+E anyway.

- Right click doesn't always right click. Granted this one may be a bug, but I'll often find that desktop icons can't be right clicked until they're given focus. Mouseover is supposed to give them focus but in some cases it doesn't.

Yeah that's a bug or some application causing this.

- Mouse position actions are SOOO annoying. Examples - the most common resting position for the mouse is off tot he bottom or right of the screen. This is because there's no gutter on the left for the mouse to disappear into, nor top. This means that the most common resting position for the mouse is also where they decided to put a mouse over desktop preview. Try bottom left? The open items on your start menu, as I type this message the mouse moves due to my thumbs touching the mousepad (granted this is bad design by Samsung but it's a common that the mousepad is directly under the space between the H and J on laptops with a full keyboard). Because the mouse movies it pops up the program preview over what I'm typing. Try top right? Oh, the close menu is there and accidentally closes your programs with an accidental mouse tap when you hit space. Middle right? Same deal as top right except it hits the scrollbar and moves you to a random spot in your document.

I dunno, the most common resting place for the cursor is near wherever it was used the last time, but fine, if you want to rest it in the bottom-right corner, go ahead - you can disable the desktop peek feature of that region. Also, Windows doesn't give focus on mouse-over, so can just keep typing as you move the mouse all over the screen anyway.

- Control over context menus is entirely with individual developers. Control is great, but part of what makes an operating system an operating system is a common set of controls you can use for all programs. When I right click->close, it should close the program not minimize it.

Fair enough, developers should be more consistent with the UI guidelines. However, where does this happen? Right-clicking on the taskbar application icons, as well as on the preview thumbnails gives you more or less the standard set of commands including Closing the window.

Office Ribbons the problems
- Clutter. Plain and simple. There are so many different colours, shapes, sizes, and wrapping text that it's a jumbled mess. They also assume which buttons you use commonly. Most common functions I use, I use key commands for because I use them commonly a

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

Word on a laptop with a smallish screen ends up with less than 50% of the screen usable for actually displaying the document.

Lies. I just opened both Word and OO Writer at 1024x768 resolution. Compare: Office Word vs. Open Office Writer. From top of the screen to the start of the page, the two are the SAME. Which means if you want to add any non-default toolbars Writer is going to have less page real estate than Word. Actually, as it turns out, the pointless horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of Writer give Word the advantage, even with the ribbon. What's more, you can minimize the ribbon in one click. How do you hide the toolbars in Writer and bring them all back in one click?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

Just press alt, and it walks you through the keypresses to get to a function.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

I know plenty of professors who write papers in Word and refuse to use TeX. I honestly prefer it as well. Most conferences I submit to offer both a TeX and Word template.

Re:Users disagree with him

[cyber-vandal]

Autocorrect is a wonderful tool for professional typists. It allows you to create abbreviations for common phrases so you type euchr and get European Convention on Human Rights for example. I wouldn't have been without it when I typed for a living.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

It took you half an hour to do a google search? You really have no right to be bitching about a UI. Clearly they aren't designed for someone with a room temperature IQ.

Re:Users disagree with him

[bonch]

Many nerds suffer from a condition known as Early Crotchety Syndrome. Any change from a previous paradigm is met with extreme hostility and a perception of being condescended to, and frustration results from time invested in learning a previous thing being rendered obsolete by a new thing.

I got used to the ribbon in less than a day. It's absolutely not a big deal.

Re:Users disagree with him

[bonch]

But how many prefer the 10.7 version of iCal to the 10.6 one? With 10.6 I could quickly skip to any given month. With the 10.7 one, it decides to show me that it's like a real calendar by showing a page-flipping animation on every transition.

If you click the Year view, you can see all the months at once.

Re:Users disagree with him

[cyber-vandal]

I would agree that the wholesale irreversible change to the ribbon was a stupid idea but the idea that meaningful work can't be done is a strange one. I do meaningful work all the time with products with a ribbon interface. It takes a lot of googling to get to that point however and I think I would have just turned it off if MS had let me.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

The other problem I see is this constant striving to make digital metaphors for physical objects. For instance, from the article summary: "The physical bookshelf, the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page), the false-paginated address book." For someone who's 80 years old, sure, metaphors to these things might make use of a computer easier since they can compare to things they're already used to. For someone 30 or under, however, it's dumb: how many people under the age of 40 have a paper address book? I haven't had one of those in ages, and I'm sure younger people have never had one and wouldn't know what to do with one, since they keep all that information on their phones now. A leather desk calendar? WTF is this, 1890? Do they even make those things any more? And even physical bookshelves are rapidly disappearing thanks to ebooks and simply looking everything up on the internet.

What are they going to do next, replace the print queue manager icons, so instead of a picture of a laser printer, when you print a document it shows you a fancy (and slow) animation of a Gutenberg printing press?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

Woops, wrong links. Here: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30loqqo&s=5 http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2aj0xu8&s=5

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Any number of MS apps do this... for example Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio are two that I have open right now.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

Apple really went off the deep end recently when they changed the mouse scroll wheel behavior to be reversed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Tacvek]

The annoying parts are definitely the contextual ribbon tabs and just how hidden some features become. Honestly, if they had completely rearranged the menus, I would find that less obnoxious because at least it is easy to exhaustively search a menu.

With the ribbon it is hard because each ribbon group can have a sub menu, a ribbon gallery can have menu items, and a ribbon button can have a sub-menu. This makes it much, much harder to exhaustively search to find a feature that was hidden someplace obscure.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

Like it or not the rest of the world uses MS Office and if your docs turn into word salad when they open it or you get word salad when you open theirs? its a problem.

There's an easy way around this problem in a certain percentage of cases: stop sending editable files to people! That's what PDF was invented for. Export your document to PDF, and send that. Then you won't have any problems with your docs turning into "word salad" as you put it.

Obviously, if multiple people are trying to edit the same document, this isn't an option, but this seems to be a common complaint in cases where editing is not necessary at all, and people are just trying to send a document for read-only consumption. If you're sending someone a .doc[x] or .odw document just so they can read it (and not edit it), then you're an idiot.

Re:Users disagree with him

[xystren]

Yeah, I knew this type of response would come along. Never did I say it couldn't be done - I said with the new interface, some of the options are so unintuitive it is a pain to find them, even to do the simplest of things (eg, add a page number field). Under the new interface, it seems like I'm searching, upon searching to find out where MS has hidden a feature within the ribbon. I'm not saying it's not there, I'm saying I (and others) find it extremely difficult locate for something that used to be so simple to find. It also appears that I'm not the only one that runs into this problem. Sure, coming into it new, probably not that big of a deal - coming from the old, it seems to be complete unintuitive.

The intuitiveness of the ribbon for me, and the majority of my classmates is just not there. Yes, the ribbon is hierarchical somewhat, but that hierarchy changes depending what you happen to be focused on - in the old menu system, no matter where you were, to find the option the path was the same. For me, the number of clicks is less relevant than the ease of finding what you want to do. The fact that I need to click is taking my hand away from the keyboard and making me click. When it comes to the ribbon, that ease just doesn't exist at first. Also it takes up far too much real estate on my screen (and yeah, I know it can be minimized)

I am willing to admit it has to do with my unfamiliarity with this new versions interface more than anything. If I wasn't forced to use it the occasional time at the schools computers, there would be no problem as I would continue to use Office 2003. There is nothing more frustrating than knowing how to do something very simple (in the pre-2007 version), and spending more time poking around trying to find out where the options are due to the new interface. Simply, customizable or not, an interface that is not intuitive to a user is not a good interface. I'm am not the only one that feels the anti-intuitiveness of the ribbon. What more do I want? Pretty simple really.. How about an option in your settings that says "Interface Type", with the choices of "New - Office 2007/10" or "Classic - Office 2003 and earlier". I honestly don't think I would be alone in asking for this option.

I come from the old days of WordStar and WordPerfect 5.x and earlier. While today, most would feel completely lost at the unintuitiveness in the WordStar Ctl-key combinations, or the various CTL/ALT/SHIFT-Fn key combinations of WordPerfect. I miss and embrace the simplicity and efficiency of those days of not needing to reach for the mouse to execute a particular function. And yes, I am familiar with the keyboard shortcuts, I use them all the time.

I have used MS office for years, and word since version 2.0 and earlier. While I don't consider myself a super power user with Word, I do consider myself to be extremely competent. The 2007+ interface might as well have taken me back to being a new user. A quick search on Google of "hate Microsoft word ribbon" turns up over 10.2 million results, while "love Microsoft word ribbon" yields 1.2... Pretty big difference, yet pretty meaningless since we know there are more bitches than loves on the 'net - what it does do is show that I'm not alone in my opinions.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Mail merges, document generation (through automation via the com interops), reviewing cube data. How about outlook automation for sending emails froma users profile in response to a software event (such as changine a records status). Yes people use them... people more advanced than you it would seem.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

It's good to hear of a successful case of OO/LO adoption, but it sounds like maybe you were really using the wrong tools for the job anyway, and should have been using TeX or LaTeX, especially for very large documents.

Re:Users disagree with him

[xystren]

And one of the quotes of Obama that I agree with..."You can put lipstick on a pig... it's still a pig."

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

While you have a few good points here, I adamantly disagree with the bench seat thing. Bench seats suck. Bucket seats are more comfortable and supportive, and have side bolsters to keep you from sliding around while cornering. Bench seats went obsolete with 50s-era pickup trucks.

As for the steering wheel thing, that sounds like a bad idea. The way it is now, your hands control steering, and your right foot controls acceleration (both positive and negative, aka "braking"). Putting too many functions on a single control surface isn't a good idea, as it's easy to make the wrong inputs. The problem you mention with stepping on both pedals is a design flaw in modern cars, and shouldn't exist: if you step on the brake, any input on the accelerator pedal should be ignored. This is trivial to do in software, and there's no valid case I can think of for wanting to rev the engine while holding the brakes, unless you're drag racing (which is illegal, and if you're doing it on a track you can use specialized equipment to override the regular behavior anyway and get better results). (Actually, even the drag racing thing can easily be covered by looking at the car's speed; if it's zero, then that behavior could be allowed, if it's moving it's not.)

Re:Users disagree with him

[Alex Belits]

Because a major reason why Windows-only products are still in use is a "long tail" of features that are of marginal use overall but every user believes that at least one of such features is absolutely critical for his purposes. Reproducing those features to placate everyone is a massive pain in the neck, and objectively most of them are worthless, but they are effective at keeping users on an inferior, obsolete platform because software developed for it has some continuity in implementing those things.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ulricr]

No there are two modifier keys as well on Windows. OS X copied the hotkey switching from Windows. On Windows ALT+Tab switches between apps, Ctrl+TAB switches between windows in that application. Just like Apple+Tab and Apple+esc (or whatever it is, I can't remember) Also, OS X got it wrong at first. The elegance of the Windows ATL+TAB and CTRL+TAB is that you can easily switch to the last two windows when you pressed and released the key. At first on OSX, it always went to the next one. They fixed it for their equivalent of ALT+TAB after release one, but never fixed it for their equivalent for CTRL+TAB.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay but hopefully you don't go as far with that attitude as most linux programs do - this is why there is no "year of the linux desktop" - 90% of programs require a degree in compsci just to install, let alone customize.

Sure, I understand your little app I want to use is open source, and I'm getting it for free, but you couldn't have written a proper installer for it? Do I really need to edit 5 different .conf files just to run it once?

Re:Users disagree with him

[JoeMerchant]

You know, I've been using computers 8+ hours a day for 25+ years now, and I don't give a damn what sub-sub-menu spock pinch hot key this week's latest incarnation of calendar uses to do the same damn thing I have expected a calendar program to do since 1991's Sidekick.

I especially don't care that I can spend 3 hours learning how to and executing a reconfiguration of my latest desktop software to make its UI almost mimic the program I used to use last week. I move from machine to machine, OS to OS throughout the day, Windows 7, XP, Vista, OS-X 10.4, 10.3.9 and 10.7, iOS 4 and 5, and a couple of flavors of Ubuntu. I don't have the time, or inclination to set each and every one of these machines up so that they are familiar to me. When a new one comes around, I just want the damn thing to work, in a non-mysterious fashion. For every "improvement" that has come down the pike, there have been a half dozen changes for the sake of change - my favorite was the "Apollo" OS - very similar to Sun, it was Unix, with all the commands renamed and options rearranged for no particular reason.

The path of least resistance is to grin, bear it, and get on with it. I still wish that programming editors would get back to the simplicity of Brief with its easy to use column text selection (yes, most editors have an Alt-mouse click version, which sucks by comparison), but even if I had that in one editor, it still wouldn't be present in the 3 others that I have open at the same time.

So, if you're a "new" ui designer, really really think about taking a look back at what worked 20 years ago - ask yourself if what you're planning is truly any better, or just different, for your users. If it's different, deduct 10% usability points for the required learning curve, and, don't kid yourself, your app will be replaced soon enough.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate user interfaces or operating systems who think they're smarter than me, the average user.
They're always hiding things, re-correcting your spelling, and basically slowing things down to the point to being un-useable.
Just like Google's search.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

CIO's are too embarrassed to ever admit not using the latest Office version to their colleagues at conferences and club houses.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ILongForDarkness]

True though relying on old things isn't exactly something that the *nix world can claim they don't do either. After all a large part of linux "innovation" has been the copying of the features of UNIX from back in the 1970's. Sure there are new schedulers etc but ultimately the structure of the OS has stayed pretty consistent over time. MS is going to blow away a lot of their old framework with Metro in Win 8 (and the WinRT vs MFC replacement). Anyways things like apps not being able to write ad hoc to the harddrive is going to make things "interesting" to say the least. I guess give it 5 years and if people are still choicing to port things over to the new run time rather than to Mac or Linux than there will likely be proof that it isn't "old incompatiblities" that is keeping users.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jo_ham]

Actually, that is one of the changes I really like.

You can, of course, reverse it back to the old behaviour in about 10 seconds in System Preferences, but when using a trackpad (I have the big desktop Apple trackpad on my iMac) you quickly get used to the new way, since it is exactly the same way the interface works on touch screens.

It was certainly a shock to a lot of people that it swapped over to the default in Lion.

FWIW I prefer the old behaviour when using a scroll wheel mouse, since I'm so used to it, and the paradigm fits "scroll down, window moves down" but the new way when using a trackpad: "move finger down, mimics putting fingers onto a sheet of paper so it moves with your fingers" (rather than moving the wind you're viewing through).

This change, however, is slightly outside the discussion since it's something you can set with a preference. The UI changes to iCal and Address Book are fixed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[hairyfeet]

Question: Why are you using the full size ribbon on a laptop? Because i have a 12 inch netbook, which means of course real estate is at a minimum, but Office 2K7 fits it better than my old Office 2K simply by having the mini-bar customized for my most used commands. On mine I have the usual suspects, file, save, search and replace, etc, and with about 9 commands its just a teeny tiny strip at the very top of the document.

While i agree with you about the ribbon just being a menu why more folks don't just make the mini-bar how they want it and then just flip open the ribbon when they need to do something more off the beaten path i just don't know. and i think the guy is nuts for giving up the Win 7 Aero for classic when there is just so many cool time saving features like jumplists and if he wanted the old file/edit/view menu all he had to do was hit the alt key on any explorer window and it pops right up, no biggie. Different strokes i guess but a nice feature of Win 7 is you don't HAVE to have the new if you don't want, you can go back to the fugly Win9X UI dull grey and all.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

Hopefully Linux will continue to be Team Discovery Channel.

requiring 20 manual edits to conf files and 3 commands with 15 switches, all just to install something is not exactly what I'd call "good user interface design" either.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you forgot "now get off my lawn!"

Re:Users disagree with him

[Electricity Likes Me]

I can hit the menu bar at the top of the screen 100% of the time without even looking. Move the mouse upwards and it stops automatically when you get to the menu bar. It's a far easier target to hit than a thin menu attached to each window.

Conversely when - ever - do you need to click on a menu without looking at the screen to do it?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Missing.Matter]

unintuitive it is a pain to find them, even to do the simplest of things (eg, add a page number field).

Okay, let's take your example and compare. In the Open Office Writer menu system, adding a page number is under Insert>Fields>Page Number. In Office 2010, it's under Insert>Page Number. How exactly is this unintuitive? What's more, the Office 2010 way gives you a variety of locations to place the page number, styles, formats, etc right there. In Writer you are simply given a number where the cursor is. If you want to change the format you have to go to Insert>Fields>Other. THAT is unintuitive.

Further, in Writer, because it lacks contextual menus unlike the ribbon, I have no idea how to insert a page number after I've inserted a header. In Word, when I insert a header, I'm immediately presented with options related to the header, including inserting a page number. How this eluded you is beyond me.

that hierarchy changes depending what you happen to be focused on - in the old menu system, no matter where you were, to find the option the path was the same.

This is not true. The hierarchy is the same no matter what tab you're on. I don't see where you're getting this idea from. This is backed up by the fact that there are static shortcuts for every single feature in the ribbon. You can press the same key combination no matter where you are in your document or what ribbon is active, and as long as that function is valid, you will access it. This is also independed of resolution.

Also it takes up far too much real estate on my screen (and yeah, I know it can be minimized)

Also not true. I made this comparison earlier in another post. Compare Word vs. Writer. This is in 1024x768 resolution. From the top of the screen to the top of the document, both interfaces take up the SAME space. And yes, you note that the ribbon can be hidden (in one click) but you fail to note that the toolbars cannot be hidden. If you have a larger screen, you can of course move some toolbars next to eachother. However, on my screen (1600x900), Writer ends up hiding options whereas Word makes the icons smaller, the functions are still there in plain sight. On a larger display the argument is moot.

There is nothing more frustrating than knowing how to do something very simple (in the pre-2007 version), and spending more time poking around trying to find out where the options are due to the new interface.

That has nothing to do with the interface and more about your familiarity with it. Any new interface will have that flaw. However, there are two points here: 1) take a moment and notice that tabs are pretty intelligently laid out. Want to insert a picture, graph, page number? It's probably under the insert tab. Want to change something about the formatting of the document? It's probably in the Page Layout tab. Of course not every feature can be divided into 7 categories perfectly. Therefore 2) just click the help button and type in the feature you want. More often than not the first hit will tell you exactly what you want to know.

But also notice that a user of the Ribbon is going to have the SAME complaint about the software you use. Personally I find Word 2003 and Open Office Writer very foreign.

I miss and embrace the simplicity and efficiency of those days of not needing to reach for the mouse to execute a particular function. And yes, I am familiar with the keyboard shortcuts, I use them all the time.

As I mentioned before, there is a keyboard shortcut for absolutely everything on the ribbon menu. If you want a shorter shortcut, put the function you want in the quick access bar at the top and your shortcut is alt+#

Re:Users disagree with him

[PhunkySchtuff]

Every time I go to the Apple menu (top-left corner of the screen) or Spotlight (top-right corner of the screen) as they're essentially infinite sized targets.

You're missing the point though. I never have to move the mouse towards a menu and then reposition it with a greater degree of accuracy as the top of the screen can be hit every time without trying. One quick flick of the mouse and you're there. You simply can not overshoot the menu bar on Mac OS X (unless, of course, you have a multi-monitor setup with two monitors arranged vertically and the lower one is the main monitor with the menu bar but this is a pretty rare occurrence and it sucks to actually use it in this configuration)

Refer to Fitts's Law - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law

Re:Users disagree with him

[shutdown -p now]

Anyway, larger targets than what? Because in software with menus, I use keystrokes to get wherever I want to go.

Ribbon is fully keyboard enabled, it's just that shortcuts are not prominent in it the way they were in menus. But press Alt, and you'll see every tab associated with a key. Press that key, and you'll see every element on the ribbon associated with another key. So, for example, in Word, inserting an unordered list is Alt+H (Home tab) then U.

Re:Users disagree with him

[shutdown -p now]

The fact is in Windows you need to install Cygwin for that and even then it's a mess.

PowerShell is built-in since Win7. For a decent editor, [g]vim is all that's really needed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[shutdown -p now]

From that perspective, classic menu is the opposite - it always resets your context immediately after the action is complete, even if you need to do something similar right afterwards (e.g. you're trying to make a table look the way you want, so you need table formatting commands).

Re:Users disagree with him

[Electricity Likes Me]

It's hard to beat the simplicity modern Word offers for dropping in graphics and graphs. Being able to copy+paste or just drag things in is a hell of a lot easier then saving separate files for things.

And yeah, most journals offer a Word template.

Re:Users disagree with him

[kingturkey]

I'd guess they dropped underlining hot-keys because it looked ugly. You can still see them by pressing Alt if you're in the minority that uses them regularly (not being disparaging, I count myself in that minority).

Re:Users disagree with him

[hairyfeet]

And then if you are lucky you'll get "can you send us a doc?" and if not they'll just file 13 whatever you sent. I know most HR depts won't take anything but .doc because their software scans .doc and gives them a nice little DB to search for buzzwords and at the local college you have to send as .doc so the teacher can add their comments or you get a big fat incomplete.

Like it or not frankly the world doesn't give a crap about free as in freedom and if you try to do something different from the way everyone else does it? they aren't gonna admire you, they are gonna think you're a prick and just toss it. I didn't make the world friend i just live in it and the network effect means you better be able to deal in .doc if you are gonna be messing with business or education or have enough money that you don't care if they file 13 all your hard work.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ninetyninebottles]

It's good to hear of a successful case of OO/LO adoption, but it sounds like maybe you were really using the wrong tools for the job anyway, and should have been using TeX or LaTeX, especially for very large documents.

I've certainly used LaTeX for various projects, but it was not appropriate for this one. It was a collaborative set of documentation with a wide variety of contributors that needed to be edited by professional writers without scripting or markup expertise running on both Linux and Windows. LaTeX was not the tool to facilitate easy authoring, editing, and technical editing from a team of about 20.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

I only send PDF versions of my resume out, and I haven't had any trouble finding jobs. HR doesn't need to remove my name and identifying information from my resume.

As for college, I guess I'm glad I graduated many years ago before they started doing BS like requiring students to submit work in a proprietary format (or any format other than paper for that matter). On the job, I've never had any need for MS Word; if the company uses it internally, they provide me a computer using whatever version of Word they want (which usually seems to be an older version than whatever's current at the time, interestly) and I work with it only when I'm at work. For my own stuff, I don't bother, and the only people who've complained were recruiters who wanted to be able to remove my identifying information. These days, I don't even bother with those; my experience with recruiters has been that they're nothing more than a complete waste of time, and all my successful job placements have been through me applying directly.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Grishnakh]

But you talked about having a dozens of engineers just for messing around with this thing in word processor formats, right? Why not let the professional writers do their writing without worrying about the scripting or anything more than the most basic markup (bold, italic, etc.), and then letting someone else (the "TeX guru") handle the serious markup and scripting? One of the whole points of LaTeX is to make it relatively easy to separate the content from the presentation. Most LaTeX documents are pretty simple-looking really, as far as the markup goes; the hard stuff is in the template.

Re:Users disagree with him

[I(rispee_I(reme]

You might be unable to miss the Mac's menu on the y-axis, but in order to select a particular option, surely you must aim on the x-axis. Even if there's only one option (never the case, but for the sake of argument...), you then have to aim to choose your submenu option.

If you're already aiming for a menu item, aiming on a second axis is very little overhead, and gains the benefits mentioned earlier in this thread (multiple monitor support and increased clarity of which window the menu applies to).

I see no merit to the "infinite click zone" argument for having the menubar affixed to the top of the main desktop.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

They already made Vista 2.0, it was called "Windows 7"

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel like OSX is trying to make me do things with mittens on, the freedom of my bare hands obstructed with a warm fuzzy enveloping layer

... Because it hasn't forced you to learn all keyboard shortcuts and drag & drop features available? There's a hell of a lot of tricks to the OS X interface, through good design, they're not always necessary.

Re:Users disagree with him

[oursland]

If we're busy discussing how horrible software used to be, let's not forget how much a pain in the ass it was to install and use DOS software with all those switches (seriously, I have to specify IO port and IRQ to the audio devices?!) or DLL hell brought on by Windows. Or, you know, you could talk about software as it currently exists. You don't have to manually edit conf files and install things on the command line with modern distributions these days.

Re:Users disagree with him

[marcosdumay]

"Please enlighten me as to what it is people do with office software that is much more advanced than this?"

Numbered lists! If you ever work with a government you'll need lots and lots and lots of numbered lists, several levels deep, with several different numbering schemas.

The interesting thing is, doing numbered lists on MS Office is a kind of torture. Some sadistic person at Microsoft though "whoever touches the government, he will suffer" and made it happen. But everybody still refuses to use Libre Office.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

Apple, on the whole, make very functional UIs...

That is a matter of opinion. My opinion is that Apple makes UIs with missing functionality to the point of being unable to support my workflow in any reasonable way. Just one of countless examples from the iPad: new text entered into a browser search field does not select the entire previous contents of the field but instead just positions the cursor at the end. So I end up surprised to find my text glued onto the end of the previous search, which normally is not what I want. And this happens to every iPad user I have observed, it is not just me. Apple may call this simple but I call it broken.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, any large-ish company is going to have templates for different kinds of pages (e.g. page of text with company logo at top, page with charts, page with chart + text), a standard set of colors and shapes, custom text styles, etc. Being able to quickly format stuff according to your company's standard is super important

This is where LaTeX with packages, page styles and friends is good at.

and being able to easily tweak things is equally so.

And this is where the problem with LaTeX lies, unless you educate your users somewhat.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

Don't whine on Slashdot...

Wow, that word whine. It used to be Microsoft's favorite word when referring to the victims of their monopolistic practices. Now Apple fans (you) are using it, what should I read into that?

Re:Users disagree with him

[forkazoo]

Unfortunately, computing is going to be like TV - if you want to maximize profit, you cater to the lowest common denominator. Hopefully Linux will continue to be Team Discovery Channel.

You want the Linux UI to be based on occasionally shooting a cannon at people? Or, you want somebody to fork Linux and make it only ever print messages about weddings and such?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, the only time I've needed to do that is when installing unpackaged software or I want a very specific solution on the work server. None of that on my laptop.

You should try actually using a distro that's from the 21st century.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

And finally, I'm a bit confused about what tasks you think users hould be employing Word for where it is more suitable than LibreOffice.

There are only two classes of users left using Microsoft Office now: suckers and innocent victims.

Open/Libre Office provides everything a home user or business needs, for free. In my opinion, in the last few years it passed Microsoft Office in stability and is roughly a tie in terms of fringe features that one has and not the other. Also in my opinion, where Microsoft Office and Open/Libre Office differ in user interface I usually prefer the latter. Cut and paste in the spreadsheet for example. In Open/Libre office it works like cut and paste in any other program. In Microsoft's product it does something weird.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jo_ham]

Tap the X in the box right after you tap the box itself when you're entering text.

I'm torn over whether I would prefer the text started already highlighted. This would be another example where a preference would be useful.

Re:Users disagree with him

[shellbeach]

Now if one of the Excel jocks would please come on here and explain to them why calc don't cut it I'd be grateful. i'm not a spreadsheet guy so i don't know the lingo but the spreadsheet guys at the SMBs I've worked for says calc is like a bad joke. I can say that it looks like, at least under Sun and oracle, that Writer got all the love and the rest was treated like the red headed stepchild.

As a molecular biologist, Calc works fine for me. Note that I'd never use either Excel or Calc for serious, complex stats work -- that's what R is for. But there's no difference that I've found in the stats capabilities of Excel or Calc -- in fact, I'd personally argue that Calc got all the love and Writer is the bastard, forgotten child that never quite got it right.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Alamais]

Check it: http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=79

Re:Users disagree with him

[shellbeach]

Most of the time I'm cursing because they've moved an option or function to a buried menu and trying to remember where that submenu went is infuriating.

Exactly -- a traditional hierarchical menu system (in which the options are only scattered in Y) is much easier to scan than a ribbon in which the options are scattered in both X and Y. Finding an option you haven't used before in the ribbon interface will always take longer than in a traditional menu/submenu system.

The advantage of the ribbon is that more options can be displayed at any one time, meaning that once you learn the XY coordinates of an option it's faster to access. But this works only to the advantage of power users and comes at the expense of intuition and learning curve. It's the graphical equivalent of using control key sequences for everything, and makes MS Office about as user-friendly as WordStar for CP/M used to be.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you agree with everyone who's designed a Linux interface in the last 15 years! Good to know we're all on the same page here.

Seriously, Linux is years ahead of everyone else - the package managers that have been ubiquitous for over a decade are basically app stores with a more powerful but less social interface. Linux has been innovating with design and infrastructure all these years while Apple and Microsoft believed it was good UX to download an untrustable installer from a random website, click through ten pages of options and legalese, and then be left with no easy way to get timely security updates.

Re:Users disagree with him

[IgnitusBoyone]

I find the default dock position should be on the left of the screen on OS X. You can switch this in a few seconds by right clicking on the divider line between applications and stacks and clicking Position Screen ->Left you can also turn on hiding, magnification, but you can't adjust magnification.

My point is it takes a lot longer then 10 minutes to download cygwin and the default font and terminal is cmd.exe which is fairly weak. (others might not care). It takes a minute to change the dock and POSIX is installed by default.

OS X can dumb down apps I don't use all they want. As long as its certified UNIX I will use it any day of the week over windows.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Which manual are you referring to? The one that no longer comes with any software?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

For most users the UNIX CLI backend is sort of like the pistol in your sock drawer.

It feels good to know it's there, but you hope you never have to use it.

More accurately, it's like a snow shovel, it's primary purpose is not to kill people. Or perhaps it is more like a key lock on your car: it allows you to enter your care even if the battery ran flat in the remote entry device. Or perhaps it is like the steering wheel: it is only meant to be used by somebody who knows what it is for.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Bitmanhome]

Come on, where it was "Add Remove Programs" it is now "Programs and Features" - is that a change that was really necessary? Nothing worse than trying to support someone that is freaking out because they can't find the "My Computer" icon, when they have renamed it to just "Computer"

Both of those were necessary because they were named wrong to begin with. That GUI never "adds" programs - you run the app's installer to do that. The only thing you need that GUI for is to remove programs, but you can't find it because it's not filed under "remove", "uninstall", or "programs". In Win7, it's filed under "programs", which is where it should have been all along.

And that whole "my" thing was horribly misguided from the beginning.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

Depends on what software you are talking about. There is a core set of software in Linux that can be one-click install, but if it is not in this core set it will take you much, much longer. eg. Try getting any vnc server running without having to google for which conf files to edit.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

Then you obviously don't do very much with your server.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

I am not talking about what things "used" to be like. Even in Ubuntu today, to install a lot of software does require these steps - it depends on the software you want. If you haven't had to do that, you obviously are not doing very much with your system or using a variety of applications.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding the Address Book, just go to the View menu and select "Groups". You'll be able to see your groups on the left and your contacts on the right, just like before. For the calendar, I just double-tap on the date where I want a new appointment and fill it out that way. I can choose the specific calendar from within that window. I like that I'm no longer wasting screen real estate by having the list of calendars permanently on display when I rarely used that list. They should, however, offer the previous layout as an option for those who prefer it.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Nursie]

Well, that's certainly true. I don't often have to use the other parts.

The presentation editor thing (PP equivalent) in OO/LO is more than adequate for my needs, and I rarely use spreadsheets or any other features of an office suite, so I tend to overlook them.

Re:Users disagree with him

[CAIMLAS]

Users were never supposed to be allowed to 'install' anything, though.

And if you're having a hard time editing a string in a text file, I suggest something my be wrong with you, not with the system. It's not like editing text files is something new or novel.

That said, you're grossly over-exagerating. You're not just stalling "something" you're either installing something incorrectly, or something esoteric not in repositories.

Re:Users disagree with him

[CAIMLAS]

Likewise, "my" Windows installs have similar stuff done:

* enable RDP
* disable all window transition and animation effects (except 'show contents while dragging/resizing')
* list or long Explorer file view
* disable "hide files" and "hide extensions"
* Classic theme (or at least the basic Aero, it's not so bad).
* small icons on start and task bar

It really irritates me that these basic profile properties are not (easily) transportable from machine to machine as they would be with a Unix variant (ie standard text-based configuration files). There really aren't all that many options in Explorer and Windows UI in general that they couldn't all be thrown into one or two 10Kb text files.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Kagetsuki]

I agree with the [g]vim part, but I've never found PowerShell to be particularly useful and (correct me if I'm wrong) standard tools like ssh, grep, etc. aren't included. I also often deal with UTF-8 and absolutely everything in Windows (7 included) regarding UTF-8 is a disaster - especially when it comes to the terminal - and cygwin does a terrible job with it as well.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

This may also suggest that your clients are doing something that doesn't involve doing anything more than writing a letter with their Office software.

Yes, it does, doesn't it?

Maybe that's because that's exactly what 99.9% of all office users are doing.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ninetyninebottles]

But you talked about having a dozens of engineers just for messing around with this thing in word processor formats, right? Why not let the professional writers do their writing without worrying about the scripting or anything more than the most basic markup (bold, italic, etc.), and then letting someone else (the "TeX guru") handle the serious markup and scripting?

The problem with that is the engineers need a tool to write in that includes basic formatting and pictures. Not all of the want to write TeX markup. This means we need a word processor, but then we need to export from that word processor to a publishing software and to HTML. LaTeX is good if you can get the word processor into a decent XML format and then employ some scripts to bash it into shape, but at that point it is easier to just use something like Framemaker and Webworks to take RTF or .doc and put it into both formats in a nicer way that doesn't require any knowledge of scripting and is not as brittle.

One of the whole points of LaTeX is to make it relatively easy to separate the content from the presentation. Most LaTeX documents are pretty simple-looking really, as far as the markup goes; the hard stuff is in the template.

You don't need to sell me on LaTeX. I'm a big fan. For writing markup I want to single source from one or two competent authors, I love it. When sourcing content from a restricted CMS text or wiki, it is a very nice, free solution. I just have't had a lot of luck getting more than a few people using it when I did not have an automated system already build for user input. The average person, even the average network engineer, just doesn't want to but the time in to learn to use it and markup the text themselves and pulling things into LaTeX from word processors and the like has never worked out well, in my experience.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but if you're sending documents back and forth, you are doing it wrong.

What you should have is an information management system, where all the information is updated in realtime when people make changes to it (and of course track changes).

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Fag, if you're not searching for Control Panel items on Windows 7, then you're doing it wrong. I just typed in "add remove" into the start menu search box and the first hit returned instantly and was the Programs and Features applet.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a far easier target to hit than a thin menu attached to each window.

Yes, but the menu for an application belongs to its window, not the screen, so the Apple version is logically inconsistent.

As for the one button mouse - every single Mac that ships with a mouse, ships with a 2 button mouse with X/Y scroll capabilities. Macs have shipped with 2 button mouses as standard for near on 10 years now

BULLSHIT. I bought an MDD G4 PowerMac brand new in 2002, 9 years ago, and it came with a one-button spacktard mouse.

Also, there's no acknowledgement here of the fact that, since (current) new Macs actually do come with two-button mice, Apple's whole sainted "NO NO NO ONLY *ONE* BUTTON ON THE MOUSE" dogma has been quietly binned, is there?

APPLE WERE WRONG, EVENTUALLY GAVE UP, AND I LOL'D.

Re:Users disagree with him

[spauldo]

Every person gets "real work" done in a different way. I generally have a browser and a couple dozen xterms scattered around my desktops. It's how I get real work done.

There are things I do regularly that are overly time consuming in a GUI. I can't think of a way that a GUI would be able to speed up most of what I do. The attraction of a Mac is that it provides an actual UNIX environment on a system that doesn't make it awkward to use. I would be able to use a GUI where it makes sense and drop down into a terminal where it doesn't. Cygwin doesn't cut it for me. It's a fine product, but it doesn't "feel" natural.

(I never ended up buying a Mac because my iPhone taught me to hate Apple with all my soul. Thus, I dual boot the Win7 that came with my laptop with Debian. It just sucks having to close everything to reboot into Windows to play my games.)

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I take it you are an emacs user...

Re:Users disagree with him

[jrumney]

You mean you rearranged Photoshop to make it look more like The GIMP? Most people around here seem to complain about the opposite problem.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Ribbon is much better interface.

That is your opinion, and it happens to be wrong. Many useful tools are lacking in the ribbon interface. Its learning curve is much slower than learning menus because everything is an icon, and a lot of them don't make sense. However, once you learn it, it is still no faster than the old UI. The old UI had toolbars that could be customized for the tools you used most, and the remaining tools were easy to find.

You're right that people hate change, but mainly when the change adds no useful benefit over the old way of doing things, yet causes you to have to completely relearn a system.

Re:Users disagree with him

[shutdown -p now]

I agree with the [g]vim part, but I've never found PowerShell to be particularly useful and (correct me if I'm wrong) standard tools like ssh, grep, etc. aren't included.

SSH is not there, yes.

There's no direct equivalent to grep, but it's needed less because of a different philosophy (streams of objects vs text) - in PowerShell, you normally use "where" (filter objects by property), e.g.:

ps | where {$_.workingset -gt 25000*1024}

The closest to proper grep is select-string, though it has some limitations with respect to more advanced grep flags.

I also often deal with UTF-8 and absolutely everything in Windows (7 included) regarding UTF-8 is a disaster - especially when it comes to the terminal - and cygwin does a terrible job with it as well.

UTF-8 support in applications is up to those applications - Win32 API provides means to work with it, but if it's not used, there isn't much the OS can do. Notepad supports UTF-8, for example, and so does Visual Studio. Also, in .NET, UTF-8 is the default encoding for opened files, unless otherwise specified, so .NET apps tend to handle it well.

In the console, yes, it is rather a mess. There's codepage 65001 for UTF-8, and you can actually set it via "chcp", but it breaks too much to be useful. PowerShell cmdlets use Unicode to pass string objects around, so it's okay there - and if you use e.g. ISE for terminal emulator, it'll display Unicode output correctly. But whenever you introduce a traditional app into the pipeline, encodings and codepages come into play again...

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the menu for an application belongs to its window, not the screen, so the Apple version is logically inconsistent.

You're making assumptions here such as "applications need a window," "windows may have the same menus, so they each need an identical copy," "windows belong on the same screen as the menu," "the application doesn't own the screen" etc. etc.

The real source of this problem is that the Mac interface was designed for a single user running a single program on a small screen. For that paradigm, having the menu bar at the top was just fine, even if the app owned multiple windows.

Unfortunately the paradigm didn't scale well to multiple apps on multiple large screens. That doesn't make it logically inconsistent; just different than what you became accustomed to.

You want logically inconsistent? Windows can run programs without a window, but you can't interact with them if you have close the last window. So when you close the last window, you have no way of knowing whether the program is still running or not (unless you open Task Manager, and even then all you can do is kill it).

Re:Users disagree with him

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

no, the idea is that you use pressure on the steering wheel as an indication of the will to accellerate. Now that I think about it, I think it would be better if it was pulling on the steering wheel. It doesn't have to move, it just has to sense the tension. The more you pull back on the wheel, the more accelleration. That way, if you slam on the brake with your foot, your body lunges forward, and it is very difficult to accidentally or even purposefully accellerate. There is no confusion of pedals. See below for issue of pedal confusion: Cars Gone Wild: The Major Contributor to Unintended Acceleration in Automobiles is Pedal Error -- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153815/ The term “unintended acceleration” (UA – sometimes called “sudden acceleration”) was coined in the 1980s to describe a type of automobile accident that was attracting considerable attention at the time. In these episodes, the driver would report that, as he/she was initiating a driving cycle, after starting the engine, placing the right foot lightly on the brake (to prevent the car from “creeping”), and shifting from Park to a drive gear (usually Park or Reverse, depending on the situation), the vehicle would go to an uncommanded (i.e., unintended) wide-open-throttle condition, coupled with an apparent loss of braking effectiveness (Pollard and Sussman, 1989; Reinhart, 1989; Schmidt, 1989, 1993). The episode would often end with a crash. In the 1980s, there was a surge of UA reports, representing almost every brand of automobile. This situation resulted in a frantic search by three federal government agencies, various auto makers, and several private research firms, for some electrical/mechanical defect that would cause these events. None was ever found.

...

a number of researchers began to suspect that these episodes might have a human-error component (e.g., Schmidt, 1989; Reinhart, 1994), and that a search for an electro-mechanical defect might be misguided. The essential idea was that the driver, intending to put the right foot on the brake, would occasionally place the foot on the accelerator by mistake. Then, when the car moved when a drive gear was engaged, the driver would press harder on the “brake” to stop it, the vehicle would go even faster, resulting in more “brake” application, usw., until the vehicle soon was in a wide-open-throttle condition; the driver (who was invariably panicked) was rendered incapable of diagnosing the situation in the few seconds before a crash occurred.

You suggest putting a software change in there so that the accelerator is ignored when someone is pressing on the brake as well. I don't dispute that. It's another solution, and it's likely a better solution given the history of automobile interfaces. The whole point of the post was to illustrate that if you take a use case of "new users" (or 200 accidents out of 2 million reported.) and build your interface from scratch, you may end up with a result that does not take into account all the existing drivers, who are used to two pedals. Probably the simplest interface would be a centrally mounted joy stick, so that one would no longer have to make left and right hand drive versions of cars, just the central joy stick and you can drive on either side. Pull back to accellerate, push forward to brake (again to make the movement more natural under hard manoeuvring.) Another option is the tank interface, where you drive with an accellerator under each foot for one side of the vehicle, and each hand has a corresponding brake. Another option is a camera in the dash that simply tracks your eye movement, and asks you to look where your want to go, the further ahead you look, the faster you want to go. Don't look at that blonde in the convertible two lanes over!

There are many ways to do it, and once you have drive by wire, as many modern vehi

Re:Users disagree with him

[Fex303]

No. I can't honestly say that I do. Did it ever happen?

Re:Users disagree with him

[BitZtream]

Awe, look at the cute little newbie who thinks DLL hell is exclusive to Windows and doesn't effect EVERY OS that uses shared libraries extensively.

And for the record, 9 times out of 10, with modern distros and any decent hardware, you do have to go hack something somewhere, you've just become so used to the sillyness you don't even notice it anymore.

Re:Users disagree with him

[brantondaveperson]

These items are also in the 'view' menu, exactly where one might expect to find them.

And obviously there's something wrong with me, but I don't have a problem with the way they address book looks like an address book (although I have seen these type of interfaces done horribly in the past, certain soft-phones come to mind). You can scroll the list on the left, it behaves elegantly (the letter heading remains in view for instance), and when you click you see the selected item on the right. Seems fine to me.

Re:Users disagree with him

[bucky0]

And then there's OS X's inability to send keystrokes to any application other than the one in front. What a huge UI fumble. Got the ability to remotely control an app by sending it keystrokes? Too bad. Won't work under OSX unless the app is already active, in which case, you're not remote controlling it, because the app attempting the control has lost the focus.

I have a couple applications on OSX that can accept keystrokes without being the active application (specifically, notational velocity, quicksilver and VLC (though it's limited to just eating the play/pause-next/previous keys)

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS (Classic and X) have never had anything like "DLL hell," because their shared library interface is designed well. Prove me wrong.

(captcha: crotch)

Re:Users disagree with him

[BitZtream]

App Menu -> Preferences is 'never visible' ... only if you have your eyes closed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

You mean, work around Apple's bad design by compensating. I suppose a true Apple fan would be willing to, but I use a different product instead, that works better.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BitZtream]

Well considering Photoshop worked that way before Linux existed, I'd argue that he was not making Photoshop look like GiMP. He didn't say he made it look like a fat 1970s interface designed by people who think inventing their own everything is a good idea.

Re:Users disagree with him

[NoMaster]

Hopefully Linux will continue to be Team Discovery Channel.

Full of mindless crap, loud noises, and giggling nerds, masquerading as intelligent science and education?

I think it's already there...

Re:Users disagree with him

[syousef]

I will agree with you I don't know where all the ribbon hate comes from, at least from a UI perspective.

It comes from having a real estate hogging hierarchically illogical poorly laid out piece of garbage shoved down your throat that requires going through the whole interface to discover any option that isn't commonly used. I don't know where the ribbon love comes from!

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly the problem I had with the Ribbon. I recently became the world's last person to try the ribbon and discover how much I hate it. I had heard how it worked and how confusing it was, and I still was unprepared for dealing with it. Maybe the OSX version is even worse, but it was laughably obnoxious, and it takes eons to open too. Sorry I know I'm like three years too late for the Ribbon bitchparade, but it seemed like a lot of fun at the time...

Re:Users disagree with him

[lahvak]

All that, plus install VirtuaWin, TXMouse, plus half dozen other programs, depending on the intended use of the machine.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

DLL hell was a product of different versions of libraries having the same name and path. Just making use of hierarchy or complex names gets rid of 95% of the problem. Which means that Unixes never had it.

Moreover the other part was also much less bad. Because distributions compiled apps from source they frequently caught or even resolved subtle library incompatibilities.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

When I was using a palm the majority of my coworkers still used physical desk planners. My 12 year is required to use one in school, because they don't like electronics. That ain't 1890.

And frankly my Franklin planner had many advantages over my electronic calendar I still miss. I still can't do things like sequences of meeting with different groups of people on related with associated notes.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Yep. Given your user number you may be too young. It was fairly common before 2001.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Please no. Save the screen space. I have one set of menus to deal which allows all my windows to be smaller. Right clicking and keyboard shortcuts work well for most common items so I don't even need to use the menu bar.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed that people have corrected nearly everything you've said about the ribbon interface in this thread. Don't you think you ought to at least familiarize yourself with the software you're criticizing? Or, at least withhold your criticism until you've done so?

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

First off all, all mac menus (essentially) are changeable. You can just create your own shortcuts. If you want a more powerful interface try using a launcher like http://qsapp.com/

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

6 monitors? That is a totally non standard configuration of course things don't work well. OSX was never designed to support that kind of setup. Basically you aren't going to be able to use a mouse as your primary input device and be efficient. Use something like Quicksilver for application control and message passing.

Re:Users disagree with him

[stewartjm]

No, 7 is Vista 1.1. Of course I actually like Vista, it's only significant flaw was that it was too piggish on old hardware. I never ran it on old hardware.

I think Microsoft should've used what little clout they have, and released Vista as a 64-bit only OS. A small side-effect would've been no one running it on ancient hardware and claiming it was too slow. It's well past time for 32-bit to die die die, especially on the desktop.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Mods please mod this one up. Great suggestion!

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

You would be much much happier using Unix tools. Many VIM commands still date back to ed (from 1971). Most Unix shells still do many of things from the Thompson shell (1971), and Bourne shell from 1977 is still available.

If you want toolsets that operate across OSes you need to go web and then you aren't going to get consistency year to year. You obviously like the old Borland tools, but it was Borland that ultimately shifted away from the Phillip Kahn model and dropped them. If you want consistency you should switch to Unix tools and use

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

That is easy to change in preferences. The reason for it is that it makes scrolling on OSX consistent with scrolling on iOS. If you are using a mouse it sucks. If you switch the the magic trackpad it is good. They want to move users over.

Re:Users disagree with him

[lahvak]

One task where Word is still better than OO or LO is the equation editor. The old equation editor in Word was a horrible abomination bordering on completely unusable, but the new one is actually relatively decent as far as equation editors go. It is not as good as the one in LyX or as the TeXmacs solution, but it is much better than the old one, and still better than the mess in LO.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

That's not a bug, you disagree with a design decision. I agree with you I'd rather have the additional features and that might pull me towards stepping away from iCal soon.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Good user interface design is subjective - I feel completely at home in a terminal and completely restricted in a gui.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Nothing. There were people unhappy with Apple's moves for the last 15 years. Companies have to pick a direction and sometimes individual users don't agree with every choice.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

I'll give you an example my wife is a Word power user.

1) She likes automatic bibliographic integration so the automatic bibliographic integration services she uses.
2) Has to use IPA settings for transcripts in multiple languages. So she needs more full featured IPA.
3) She needs support for both encodings of cyrillic alphabets.

Yes there are people who need that sort of stuff.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Microsoft was ultra conservative. The old Excel was not too much different from Lotus 1-2-3 which had an Ansi based interface and ran on DOS. It is time to rethink the spreadsheet entirely. There are some really cool ideas at research.microsoft.com and yes they are going to force you to learn new stuff to use them.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Nursie]

Fair enough. I didn't expect there wouldn't be power users and it sounds like she does need some of those features.

I still don't really agree with the idea that LO/OO are totally inadequate for the largest part of the MS Office user base, especially in a corporate setting. I work for a huge corp and we no longer use MS Office at all....

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

Users were never supposed to be allowed to 'install' anything, though.

Great attitude. "we make things hard to do so that noone can do them."

And if you're having a hard time editing a string in a text file

This comment is just ignorant. Having to figure out what goes in that text file for my given distro/config is the pain in the ass.

That said, you're grossly over-exagerating. You're not just stalling "something" you're either installing something incorrectly, or something esoteric not in repositories.

Even the most *esoteric* of Windows/Mac programs contain installers and a GUI for configuration. A large number Linux programs do not having these things, and it is ignorant attitudes like yours that make this absence of configuration tools so common.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ceoyoyo]

"DLL hell was a product of different versions of libraries having the same name and path."

It wasn't quite the same problem, but manually resolving gazillions of dependencies, some of which had conflicting version requirements, was as much or more of a PITA.

Re:Users disagree with him

[BlueWaterBaboonFarm]

I guess I wasn't clear. Sit down at a Windows box, press Alt. That's a feature I want. What OSx does instead isn't a powerful.
Example scenario: using a program I don't use often, I might know that the command I want is in the menu under 'File' but I haven't set up a short cut because (a) I don't use it often (b) if I knew the short cut I'd also know the key combo as well.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Deaths Proxy]

Mods this up please. +1

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Of for enterprise. I agree with you. LO/OO are fine for corporate use for most end users. The real difference is things like sharepoint. There is simply no equivalent to sharepoint / exchange which allows you to have threaded libraries of documents tied to conversations, in a way that is archivable, versionable and searchable. Being able to look at the threaded discussions and get diffs between word documents from years ago is incredibly important in deciding why things were done. For spreadsheet and accounting tieing that can also be gold. Don't forget the spreadsheet is often the UI to the accounting data warehouse in practice.

LO/OO just don't support anything remotely like that.

   

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Oh I see. Yes I agree that is a wonderful feature of the windows menus inherited from DOS. Yep score one for Windows, that is a plus.

But that's why I was pointing you to Quicksilver. QS has a function called "Menu bar items" that kicks you over to a version of an application's menu accessable by first letter. So for example if you setup one generic shortcut
cm-space = quicksilver
cm-v = view menu from current application
f = file
sa = save as

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I deal with similar issues and what you're talking about (or at least my interpretation of your words blah blah) is the Holy Grail of computers.

I work with a zillion systems at all kinds of levels, which means two things:

a) I don't care. I will figure it and get used to it. I'm a professional, 20 years in, been doing this since age 8. If anyone could figure out this arcane random BS, I can, if only because I grew up with it.

b) I do care. It pisses me off to no end that there's no a basic level of standardization involved. Sure, one expects OS or software changes. But, for fucks sake, how is it that my development environments and keyboard shortcuts and UI behavior is completely different everywhere? Why the fuck is the datetime formatting for SQL or language XYZ completely different every time?! Why am I sitting here switching around Ctrl-C versus Command-C? How is it that "maximize" on OSX and Windows and most Linux are all different? Why is the command completion on this terminal and web browser and editing software all different?

There's a huge list of basic UI issues that haven't been standardized yet that really need to be. UI + keyboard + mouse + basic libraries need to be standardized. I'm sorry, but, I'm sick and tired of writing "give.me.the.fucking.date.time()" on one system and "datetime()" on another. I'm sick of double-clicking on a window bar and having it maximize on one system and do nothing on another. I'm sick of typing in a terminal command, hitting tab half-way through, and have a complete cluster come up instead of the one (and only) solution. I'm sick of having an entire, glorious, development environment set up somewhere and having it get completely fucked because some of those tweaks were particular to OSX or Linux or Windows or the network environment or blah blah blah.

Seriously. I'm a professional. Grin and bear it. But, jesus, it's completely retarded.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

You are disagreeing with GP. Obviously that is a different problem which is caused by Linux apps not bundling their dependencies. And that problem disappeared with Linux's use of package management. To some extent that was the point of distributions to resolve this sort of stuff once.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Meski]

Also, we've all widescreens these days, and under the ribbons, everything looks really claustrophobic and letterboxy.

Or highscreens. They're more usable for coding on their sides. Something like two highscreens and one wide. (or normal)

Re:Users disagree with him

[CAIMLAS]

So don't use linux if you are opposed to keyboard-based configuration. Mouse-driven configuration environments are inherently limited in capability, and this is played out in the tools' functionality.

I can't think of anything in Linux which is inherently more complicated than the Windows counterpart to configure. I'd be curious to hear which programs you've run into which are "without a GUI configuration tool", because frankly, I can't think of anything at this point.

Networking and system settings? Sure, those are lackluster. The truth be told, though, 99% of what you'd want to is easily configurable or installable through a GUI, and your bitching isn't really all that justified (unless you can provide a counter-example).

Again, I'd be curious to hear of some examples. If you're using, say, Ubuntu, anything which has a package available usually tells you "add this to your sources.list file" or "add it through the Package Manager" (for which there is a very full GUI). Package Manager (plus apt and dpkg) rivals anything that Windows has in its completeness and scope.

That really isn't that difficult unless you're completely inexperienced. (You've figured out slashcode syntax, so I'm guessing it's within your capabilities.) That said, even my wife has managed to get Apache set up and configured in a couple hours on Ubuntu (and she's only had about a total of 2 days of Linux exposure, total).

If you're going to compare, say, IIS to Apache, consider: you can spend an hour or two clicking around until you get it "right" with IIS - and have a misconfigured, easily rooted system - or you can spend a couple hours, read the documentation, and have it configured properly with Apache. The GUI, in this case, just gives you the perception that you set it up and are "using" the software.effectively, in many cases of complexity.

As a counter-example: Latex software is a pain in the ass in Windows. There's a delicate balance of versions of miktex and various editors which must be reached, and then often, the editors or auxiliary software simply "doesn't work". This is not really a problem in Linux: you install it, and it works.

Re:Users disagree with him

[SeaFox]

Or, you know, you could talk about software as it currently exists. You don't have to manually edit conf files and install things on the command line with modern distributions these days.

I beg to differ. I tried Ubuntu in the 8 and 9 series releases, which wasn't that long ago, and still found myself editing config files just to get sound working in mainstream video players installed through the software repositories.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

Example I had to do last night: setup TightVNC Server. 2 config files, 3 different commands in terminal (with switches) to start and stop it.

Example I have to do to get my microphone working on both my desktop and my laptop: Complete rebuild of alsa and alsa drivers from source, on laptop have to manually install kernel modules.

Now I have never said that these are problems for *me*, but this is what keeps normal people from adopting the OS. Regular Joe installs Ubuntu, microphone doesn't work? Reinstalls Windows.

Re:Users disagree with him

[drsmithy]

6 monitors? That is a totally non standard configuration of course things don't work well. OSX was never designed to support that kind of setup.

The problem exists whenever the monitor count is greater than one. To suggest multi-monitor scenarios weren't considered when OS X's UI was being built would beggar belief.

Re:Users disagree with him

[drsmithy]

Export the relevant entries to a .reg file. Carry it around with you. Double-click the file whenever you're on a new machine.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

OSX has pretty good handling for 2 monitor setups. I've used OSX that way and it is very nice, I love the ability to mirror and present. and I've used that all the time. I love the fact I can manipulate how the menu bar behaves. But that whole system is predicated on 2, and asymmetrical usage. I don't think the system was designed to handle 3 well.

More than 2 is just highly uncommon.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I want to send keystrokes to an app that doesn't have focus? Perhaps the one in focus needs those keystrokes?

Shhhh. Grown ups are talking now. Go play with your toys and don't speak unless someone speaks to you first.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Custard Horse]

You shouldn't have to earnt he right to use computers and software - it should be as easy as possible from the outset. I have a hardcore tech friend who mourns the passing of the command-line. He insists that there is no place for a GUI as you can do everything you need to on a command line. I think he is a dinosaur.

I agree that as GUIs advance, they become more cosseting but perhaps the answer would be a basic interface and functionality that would allow unlocks as you use the software? 'You have unlocked track changes', 'You can now copy and paste multiple items onto a spike', 'You are able to type your own formula without a wizard', 'You can disaply black screen/green text with limited functionality accessible by function keys alone. Don't forgot those printer function codes you dinosaur - no WYSIWYG for you sunshine!' etc.

With this system you would be rewarded through usage and as time passes, you are introduced to more functions and features.

Just a thought...

Re:Users disagree with him

[Kagetsuki]

Interesting about PowerShell, I have to admit that looks like fairly nice syntax. No SSH is the biggest hangup for me because I use SSH constantly and not just for remote shell sessions, and as you may have gathered I don't work on English systems so much so Cygwin SSH barely cuts it and Putty doesn't do everything I need it to. I've honestly never found a single solution on Windows that worked for me.

I haven't used VS for about a year now but the last time I did it was UTF-8 that we were having issues with. I was working on some localization for a client, in the end we had to actually export strings to an external file because the UTF-8 codepage in VS was completely incompatible with Linux and OSX. We couldn't figure out a method to make it work and we called MS. It was their solution to move the strings out to external files. Before you ask, no this was not a BOM issue, though including a BOM would have made the files unusable on other systems in and of itself. Unless things have changed in the last year (I hope they have) I would not count VS as "supporting" UTF-8.

Re:Users disagree with him

[rastos1]

Having to figure out what goes in that text file for my given distro/config is the pain in the as

It would be the case. If there are no comments and examples in the text file right next to the place that you edit.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ShakaUVM]

>>And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface.

Eehhhhh... no.

It's been out for how long? And people still hunt around when they want to find something. 'Insert Table' is on one ribbon. 'Insert Table of Figures' is on another, and so on.

The old interface somehow managed to pack shortcuts for all of the commonly used operations onto a floating toolbar. Now we have 8 of them, plus the stupid button menu and floating save/undo/redo toolbar.

People could find things much faster in the old version than the new. The only reason they switched to ribbons was for the live preview feature, which, while sometimes useful, is not worth sacrificing the old UI of Word over.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of regressing to OS9, they should go back to NeXTStep. There the menus could be placed anywhere you wanted, and submenu navigation was actually navigable. Aside from windowmaker (a NeXTStep clone of sorts, if still active), no other UI offers such smooth menu placement/navigation.

Re:Users disagree with him

[shutdown -p now]

I haven't used VS for about a year now but the last time I did it was UTF-8 that we were having issues with. I was working on some localization for a client, in the end we had to actually export strings to an external file because the UTF-8 codepage in VS was completely incompatible with Linux and OSX. We couldn't figure out a method to make it work and we called MS. It was their solution to move the strings out to external files. Before you ask, no this was not a BOM issue, though including a BOM would have made the files unusable on other systems in and of itself. Unless things have changed in the last year (I hope they have) I would not count VS as "supporting" UTF-8.

This all sounds extremely strange. It's not like there are any varieties of UTF-8, it's just one encoding... so, short of line ending differences, I don't see how it can be "completely incompatible" with Linux and OS X. Are you sure it wasn't confused with UTF-16? There is a bad habit at Microsoft to use generic term "Unicode" when referring specifically to UTF-16, which confuses many people to no end.

As for BOM, it's a valid Unicode character, and any editor with full Unicode support should treat it properly. It unfortunately messes up most C++ compilers (there's no Standard requirement for them to treat anything beyond basic character set), hence why it was removed from saved .h/.cpp files at some point by default - I think that was in VS 2010.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Galestar]

Yes, because all files for all programs have these comments and examples, and noone has ever had to dig through google searches and forums to find this crap.

Oh wait, that isn't at all reality. Tell me again the purpose of your comment?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Kagetsuki]

Yes I'm absolutely sure it was in UTF-8. It was for inline UTF-8 in C++ and any "non-UTF-8" characters after a UTF-8 character would be garbled or if it was the last character in a string that last character itself would be garbled or there would be trailing ASCII. In addition comments would screw things up but that was easily fixed by adding a few spaces after each comment line.

As for the BOM it was being added in automatically, so as you point out it was removed from saved .h/.cpp files by default that is something that happened after the project I was talking about. And now that you mention it I believe VS2010 had just come out as they were still finishing moving the code from an older version when I was called into the project. To this day I actually have no idea if there were issues with the UTF-8 in older VS versions so maybe it was just a post-release bug. Perhaps that's an indicator they did fix the problem. I'll actually be porting an application to Windows some time early next year and this is an issue I was worried about so I hope they did.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Fritzed]

I would certainly dispute any idea that the ribbon is more intuitive. When looking for a function that you don't frequently use, you must guess what an icon for it might look like, which tab it may be under, then scour that tab for it. You must also be aware that the button may shrink, move, or disappear the next time you are looking for it if the window size has changed at all. It is much easier to find this type of function under a traditional menu using words, even if it isn't as pretty.

Besides all of that, you are assuming that initial learning curve is the most important thing. Most people don't buy office just so that they can use if a few times, it can generally be assumed that they will use it consistently for some time. The traditional (pre-ribbon) interface allowed users to choose exactly which tasks they use frequently and choose where to place the appropriate toolbar for that task. All of the toolbars that you selected would then be available at all times, not hidden in multiple tabs. This allows users to optimize their own version of office over time so that they always have their most common tools close at hand. With the new ribbon interface, you are just stuck with a one-size-fits-all layout.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs have shipped with 2 button mouses as standard for near on 10 years now, so that's a bit of a tired meme to try and use.

So, about the same time as everybody else figured out that three buttons is the absolute minimum

Re:Users disagree with him

[MichaelSmith]

For someone 30 or under, however, it's dumb: how many people under the age of 40 have a paper address book?

The digital metaphor of the future will look like the original monochrome palm pilot.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jo_ham]

That's one way to look at it I guess. The other option would be to say that it's not "bad design" just "different to the way you want to do it".

No different to certain UI elements in Ubuntu that I'd prefer worked a different way. (I know, I know, open source, just fork it and code my own, etc etc).

If you want to talk about a bad design element in the iOS UI it's the "hold and to wiggle" system to move apps around - it's not intuitive to do that necessarily, you can easily accidentally delete an app and the way they all shift around as you drag one can make it imprecise.

By comparison, showing a big "x" button when you pop open the search so you can quickly clear the field seems mild.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I use LibreOffice at home and MSO at work. Unfortunately, LibreO doesn't do mail merges, misses many vital keyboard shortcuts I've gotten used to and is plain ugly. Still waiting for a new version to come out that would have a more polished look.

Re:Users disagree with him

[TheRaven64]

If an upgrade destroys user's data, then it's a bug. Removing the ability to set the confirmation status of a new appointment is a design decision. Stripping this data from existing appointments is a data-loss causing bug. Raskin's First Law: a program shall not harm a user's data, nor through inaction allow a user's data to come to harm. Any violation of this is a bug.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

> Unfortunately, LibreO doesn't do mail merges

Really?? That is a basic, basic word processing feature. I don't know how anyone could claim LO has feature parity with Word/MSOffice if that's the case.

Re:Users disagree with him

[tryptogryphic]

...but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface

This is simply your opinion, not the truth / fact. Please don't speak for all 'users', especially here on Slashdot.

Ribbonization is the stupidest concept I've ever experienced in a UI and it's not because it's different than what I'm use to, it takes longer for me to do the same things I use to do before...without offering any additional functionality. This is how I determine when a change in a UI is worthless.

I did the exact same thing the author did in the article: installed windows 7 and turned off all the bullshit effects and menus, right back to the classic theme.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Good argument, but no. If an upgrade deliberately destroys data that's not a bug only if it accidentally does it. Raskin's classic example of field blanking forcing someone to type something in again is very different from an upgrade that deletes a column in a database intentionally. I think the distinction is really subtle, using Raskin's analogy of the blanking field:

a) If I'm doing it because I didn't bother to cache the data, that's a bug.
b) If I'm doing it because I believe it is important the end user retype, that's design.

Even though the end user experiences the same thing. A bug implies the software is not working as designed, arguably this change in design means that Apple believes the original was a bug, they never should have offered tentative / confirmed.

Re:Users disagree with him

[JoeMerchant]

I do use Unix tools when all else is equal, but all else is rarely equal. My work supplied desktop is Win7, as is the IT supported e-mail and calendaring application, so right there, it's an uphill battle to boot to Unix in the morning ( I do have a Unix VM installed, but why shell into that when the windows tools are right there and handy... ) I also have a dual-boot to Ubuntu that was helpful when I did a little work with FFmpeg, but that was a short lived project.

My daily routine is working around a 3 component system development - one part in Windows (mandated target OSs of XP and 7) - developed in Qt, using Direct X for its Xinput components, so that's squarely stuck with Visual Studio, or an uphill battle into gcc and Creator, but either way needs to be tested in Windows. Part two is in an XMega microchip (cost conscious), so that's AVR studio with all its quirks, then part 3 is on Altera/Nios via Quartus/Eclipse/gcc, again with their own integrated editors, and the occasional text file edited in Notepad++... four editors, often all open simultaneously. Efforts to integrate those disparate environments are generally rewarded with buggier behavior than their already poorly supported "native" states, and, besides, the product (that generates income for the company) is in the developed system, not the development tools.

Yeah, Borland was good at the time, but market forces squashed them like a soft bodied caterpillar.

Re:Users disagree with him

[JoeMerchant]

b) I do care. It pisses me off to no end that there's no a basic level of standardization involved. Sure, one expects OS or software changes. But, for fucks sake, how is it that my development environments and keyboard shortcuts and UI behavior is completely different everywhere? ... But, jesus, it's completely retarded.

Yeah, every so often a "ui style guide" comes out, and it would be nice if everyone would follow one, but for every development effort that is incentivized to follow a uniform guide, there's another one that "dares to Think Different" and come out with their own. I'm reminded of the Porsche ignition switch on the left - sure, they've got some racing heritage Grand Prix start BS justification for it, but what they really want is to be different, so their owners feel special when they get into their "interface."

Re:Users disagree with him

[stephentyrone]

With 10.6 I could quickly skip to any given month.

Command-Shift-T, still works. Faster than using the GUI in either version.

Re:Users disagree with him

[phiwum]

It's not hard to come up with problems best solved by scripting.

I'm a teacher. Suppose I want to produce a letter for each student who is currently averaging below C. I want to include their names and current averages in the letter, and perhaps some text that depends on annotations in my roster.

It would be tedious and silly to do this by hand.

Now, as it happens, I'm not a word processor user, so I don't know whether Word can do what I need here. But in any case, this is an obvious use for scripting in a word processor.

Re:Users disagree with him

[wazzzup]

Agreed on the menubar. This may help Menupop

Re:Users disagree with him

[JMJimmy]

If you don't want an application on the start menu, you can remove it from the list with two clicks.
Notepad does show up on the list, however this depends on whether you launch it a way a normal user would, through the start menu, task bar, explorer, etc. It can't just stick every executable that is ran as it would end up with a bunch of crap that gets loaded by other programs, for instance.

I use notepad on a daily basis for storing random bits of temporary information - never appeared in the menu. 'Remove from list' also doesn't work permanently. Example, I removed 'Section 8' just now along with a bunch of other stuff, the next time I open the start menu it's at the top of the list. I've played that game all of twice yet Thunderbird is opened constantly and doesn't appear. The feature is shit.

You don't have to use libraries if you don't want to. Explorer's starting location can be changed via the shortcut properties, it never changed itself for me, plus it seems to default to "My computer" when launched with Win+E anyway.

Try setting the shortcut to this. It was such a problem MS actually put it into a kb article... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221878 - one would think copying the address and placing it in the 'Start In' box would work, but no that would be too simple.

you can disable the desktop peek feature of that region.

Thanks for this, I didn't know that.

Also, Windows doesn't give focus on mouse-over, so can just keep typing as you move the mouse all over the screen anyway.

Hun?

I disagree about the clutter, despite combining many different elements I think the ribbon manages to keep everything look nice and consistent. Or have you forgotten the mess of toolbars that came before it?

I guess it's good that you can make your own ribbon tabs with whatever buttons you want now...

How is different sized buttons, different shaped buttons, different colour schemes and styles keep everything looking 'nice' let alone consistent. I do remember the toolbars that came before, and I much prefer them. They could be customized, they were smaller so you could have more buttons at your fingertips, etc. They were also customizable the same way ribbons are. I look at something like this: http://www.sunflowerhead.com/msimages/DifferentLayouts-9-14-2005.png and my eyes just gloss over, there's too much to look at, no patterning, just a jumble of controls.

Really, you have a problem with buttons having descriptive text labels? Do buttons outside of the ribbon never have them?

*Looks at just about every browser, icon buttons no text*
*Looks at Adobe CS5 programs, icon buttons text only where sliders or input box controls*
*Looks at Skype, where text and buttons exist the text is integrated into the design of the button, not floating and wrapping below the icon*
*Looks at VLC.... nope no text, just icons!*
etc, etc, etc.

Descriptive labels are great - they were just much better as tooltip text.

Of course the ribbon uses more space than a menu, because it isn't replacing just the menu, but also the toolbars. You can google yourself for comparisons, but the ribbon typically takes up about as much space as a default set of toolbars, and much less than the 10-rows of toolbars horrors that you often see in the wild. The ribbon takes advantage of wide-screen monitors by creating a flexible layout that takes advantage of the winder windows by scaling its content. A bit more flexibility of being able ot put it on the side of the screen would be nice, admittedly.

The default size of everything above the document: Office 2003: 102px (2 toolbars) Office 2007/2010: 138px - as for 10 rows of toolba

Re:Users disagree with him

[stewbacca]

I shouldn't be responding, since I was modded troll to start this whole thread..*rolls eyes*...

The page transition follows tried and true UI rules about giving the user feedback. When you change days/months/weeks/whatever, by pressing a button, the quick little animation gives you feedback that, not only did you invoke an action, but the system is acting on it. In the old version of iCal, for example, if you weren't paying attention, you'd not realized you changed months or years, and then you get all flustered when you can't find your appointments.

It really is that simple. It's not a very good transition from an aesthetic point of view, but it's better than no feedback. It's also not in your face nor does it bog down the system (something other designers are guilty of).

Sorry to be so trollish...

Re:Users disagree with him

[Medievalist]

Mac OS (Classic and X) have never had anything like "DLL hell," because their shared library interface is designed well. Prove me wrong.

Can't prove you wrong because you're right.

I personally don't care for the UI, but I have to admit the underlying OS design has always been better than the other home-user systems.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, Ribbon sucks.

Re:Users disagree with him

[bipbop]

Don't apologize, and don't get defensive. Stand behind what you say, and don't worry about little things like a -1 disagree moderation here or there. People misuse moderation all the time, and it doesn't mean much if they do.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jsepeta]

That's what was so brilliant about Kai's Power Tools (KPT). KPT would show new users a limited interface, then as you worked more with the program, it would unlock more parts to the interface, growing more complex as your skill level increased. There's little reason why Apple or Microsoft couldn't afford to hire the additional programming expertise to develop an Advanced interface for more complex/comprehensive products like Final Cut PRO or Logic or even WORD.

*
Leo Laporte once commented that XP had a "Fisher Price" interface because of the gaudy colors and oversized icons. One of my pet peeves is that OSX and Win7 use huge icons and don't allow me to see as many items in a detailed list view as I could in MacOS 9. Add to that the fact that Apple did not add the much-loved "print window" function in the Finder that my clients had used to make quick lists of what files were stored on which removable media (cd's, syquest drives, zip carts, floppies, etc.)

Re:Users disagree with him

[drinkypoo]

DLL hell has to do with only being able to load a single library with a specific name at a time. I understand there to be some kind of solution to this now (but maybe it's just COM, or .NET, or whatever) but it at least was impossible to load two different mfc42.dll at once, where it's not impossible to load two different libwhatever-0.0.so at once as you say. So DLL hell isn't even about paths! Of course, the problem has also been mitigated on Windows by using Unix-like practices, e.g. MFCxx.DLL.

Re:Users disagree with him

[drinkypoo]

Even the most *esoteric* of Windows/Mac programs contain installers and a GUI for configuration.

That is quite false. Both Windows and Mac systems have command lines and for modern Windows server it is even a sort of default. However, what differentiates the typical Linux from a professional commercial system is the lack of documentation. You can at least get some bad documentation for anything in Windows (these days, heh heh) but there's lots of stuff you can install with apt-get or what have you that's got TODO in the manpage.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Politburo]

It's amusing, every time the ribbon comes up you get comments like this, but they never seem to mention just what they're trying to find.

The only thing that I remember having to actually search for was Protect Document. It got shoved at the end of the Review tab for some reason. It also shows up on Developer (which you have to specifically enable).

Re:Users disagree with him

[LordLimecat]

The good news is you can minimize the Ribbon: right click n the tab-bar, and click "minimize ribbon". Enjoy your real estate. It will un-minimize when you click one of the tabs, and disappear again when you mouse back to the content window.

Re:Users disagree with him

[LordLimecat]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]

        "EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000

See, THIS is why Linux will NEVER get mainstream adop..... whats that, thats a registry entry? Carry on.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the thing: Many computer users would agree that having a GUI to make configuration changes "more friendly", but I could cite numerous examples of GUI-based applications that completely lack any sort of documentation or manual. With text-based configuration files, documentation is accessible either by in-line comments or by a quick peek at the software's bundled manual. The disadvantage of requiring a GUI for installation and configuration of an application, is the added overhead of requiring a frame-buffer and graphics processor. It isn't ignorant to configure things via text-files, it's light-weight, and provides quick start-up times, as well as efficient application code to manage configuration changes.

As a recent example, I had a cloud server that hosted our database using SQL Server go down, and upon rebooting its license information was fried. My only choice was to deploy a new cloud server and hand-configure everything back to working order, given the lack of text-based configuration files. Had I the option of doing so, it would have been much quicker for me to merge the configuration in by copying over the old files, edit one line in them (corresponding to hostname), and be done with it, rather than sitting in stand-by mode for twelve hours clicking "Next".

Re:Users disagree with him

[LordLimecat]

Wait, wait wait. So if there are lots of people who only have a algebra-2-level understanding of mathematics, and TI makes a calculator that allows them to accomplish the tasks they want without knowing more--up to and including Calculus-- somehow TI is doing a bad thing here?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Either "Galestar" is a troll, or hasn't used Linux in 10 years.

Re:Users disagree with him

[PintoPiman]

As much as I like the eye candy newer GUIs provide, I miss the old days when you had to be smart to use a computer. Sigh...

Unfortunately, computing is going to be like TV - if you want to maximize profit, you cater to the lowest common denominator. Hopefully Linux will continue to be Team Discovery Channel.

Yeah, it sucks whenever the proles get involved, doesn't it? Linux is way too Fisher Price though... I'm still miffed that they gave computers screens. REAL obnoxious, elitist, arrogant internet commentators would never have accepted that waste of processor time. LED's and a switch board should be enough. If you can't figure that out, you shouldn't be allowed to use a computer.

And don't even get me started on cars with air bags or traction control!

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

No, just no. You are simply bitching that things are easy for others to use, so they can actually get shit done, instead of having to come to you, so you can look down your nose at them. You are angry because you are no longer the only one who knows how to do something, because developers are starting to realize that if they don't make their shit easy to use, people won't use it.

Re:Users disagree with him

[PintoPiman]

oof... Your first argument would support having the menu bar on every monitor (IMHO a good idea), not at the top of the app (IMHO a terrible idea for the "small target" reasons cited by the grandparent). You can configure global shortcuts if you want - there's a system pref for that. Depending on what you're doing though, a tool like Quicksilver might be more useful, or Automator. The one button mouse thing is a ten-year old argument which was stupid then. Apple correctly realized that the right button was pretty undiscovered by most users, so they required that their UIs be built to not require one. Of course the Windows folk couldn't figure out how to get by without one, so now you can configure Apple mice to sense one button or two. The laptops allow for two-finger click being "right," which is way handier than two button trackpads in Windows land. And I'm a lefty, so it's all backwards for me, you insensitive clod! And that, in just this comment alone, you've wasted more TIME (capital TIME, cuz this is serious business!!!111!!!(one)!1!) than a lifetime of page animations...

Hater's gotta hate, I guess.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

This is quite possibly the most condescending, most retarded, and most asinine post written on here. You're actually upset because "regular people" are going to be able to use computers now?

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

Users were never supposed to be allowed to 'install' anything, though.

Yeah, that approach is not going to work in a home environment.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

My 12 year is required to use one in school, because they don't like electronics.

Or because they can't afford them. Paper planners are cheap, and obscenely easy to use. Let the kids prove they can actually handle keeping track of assignments and stuff on paper first, and then maybe get them something electronic. Get the basics down before you move into expensive tools.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

If you have an assload of monitors, you would have downloaded the application which allows you to have the menubar on all monitors long ago.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

And then there's OS X's inability to send keystrokes to any application other than the one in front. What a huge UI fumble. Got the ability to remotely control an app by sending it keystrokes?

And if you have multiple applications running in the back? That respond to the same keystrokes? Which one responds? Which one are you trying to send the command to? Sounds like more of a UI fumble.

And then there's the whole one button mouse thing, although there are so many ways around that today you don't really get screwed solidly by it unless you buy an Apple mouse / trackpad. Even then, there are options besides the brain-dead "control-click."

Mindless pointless bitching from someone who thinks that right clicking is the be all and end all of UI design.

And page animations... really? Seriously? You're going to exchange my TIME for eye candy? Unbelievable.

1. You can turn most of these off. 2. They take less than 2 seconds. Your "time" is not that valuable. Get over yourself.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

So rather than address his legitimate concern for the problems evident in that control scheme, you're just going to condescendingly dismiss him.

And they say Mac users are conceited.

Re:Users disagree with him

[cching]

Hey! A fellow BRIEF fan! :-D I too have been missing column selection for a long time!

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

imho all of the problems with the ribbon could be solved by adding a single search box that narrows down the icons, or simply takes you to the right part of the ribbon. How no-one has thought of this, I don't know.

Re:Users disagree with him

[datavirtue]

Next year's new menu.......NO MENU AT ALLL!!! Fuckin A Man. I dream of WordPerfect. The problem is, Microsoft applied their good formula for usability to ALL software. As you find out when trying to solve every problem with one solution it can sometimes jump out and bite your dick off. In this case, no one knows how to use a fucking word processor now because Microsoft made it easy--oh sure they type their document and sometimes fanagle it to look presentable but face it, the user is a real mess with Word. Before Word people used WordPerfect (and some other inferior packages) which had no menus (until they were pressured into it) and people could use it. They used it much better than anyone uses Word these days. You learn it and move on, heaven forbid you may have to consult a manual. Now, no one consults a manual AND they can't fucking use Word! How about that?

I know how to use and Word, and you know what I use? Header, maybe footer (no), paragraph and fonts, lists, merge, and images (sometimes). Wow! Anymore I just use LibreOffice3, it handles the docx crap now. Microsoft should really peel off Word into a two products. One for most people and another for the real word processors.

Re:Users disagree with him

[nightfell]

Right, because six monitors is *totally* normal...

And the rest of your rant has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but I'll bite.

On Windows, you can send keystrokes to background windows? There is a focus-follows-mouse mode in OS X, but just like on Linux, it's absurd. And AppleScript covers sending commands to other apps, even on other computers.

The notion that Macs have only one button mice is false, and has been for many years. It's a software option.

Page animations show you what the fuck just happened.

Re:Users disagree with him

[TemporalBeing]

I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's. It does take some adjustment if you've used the old ones, but that's true for every kind of change. And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface.

It's not simply about change, but change in available functionality. As others have pointed out, you have less functionality with the Ribbon than before; things were renamed (e.g. Paste Special to Copy Special), and were re-ordered based on how Microsoft thought they should be ordered, not users. The older Toolbars let the user customize them so that things were ordered based on how the user needed them and could add custom stuff that was not already available.

It would be stupid to drag using bad interface because old users hate change.

Bad interface according to whom? Obviously there are a lot of people that find the Ribbon UI to be a bad interface. So which one is the real drag? It depends on your persepctive.

Everything is displayed much more clearly.

That's to be disputed as well. My wife has Office 2007 and I am always trying to find stuff with it. It's not intuitive, not logically organized, and often more difficult to find things resulting in much lost productivity. It shouldn't take 5 minutes to figure out simple things - especially simple things that were very easy to get to in older versions of the software and now you have to click 5 times as much to do the same task.

I noticed this especially when I used Office products I haven't really used much before.If I had used them, it was always more work adjusting. But when they were new to begin with, there was no problem. I think Ribbon is still a great idea, especially for non-geeks. I guess they could include both interfaces though, like Opera does (not with Ribbon, but with hiding menu).

And therein lays one of the major issues. If you haven't used the older software then you have no expectations of the interface so it may feel just fine. However, when you have used the older software you do have an expectation for what it should be able to do and how quickly and when it doesn't match up, there is a problem - or when it had an association and completely changed it, etc.

Needless to say, I can get a lot of people to use OpenOffice/etc now because of the Ribbon UI's.

And I would also have to add that many people don't know about doing simple things like switching the OS skin on Win7 to "Classic" - it just doesn't even occur to them that they should be able to; yet that is one of the first things I do to get to a more familiar environment (even in WinXP) so that I can actually find stuff - even in Control Panel!

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's well past time for 32-bit to die die die, especially on the desktop."

Yes, because humans now type 100x faster than they did 100 years ago.

sigh... spoken like a true microsoft laccie -- don't blame the bloated inefficient software, make them upgrade!

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to upgrade to Mac OS 10.7 because of how they've dumbed down the interface. I don't know what's happening at Apple, but it's like they've been taken over by Microsoft since the change to Intel. 10.6 is OK but the pinnacle of usability in any OS, Mac, Windows or Linux for me was 10.4 on G4/G5 and don't get me started on how slow even the latest Intel Mac Books are at rendering video filters compared to my old G4 iBook of a few years ago.

Apple switching to Intel was a bad move and now the OS is starting to reflect the criticisms the Intel used to unfairly level on them. I hate Windows, like the romance (but hate the practicalities) of Linux, and now Mac OS is going down the toilet. After 30 years of leading my pears into computing, I'm completely over computers and I'm trying to figure out how to do without them.

Re:Users disagree with him

[fyngyrz]

Really? I think -- not dead certain, but I *think* -- then this must work because those are not actually keystroke events. OS X allows for menu shortcuts and certain other types of UI activity to be passed around, but not keystrokes. If I'm wrong, I'd be *delighted* -- this shortcoming is so in my way... if I could get around it, my user experience would be vastly enhanced. In short, I need to be able to send keystrokes to an app that isn't active, and doesn't need to become active -- and there would be quite a few of them sometimes, so making the app active and then coming back (a la applescript) becomes a very bad idea.

Re:Users disagree with him

[fyngyrz]

what exactly are you moaning about here?

Let me describe the problem again, perhaps more clearly:

If application X is over on monitor six, but the menu for it is over on monitor 1, then it's a long mouse journey from monitor six to monitor 1, and then back again, just to select a menu entry. If the menus were on the application window, instead of being stuck to the top of monitor 1, this journey would not be required.

Regarding windows and menus - 6 monitors, you could still Cmd-Q the wrong app no matter where the menus were.

Yes -- because cmd-Q is directed to the active app. However, you would be a great deal more likely to select the correct quit command using the actual menu if the menus were attached to the app window, as they are in a better UI design. This is because the menu is then not only associated with the active context (which can change in a heartbeat with an accidental click or tap), but also with the visual context of the application. Accessing it would change the focus to the correct application without any extra attention from the user.

Why would I want to send keystrokes to an app that doesn't have focus? Perhaps the one in focus needs those keystrokes?

Well, I don't know why YOU would, but in my case, my software defined radio uses keystrokes to adjust various settings, including tuning, bandwidth, and so forth. I use a midi control surface to send those keystrokes when its knobs are turned, thus controlling the radio. However, because the keystrokes cannot be directed specifically to the software defined radio app unless it is active, I cannot adjust the radio app at all, unless I make it active with the mouse. This is one example where one application (the midi input processor) could, under [linix|windows|amigados|etc] for example, easily control another (the radio app.) Likewise, a script running from cron or Apple's launchd could send a sequence of commands based on time, such as: "it's ten o'clock, tune to such and such a station, record for half an hour, save as station-10pm-date.soundformat." This could be done without disturbing what you're doing at the moment. BUT, because you MUST make the application active before it can even SEE a keystroke message under OS X... none of this can be done in this easy, convenient fashion. I should also add that OS X lacks a simple IPC mechanism that could be used as an alternate command mechanism, other than for menu commands.

If you are still control clicking with a trackpad, well....

Pad-tapping doesn't work for every workflow, you know. There are many cases in logic, for instance, when you're all over the UI, and quickly. Likewise, Apple's version of right-click-at-right-corner doesn't always get interpreted that way. Control-click, at least, works. There are other workflows than yours.

Yes, I'm aware I shouldn't feed the trolls. My bad.

No, your bad was failing to visualize that a workflow outside your own experience could exist and be valid.

Re:Users disagree with him

[fyngyrz]

I answered Gr8Apes. In detail. However, he doesn't have any legitimate concerns -- what he has is a limited view of what computers can and should do.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

that was meant to be "10 years ago"

Re:Users disagree with him

[Gr8Apes]

I wouldn't worry about condescending (trolling) ACs, even if it appears this one might be older than 12. (after all, they're complete sentences with proper grammatical structure and spelling and all)

I'm not even overly concerned about the Troll rating, although that would explain the AC status. I'm surprised someone thought that was a troll, it's almost insulting, in fact.

But, I truly wonder why in the regular run of things I'd ever want to send general keystrokes to an app that doesn't have focus.

Hotkeys for specific purposes, sure, like instant grab screen shots and the like.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

That's one way to look at it I guess. The other option would be to say that it's not "bad design" just "different to the way you want to do it".

Or how about "the same as the way that makes everybody constantly make mistakes and get frustrated". The case in question is clear: Apple did it wrong, and it users suffer. There is exactly one way to interpret this particular case as "different" rather than "wrong": reality distortion[tm]. Feel free, you're not me.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

Also they added a virtualized directory system that the kernel shows applications. So applications that require DLLs in static locations with generic names get their version of the DLL linked in. I agree the name solution is far far easier and it was a flawed design choice that led to this problem.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jo_ham]

How is that the only way to interpret it?

Your sample size is hardly representative, but nor is mine.

We don't have enough data to conclude that there's "exactly one way to interpret" this.

It might well be the wrong UI choice, but just because you personally don't like it and because I can't decide either way does not make it automatically and obviously wrong.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jbolden]

I'm not so sure that paper so easy to use. Consider all the time spent teaching: manual writing, cursive, penmanship skills and then things like using a paper organizer. That is probably about 2 full years of education. I'm not sure that as a society it is worth it having people be skilled in using a pen / pencil anymore. I can see an argument for introducing laptop based methods early and never teaching those skills.

I will agree that after having invested all the time in paper competency paper seems easier.

Re:Users disagree with him

[drissel]

For Pete's sake, OP, it's not about you. The GUI designer has built a path that you and newbies can use to get your work done. Grownups regard command lines and GUIs simply as hurdles between a person and what he wants ... just jump over them.
Bill Drissel
Grand Prairie, TX, USA

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't know why YOU would, but in my case, my software defined radio uses keystrokes to adjust various settings, including tuning, bandwidth, and so forth. I use a midi control surface to send those keystrokes when its knobs are turned, thus controlling the radio. However, because the keystrokes cannot be directed specifically to the software defined radio app unless it is active, I cannot adjust the radio app at all, unless I make it active with the mouse. This is one example where one application (the midi input processor) could, under [linix|windows|amigados|etc] for example, easily control another (the radio app.)

Sounds like you need a better SDR app then. OS X has an API which lets any application filter and/or inject keystrokes before they're passed on to the frontmost application's event handler. The one and only catch is that the user has to turn on the "Enable access for assistive devices" option (in the Universal Access pane of System Preferences). It's off by default for better security, since the API is an easy peasy way to write a keylogger trojan.

See for example:

http://www.smilesoftware.com/TextExpander/faq.html

Likewise, a script running from cron or Apple's launchd could send a sequence of commands based on time, such as: "it's ten o'clock, tune to such and such a station, record for half an hour, save as station-10pm-date.soundformat." This could be done without disturbing what you're doing at the moment. BUT, because you MUST make the application active before it can even SEE a keystroke message under OS X... none of this can be done in this easy, convenient fashion.

Only a positively terrible Mac application designed for scripted control while already open would lack AppleScript support. Applications can receive AS events in the background all day long.

I should also add that OS X lacks a simple IPC mechanism that could be used as an alternate command mechanism, other than for menu commands.

Total nonsense, see above. I'm curious as to how you came to the conclusion that these problems are uniquely un-solvable on OS X. Your methodology for OS X difficulties generally appears to be "step 1, experience esoteric ultra-geeky problem which probably only fyngyrz cares about, step 2, whine on slashdot about how terrible OS X is". Much of the time it's something which could be solved if you lifted a fyngyr to investigate on your own.

P.S. Expecting Apple to fundamentally change its UI so it has a menubar per window is a fool's game. They're optimizing for the overwhelming majority of their users who have one display. (And it's usually the relatively small one inside their laptop.) Menubar-per-window is not actually a good idea for those users. Apple's not going to change their UI in a fundamental way just to satisfy the 0.001% of the population which loads up a Mac Pro with enough video cards to drive 6 monitors. Get over it already and start looking for workarounds, there's plenty of workflow enhancement software out there for expert level users.

Re:Users disagree with him

[ninetyninebottles]

I hate to break it to you, but if you're sending documents back and forth, you are doing it wrong. What you should have is an information management system, where all the information is updated in realtime when people make changes to it (and of course track changes).

Umm, welcome to the real world. We have three of them and for security reasons no one shares access with anyone else. The client doesn't want to pay for a dedicated CMS for this project so things are mostly shared via encrypted e-mail then manually synched in the respective archiving system.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I wasn't clear. Sit down at a Windows box, press Alt. That's a feature I want.

I kinda like this, but I kinda don't too. It's more a problem with the Windows implementation than a fundamental problem with the idea. The problem is that it's modal UI triggered just by tapping a modifier key, so it's easy to accidentally switch modes without being aware of it (especially with a large display where your eyes aren't necessarily focused near where the menus pop up).

Re:Users disagree with him

[Magius_AR]

So I suppose you use "smooth scrolling" in browsers then? Since merely instantaneously showing a new page of data (by say, pushing page up or page down) would be confusing without a transition effect?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to upgrade to Mac OS 10.7 because of how they've dumbed down the interface.

The funny thing about people who say this is that almost universally, to a man, they haven't actually tried it.

I don't know what's happening at Apple, but it's like they've been taken over by Microsoft since the change to Intel. 10.6 is OK but the pinnacle of usability in any OS, Mac, Windows or Linux for me was 10.4 on G4/G5 and don't get me started on how slow even the latest Intel Mac Books are at rendering video filters compared to my old G4 iBook of a few years ago.

Nice troll bro. Or are you stupidly expecting the Intel MacBook to outperform the G4 when running the an ancient PPC application under Rosetta?

Apple switching to Intel was a bad move

This right here? It says that you're a trolling, or an idiot, or both.

and now the OS is starting to reflect the criticisms the Intel used to unfairly level on them. I hate Windows, like the romance (but hate the practicalities) of Linux, and now Mac OS is going down the toilet. After 30 years of leading my pears into computing, I'm completely over computers and I'm trying to figure out how to do without them.

Translation: "I can't handle UI change and choose to blame it on the processor for irrational reasons". Seriously, dude, Intel never criticized Apple's UI. They're a processor company, not a software company with an OS which competes with Apple. Intel wanted Apple's business for practically all of Apple's existence. Intel likes nothing better than to have more than one popular OS running on its processors, because they sell more chips and gain leverage against Microsoft (no large company likes being wholly dependent on another single, large company, even if the relationship is nominally mutually beneficial). (Ever heard of Project Star Trek? It was a secret, experimental port of classic MacOS to Intel in the early 90s, before Apple committed to PowerPC. That wasn't done for no reason.)

Besides, when you're coding OS X UI, you literally don't have to care what the underlying CPU is. The NeXT UI code which Cocoa is based on began life on 68K, and was ported to x86, SPARC, and PPC years before Apple bought NeXT. Since then it's also been ported to x86-64 and ARM. NeXT planned very well for CPU agnosticism, so the only thing most programmers need do when porting GUI code is to check another box in the IDE to turn on compilation for another processor type.

Re:Users disagree with him

[seantide]

Oy. Wrong in so many ways. I have six monitors on my Mac Pro. The menu for any one app probably isn't even on the same monitor. It is a HUGE pain in the neck to navigate back to the display that (currently) contains the menu. The menus belong on the window(s) of the app that owns them. Period. Top-of-the-main-monitor is a complete foul-up

You can get programs that put the menu bar on each screen. Overall I still prefer this, because Windows and other OS have horrible multi-screen support. No system really does this very well except maybe the old NeXT system.

And then there's the whole one button mouse thing, although there are so many ways around that today you don't really get screwed solidly by it unless you buy an Apple mouse / trackpad. Even then, there are options besides the brain-dead "control-click."

Oh good grief, I didn't have that issue on Mac systems in 1994. When are people going to quit repeating this bullshit? It hasn't been a problem in a long, long time.

I agree on the real world interface items, it just makes no sense. A computer is not a physical book, desk, or shelf... I expect it to be more flexible that those and different in any case. The UI should be made for computers, not 19th Century office equipment.

I don't personally think that the menu bar requires more mouse travel. I tend to move the mouse a lot less when using OSX versus Windows, though that might be just better application design.

Re:Users disagree with him

[berashith]

heh, Im not that old... Linux existed, but the Gimp was entirely useless at this time. Hell, Linux wasnt so great, at least not for people who had anything else to do with their lives except bang away at the installer all night long. It was still better than NT once you got it running though.

Re:Users disagree with him

[berashith]

I havent looked at the GiMP in a while, so I dont know the exact details. Separating the tool menus from the canvas was always an option, but nothing really great until there was room for the tools completely off of the canvas. The working area was the same size and ratio that we had all gotten comfortable with.

I am glad to hear that at least a few people make their GUI fit the new aspect better. I generally hate the new ratios for anything except movies, which is almost everything I do on a computer.

Re:Users disagree with him

[nobodie]

Well, as a happy gnome 3 user i would hardly accept being called "afraid of change". But I find the ribbon really, really hard to use. I don't find the choices to be "intuitive" or useful. I tried, the first month on my new job, and went back to libreoffice. I just had to get work done and not have to look for stuff, stuff like "undo". Then I never did find the "notes" where I could add notes to a document with a quick key combination, or with anything. I just gave it up.

So, while I am sure that some people have found it useful, just as I prefer G3, I didn't. I notice that the people I work with have dumbed it down to being a zero-feature text editor as well. when they have a list to make the type "1" then ")" then "tab" then the question or whatever. It is considered a sign of mastery to be able to bullet lists! So, what I see is what I agree with, big surprise.

Re:Users disagree with him

[stewbacca]

No, because the next page of a web page is different enough from the previous one, that there's a visual difference. You instigate the new page in the browser, you are expecting new information to be presented. That's why when a page is slow to connect, users get fidgety and start to fret they may have done something wrong, because the expected result isn't happening.

With a calendar, the only thing that changes is the name of the month and the day numbers shift a little bit. If you aren't paying close attention, you may miss the month flip (or year flip). You know you've done it...you pushed "next month" arrow a few too many times because you didn't think it changed, and you end up overshooting by a couple of months.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

No, you didn't. You completely dismissed his concern, and did it in a very smug and condescending fashion. Assuming that AC is you.

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

Well, I don't know why YOU would, but in my case, my software defined radio uses keystrokes to adjust various settings, including tuning, bandwidth, and so forth. I use a midi control surface to send those keystrokes when its knobs are turned, thus controlling the radio. However, because the keystrokes cannot be directed specifically to the software defined radio app unless it is active, I cannot adjust the radio app at all, unless I make it active with the mouse. This is one example where one application (the midi input processor) could, under [linix|windows|amigados|etc] for example, easily control another (the radio app.) Likewise, a script running from cron or Apple's launchd could send a sequence of commands based on time, such as: "it's ten o'clock, tune to such and such a station, record for half an hour, save as station-10pm-date.soundformat." This could be done without disturbing what you're doing at the moment. BUT, because you MUST make the application active before it can even SEE a keystroke message under OS X... none of this can be done in this easy, convenient fashion. I should also add that OS X lacks a simple IPC mechanism that could be used as an alternate command mechanism, other than for menu commands.

And how does the system know which app is supposed to receive those keystrokes? And if multiple apps can respond to the same keystrokes, which one is supposed to respond? Or are they all supposed to respond?

Likewise, a script running from cron or Apple's launchd could send a sequence of commands based on time, such as: "it's ten o'clock, tune to such and such a station, record for half an hour, save as station-10pm-date.soundformat.

There are far, far, far, far, far better interfaces for such a function. Using keystrokes is the lazy and incompetent way to do it. AppleScript would be a much better solution.

Re:Users disagree with him

[bucky0]

*shrug* I've never done OSX coding (beyond posix-ish porting of some code from linux), so I have no idea of how things are implemented under the hood. I think quicksilver's open source (?) though, so that might be somewhere to look?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

You're playing games. Every iPad user stumbles on exactly the issue I stated, for the obvious reason.

Re:Users disagree with him

[fyngyrz]

Sounds like you need a better SDR app then.

That's idiotic. The SDR app uses keystrokes as well as a GUI. The keystrokes are for expert use. They're also an obvious and easy way to control the thing.

Only a positively terrible Mac application designed for scripted control while already open would lack AppleScript support.

Again, that's idiotic. This application isn't "designed for scripted control" it's designed for keyboard control. What I would have liked was to be able to script those keyboard commands, as they are already there. You're just being intentionally obtuse, aren't you? IHBT. HAND. Sigh.

Re:Users disagree with him

[fyngyrz]

And how does the system know which app is supposed to receive those keystrokes?

Typically, that's solved explicitly with named ports, and generally with some app identifier the system knows how to deal with. If you're unfamiliar with this kind of programming, don't worry about it. It's been solved repeatedly in other operating systems. It just isn't solved here.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Gr8Apes]

Let me describe the problem again, perhaps more clearly...If application X is over on monitor six, but the menu for it is over on monitor 1, then it's a long mouse journey from monitor six to monitor 1, and then back again, just to select a menu entry.

It would seem that depending upon monitor layout, at most you'd have to cross 2 monitors, and in the best case 1. I will admit that crossing multiple monitors can be a bit annoying, but my workflow tends to focus in the main monitor with secondary and tertiary monitors used for debug/viewing the flow or other secondary functions.

Yes -- because cmd-Q is directed to the active app. However, you would be a great deal more likely to select the correct quit command using the actual menu if the menus were attached to the app window, as they are in a better UI design. This is because the menu is then not only associated with the active context (which can change in a heartbeat with an accidental click or tap), but also with the visual context of the application. Accessing it would change the focus to the correct application without any extra attention from the user.

For this particular command, the red dot on the window will solve that problem. (I generally don't use it though, Cmd-Q is fine for me) I would still hold that for 1, 2, or even 3 monitor setups, the current design is fine and perfectly usable. I will admit that, not having 6 monitor experience nor using a workflow that actually would utilize 6 monitors, I can not state whether this breaks down at that point. I also note that most of my applications do no often utilize the menu bar, and for those that do - they reside on monitor 1.

Well, I don't know why YOU would, but in my case, my software defined radio uses keystrokes to adjust various settings, including tuning, bandwidth, and so forth.

Have you looked into whether hotkeys could be assigned for those particular actions? That's the general way that particular piece is done. Not having coded direct IPC in OSX at this point, I can't talk to that aspect.

Pad-tapping doesn't work for every workflow, you know. There are many cases in logic, for instance, when you're all over the UI, and quickly. Likewise, Apple's version of right-click-at-right-corner doesn't always get interpreted that way. Control-click, at least, works. There are other workflows than yours.

1) I'm having trouble visualizing a case where you ctrl-click with a pad where a double finger tap wouldn't be easier
and
2) I'm not sure that I understand your use case of right-click-at-right-corner. That must be a configuration I don't use.

No, your bad was failing to visualize that a workflow outside your own experience could exist and be valid.

Actually, if you want people to take you seriously, you should present some data on said workflow, since it's way out there from your initial post. That post seemed like nothing more than bragging while whining about some seemingly unrelated aspects.

For instance, I have a hexcore with 24GB RAM and 10TB. (oo, yea! goodie me) If I left it at that and complained about something, the first part is rather meaningless. If I were to come back and say that during video editing, sometimes the software RAID seems to lose it's internal command structure and locks the system up tighter than a drum, all of a sudden there's a reason for said system and puts a workflow in context. (Actually, I've not tracked the issue down to the software RAID yet, it's also possible that it's a flaky AFP implementation on Linux in the other room. I'll be removing that and seeing if things improve, it only happens usually after 60 or so days of uptime.)

I do thank you for clearing up various aspects of your original post.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

You said, "I end up surprised to find my text glued onto the end of the previous search, which normally is not what I want. And this happens to every iPad user I have observed, it is not just me."

So the behavior may be the same for every user, but obviously you can't speak for everyone about what kind of behavior they want.

I think jo_ham's point is that the only way to find out what other users want is to ask a significant number of them. For all you know, Apple did this, and perhaps a majority preferred the way it ended up working. In that case it would not be "wrong" or "broken," because it suits a larger number of users.

I have no way of knowing if that's in fact what Apple did, and maybe it's incomprehensible to you that people would prefer that behavior, but it doesn't make your preference the "obvious" one.

Re:Users disagree with him

[andcal]

It took me a while to remember that the ribbon can be collapsed by double-clicking on any tab (the actual tab part). Once you know where the controls that you use are located, collapse the ribbon, and single-click a tab to open it for the duration of the command, and then after you click the command, it will snap back shut.

Re:Users disagree with him

[jo_ham]

I think the AC that also replied hit the nail on the head here - go read that post.

You don't have enough data to say it's the "obviously wrong" choice, but nor do I.

Have you asked a statistically significant sample set of *all* iPad users?

Re:Users disagree with him

[s73v3r]

So you just type on the keyboard and the system instantly knows which app you want to send the strokes to if it's not the focused app? Yeah, that sounds like a really great system.

Again, you're doing it wrong. This is not the way to be solving this problem. The fault lies with your radio program, not with the OS.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you need a better SDR app then.

That's idiotic. The SDR app uses keystrokes as well as a GUI. The keystrokes are for expert use. They're also an obvious and easy way to control the thing.

Um... wow. I just told you how the SDR app could use keystrokes for control while in the background, you idiot. Apparently in addition to your other defects you can't read for comprehension at all. Your claim that It Can't Be Done on OS X is total garbage.

Only a positively terrible Mac application designed for scripted control while already open would lack AppleScript support.

Again, that's idiotic. This application isn't "designed for scripted control" it's designed for keyboard control. What I would have liked was to be able to script those keyboard commands, as they are already there. You're just being intentionally obtuse, aren't you? IHBT. HAND. Sigh.

You're trolling yourself trying to maintain an idiotic position. Keyboard control and scriptability are not mutually exclusive. Once again, despite your protestations, the functionality you want absolutely can, without any possibility of a doubt, be done on OS X.

The only way your position makes any sense at all is if you insist that all control of this app, both user- and script-initiated, must be done via keypress events. Which is kind of dumb. Who cares how the plumbing works? (Not to mention that AS is probably better plumbing. For example, it at least offers the possibility of 2 way communication so the script can properly handle error conditions kicked back to it by the SDR app.)

But fine, nothing but key events allowed. Well, guess what? As I've proved by working example, apps can get key events while in the background. Half of the problem solved right there. And the phrase-expander app also demonstrates that it's possible to not only intercept key events, but filter them out of another app's event queue and inject others in their place. So I rather doubt that it's flatly impossible to send key events to a backgrounded app from a script. You might not know how to do it, but clearly there's no fundamental technological barrier in Apple's windowing and event system, no matter how much you whine.

P.S. You sound so sure that controlling this app with key events in the background and with scripts can be done on Windows and Linux. Has it been ported to either, and have you ever actually done so?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Guy Harris]

Regarding the Address Book, just go to the View menu and select "Groups". You'll be able to see your groups on the left and your contacts on the right, just like before.

"Before" I saw my groups on the left, my list of contact names in the middle, and the contact details on the right. What do I do in Address Book to see a display "just like before", with those three panes?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Guy Harris]

Apple switching to Intel was a bad move

Apple switching to a line of processors from a company for whom desktop/notebook computers is a major market, and that has a lot of money to throw at making those processors faster, was a bad move? How so?

and now the OS is starting to reflect the criticisms the Intel used to unfairly level on them.

"The Intel" used to unfairly level criticisms on them? Presumably you're not somehow speaking of criticisms from Windows users, as the UI has nothing to do with the instruction set architecture of the processor.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

So the behavior may be the same for every user, but obviously you can't speak for everyone about what kind of behavior they want.

Yes I can, because they always mutter about it. Face it, Apple blew chunks on this particular issue and in countless other little details. Spinning a broken thing as not broken does not fix it, only fixing it does. (thinks about the iPhone 2 antenna)

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yes I can, because they always mutter about it.

Yeah, and you've talked to every user?

Look, you may be right, but you have to back it up with something other than "I don't like it and nobody I know likes it."

The same conversation is going on elsewhere on this article about the Ribbon in MS Office. Almost everyone says they hate it; a few say they like it... Microsoft says they have the numbers to prove it's better.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

>> obviously you can't speak for everyone
> Yes I can

Arrogant prick.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

Moonie.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Daniel Phillips]

> Yes I can, because they always mutter about it.

Yeah, and you've talked to every user?

So, suppose I see you pick up the iPad and the battery explodes in your face. Do I need to talk to every user to know the battery exploded?

Re:Users disagree with him

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you even consider this analogous demonstrates your lack of reasoning ability.

So, you've got nothing then. Bye.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

And which is going to have a greater overall impact? Making "undertrained desk jockeys" (what elitist tripe!) more efficient, or making "true power users" (more tripe) marginally (two can play at this game) less efficient?

I'm terms of greater impact overall to more people, you're on the wrong side of the equation on this one.

There's nothing elitist about calling someone "undertrained". There is nothing racist about calling someone "undertrained". There is nothing sexist about calling someone "undertrained". What I am complaining about is a corporate culture that doesn't recognise the value of training staff in the proper use of tools, and a software market that continues to dumb itself down in order to pander to this. The individuals are blameless.

Training someone in the proper use of a pre-ribbon-interface Microsoft Office would have a far greater impact on productivity than the ribbon interface itself had. There's a laziness in our modern relationships with technology that I just do not like!

HAL.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

True. However, it means that you have a predictable action sequence. My problem with the ribbon's persistence is that it interferes with the automaticity of tasks -- I have a habit of "do-X-do-Y-do-Z" and the task is done. With ribbons, I have to stop and ask myself whether I have to do X or start with Y, and it slows me down considerably.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Half-pint HAL]

You are correct that certain ribbons only appear in certain contexts. However, there are lots of "general purpose" ribbons that aren't specific to a particular editing context. If you're in one of them, you stay in it indefinitely, and it creates a new sense of context.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Trogre]

The name and averages are achievable by an Mail Merge operation, which has been around since the days of WordStar on MS-DOS 2.1 and probably longer.

Re:Users disagree with him

[Trogre]

Uh yeah, sorry I meant "a simple Mail Merge operation".

Easy and Advanced

[TaoPhoenix]

We're back to this discussion again.

Unskilled Users (not necessarily new!) like the new Padded Rails simplicity. I have advised a couple of such users now and they really do like things being as "Safari is the internet". They don't know what a web page address is. They just type words into the search bar until it (hopefully!) shows up.

So if companies would quit playing Proprietary Lockdown games, we really do need "Basic / Advanced" versions of a UI at the click of a button.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[buchner.johannes]

Experienced users want it the way they got used to.
Finding interfaces that new computer users can learn quickly and be productive in is difficult (you also need new test subject all the time).
This story and the GNOME3 discussion on /. seems to be a case of "I want it like it has always been", not being interested in what could be done better. I know new ideas in UI development can make you very productive, a very good example is Mylyn.

On a related note, Apple has always used silly analogies ("Desktop", "Trash", Eject by dropping to trash). I hope I offended everyone now.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[visualight]

The problem is that if weren't unnecessary abstraction layers and illogical "real world" metaphors there wouldn't *be* any unskilled users. These interfaces not only assume you're ignorant, they *keep* you ignorant.

The premise that I disagree with is that it's okay for people to go on thinking that "Safari is the internet". This isn't rocket science. Having some basic grasp of a hierarchy, or understanding the concept of a URL would not be difficult if the UI(s) weren't so disconnected from reality.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[InsightIn140Bytes]

It's more ignorant to think that users need to know the underlying system or how URL is formed to use computer or internet. Truth is, no one wants to have to learn things they don't care about. While you may think it's essential for everyone to know how computers operate, many people think otherwise. Likewise, I bet you don't have to learn things you don't care about just to enjoy them. We have almost 7 billion people on earth - we can specialize in things and enjoy all the things world offers but someone has to simplify it for the rest of us so that we have the time to enjoy and use everything. You can't learn everything, and for majority of people computers are just something they want to use, not something they want to learn to understand.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

In my opinion it doesn't have to be the same way people are used to, as long as it can be much faster.

I'm happy that Apple, Microsoft etc are taking care of the "newbie" users - that's actually a good idea.

BUT in my opinion they should also provide short-cuts so that skilled/trained users will be able to do things much faster.

Not everyone remains a "newbie". Being skilled at complex stuff is not beyond normal people. Many gamers can do many actions-per-second. And look at some of the experienced "old-school" supermarket cashiers (who can identify products and enter the correct product codes faster than low-end barcode readers can read a barcode) or those using those "dumb terminals" - using all the short cut keys to jump to various fields/pages to enter the data or search for stuff quickly.

But what I see nowadays are UIs where you have click/swipe, _WAIT_ for fancy animation, click again, _WAIT_ for fancy animation, then only finally get what you want. That gets old if you already know exactly what you want.

Any non-idiot can create a UI that allows a user to manage 1-3 windows/items. Give me a UI that allows a normal user to manage magnitudes more than 3 items/tasks easily. One that actually _augments_ humans, rather than gets in their way.

All those fancy animations and pauses are like those cut-scenes in a game. They are very nice the first few times round, but most skilled/experienced gamers skip them in order to get to the real stuff they want to do.

In most games, if a weapon/skill that has a long fancy animation before it actually does stuff, it's considered a disadvantage of the weapon/skill by experienced gamers. The same applies for Desktop GUIs.

A Desktop GUI is crap if even GNU Screen is faster at managing "windows" in the hands of users who are experienced+skilled in both.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that we want it the old way, it's that the new way is slower, takes more clicks, and is extraordinarily difficult to find tasks you don't know where they were in the first place.

Look at windows 7: some settings in windows 7 now take over 5 submenu/windows to get to instead of 1-3.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[stewbacca]

On a related note, Apple has always used silly analogies ("Desktop", "Trash", Eject by dropping to trash). I hope I offended everyone now.

Yeah, I'm not sure why everyone is jumping on this one, other than maybe there's an entire generation of "power" users who don't realize the modern desktop's origins stem from the first Macintosh in 1984?

Maybe it's a tired metaphor, but it can't be that bad since Microsoft copied it. It will be interesting to see where desktop UIs go from here. I bet Win8 is a huge flop, as it tries to be both touch and desktop UI. Instead, I bet both are just poor versions of touch and desktop UIs that exist now.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[drinkypoo]

The premise that I disagree with is that it's okay for people to go on thinking that "Safari is the internet".

that's like saying that it's not okay for people to go on thinking that you make toast with a toaster. Yeah, okay, you can make toast over the burners on your stove by putting the bread on a metal rack and moving it around so it doesn't burn, that's what I did when the toaster broke. but most people can just nip off to wal-mart and spend seven bucks on a new toaster. and what would be even better is if the toaster didn't break. you can't expect everyone to be a computer expert, and a mechanic, and a plumber, and and and. Some of us find that amusing but most people don't want to know everything and in a modern world they shouldn't have to. Division of labor is efficient. The user should never have to understand any UI concepts to find the data they want unless they have complex needs.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jginspace]

... silly analogies ("Desktop", "Trash", Eject by dropping to trash) ...

Icons for the trash bin, control panel, application shortcuts might be great. But the over-elaboration we see these days - eg calendar complete with torn page - is what the submitter is taking issue with.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Sorry, but I am not offended yet. Thanks for trying!

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Take off the tinted glasses. When I was young, I enjoyed tinkering and customising every detail of my computers. When I got older, I realised that it was a waste of time and the entire point of having a computer is to make my life simpler, not generate more work.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[pla]

It's more ignorant to think that users need to know the underlying system or how URL is formed to use computer or internet. Truth is, no one wants to have to learn things they don't care about.

Except, they kinda do, unless they want to live as knowledge-beggars metaphorically tugging at the coattails of the intellectual elite who do want to understand the basic properties of the universe in which they live.

Everyone wants to get their email and games and free porn; everyone wants to pay as little to Uncle Sam as possible; everyone wants to stay a healthy weight, everyone wants to watch the latest crappy sitcom beamed to their TV from orbiting radio relays. And as long as you don't mind depending on "Kevin" from Bangalore, as long as you don't mind always taking the standard deductions (or paying someone $50 a page to fill out fairly simple forms), as long as you don't mind paying a trainer to "trick" you into burning as many calories as you take in, as long as you don't mind resorting to superstition and ineffectually whacking the set-top box when a storm passes overhead - Then yes, people can very much remain willfully ignorant.

That doesn't make it alright, much less a desirable state.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Nursie]

The GNOME 3 discussion isn't just on slashdot. The change to GNOME shell even drove Linus away from GNOME.

The problem with GNOME Shell is that it takes away options. All of them. It promotes some specific programs to indelible places on the screen (e.g. empathy) while relegating all others (e.g. pidgin or other IM clients) to second class status. It also adds complexity. The problem with the GNOME devs is that any argument against any of the decisions they take are met with the same argument you just gave - people are stuck in their ways, we're changing things for the better, you have no vision etc etc. It's not helpful.

Sure, there are people who will resist change for the sake of it. There are also people who will resist change because it's a productivity hit to switch their way of working, one they're not prepared to take. There's also a third group who have genuine problems with the way things are going. Calling them luddites and putting them with group 1 is not helpful, and makes people (and interfaces!) come across as arrogant. In the case of GNOME they're going to be lucky if they don't lose the majority of their existing user base whilst they go on the search for a mythical new one.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jgrahn]

It's more ignorant to think that users need to know the underlying system or how URL is formed to use computer or internet. Truth is, no one wants to have to learn things they don't care about. While you may think it's essential for everyone to know how computers operate, many people think otherwise.

An URL is not "how computers operate" -- it *is part of the user interface*. And the important parts are harder to understand than the concept of a phone number or any number of other things which people seem perfectly able to cope with.

(The worst problem in that area is probably not browser user interfaces but server admins who produce garbage URLs.)

Re:Easy and Advanced

[iggymanz]

experienced users know when a UI wastes screen real estate, requires more keystrokes and clicks for common operations, is too brittle to alow them to put desired shortcuts into panels, and forces an unnatural and incorrect idea of workflow on them. This is the problem with GNOME 3 and Unity.

Furthermore, it is easy to spot the immature users who value eye-candy and appearance over the etting work done, those are the ones who think the microsoft ribbon is good, or that unity or GNOME 3 are.

The desktop UI is taking major steps backward, we're losing efficiency and features just to have "something different'

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jedidiah]

It's software.

There's no good reason that EVERYONE can't be accommodated.

Oddly enough, Microsoft of all people managed to stumble upon this.

Creating new options is cool. Destroying old ones is not.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Ihmhi]

On a related note, Apple has always used silly analogies ("Desktop", "Trash", Eject by dropping to trash). I hope I offended everyone now.

Yeah, I'm not sure why everyone is jumping on this one, other than maybe there's an entire generation of "power" users who don't realize the modern desktop's origins stem from the first Macintosh in 1984?

I'm personally very aware of it. I like to point it out all the time. "Man, check out the original Mac! You could mess with the software, change out hardware, it's awesome! Too bad you won't be able to do any of that pretty soon."

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

But they do need to know the URL... for instance one of the first things I teach people about spam is "hover over the link and look at where it goes" because that's an almost sure fire way to tell if what you are about to click on is fake or not.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[hitmark]

I have long suspected that Apple at least uses those animations and such to hide the data loading, rather then present the user with a loading bar or some spinner.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[hitmark]

Was it Copland that was set up so that to write a document you ripped (dragged) a blank sheet (file) from a pad (template)? Or was that Lisa? And the WIMP basics came out of Xerox Parc, complete with different icons for different file types, no?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[hitmark]

More then one Admin have in full seriousness spoken about a internet drivers license.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it, you aren't talking about a terribly complex system that can be greatly simplified without massive trade-offs. You are telling those who RELY on the system to make way for people who just want to play around. Who's being ignorant and condescending here?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

AMEN!

I will tell you 90% of the end users I support could care less about computers. They do not want to learn anything that has to deal with a computer. I think the majority of people here on slashdot are what we could all call power-users, but we all need to remember, we are a dying minority. People don't want to learn computers, period. It's a tool and an overly complex one at that. I greatly love the fact that I can do all that I can do on a computer, but for most a wall calendar that everyone is forced to look at and add to would serve the same purpose that most of my end-users need. The only added benefit is that they can see the calendar from their desk in their office.

So let's all remember this, the majority of people want this disconnect, they want the fluffy animations, they want the 1:1 metaphor. When was the last time here anyone developed something specifically for the 5% to 10% of a group that didn't want that?

I don't implement a form in my webapp to execute SQL directly, because no one needs that (also, huge security hole.) Likewise, Apple isn't going to implement something that, at best, 7% of their users are going to use (also, for all we know adding power tools to something could expose it to an attack.)

I'd like to think that we didn't invent computers so that we could learn how to use them, but so that they could be used by us (those filthy little sluts they are.)

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. Fuck that shit. People need to have a basic grasp of the tools they are using. "You can't learn everything" Haha, yeah, that's the real problem we face in society today, people are simply overburdened with learning too much. You're 'argument' is baseless because it does not reflect reality. Your 'argument' is essentially a hyperbolic attack against a strawman. GP isn't making a very provocative claim, it's pretty widely accepted that tools require basic knowledge and training. Fancy marketing has apparently convinced you otherwise.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[interval1066]

I don't use OSX but I'm totally on board with switching Windows to the old classic look whenever I get a new installation. I hit the performance tab in "My Computer" and switch that sucker down to the old, cold, and gray look. Then I go to services and disable the themes service. The windows default theme looks like a clown car.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more ignorant to think that users need to know the underlying system or how URL is formed to use computer or internet. Truth is, no one wants to have to learn things they don't care about

Then again, it could be said that people shouldn't have to learn traffic rules or how to do they taxes in the similar spirit. The network resources people care about have addresses in a way the jobs and favorite restaurants have. How those addresses are represented, that's another question.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet Win8 is a huge flop, as it tries to be both touch and desktop UI. Instead, I bet both are just poor versions of touch and desktop UIs that exist now.

This is a bit of a silly comment to make. From all indications now, the "desktop" portion of Win8 is the same tried-and-true version of explorer.exe that is in use today, and has been since Windows 95, with expected minor interface changes that come with the evolution of an OS. The tablet interface is really the only new interface metaphor added to Win8. Both interfaces share the same core, and one gets to choose which interface they use.

Sounds a lot like products Apple makes... OS X/iOS (they're the same core OS, however, the major user-facing difference is the interface). To infer that Windows 8 will flop due to that same setup indicates you don't actually understand what you're talking about.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Dwedit]

If you don't want to lose all your money to a Phishing scam, you do need to know how a URL is formed.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Xtravar]

I think Apple does a pretty good job of following 80/20. Cater to 80 percent of use cases, make them big, easy, and pretty, and then tuck the 20% away. It's a design philosophy. I cannot recall a workflow removing the animation would have made it quicker.

Now, it's interesting that you bring up this video game thing, because Assassin's Creed series keeps making me watch animations and I can't turn them off. Over 1 second to bring up the damn map! That's a waste of time... while I'm wasting time playing games.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Reasons why I'm using KDE over Gnome these days, not because Gnome3 is different.:

• It's slower to get to your programs.
• It takes up a lot of space at the top of my screen, while leaving my excess of horizontal space free.
• It hates multi-monitor setups.
• I can't add the things I want to it.
• It hates a lot of graphics drivers (/they hate it).

Re:Easy and Advanced

[guttentag]

It's software.

There's no good reason that EVERYONE can't be accommodated.

Oddly enough, Microsoft of all people managed to stumble upon this.

Actually, I would cite Microsoft as the prime example of how difficult, if not impossible, it is to accommodate everyone. Microsoft writes one operating system that is supposed to accommodate all the different manufacturers (which is part of the reason Windows has historically been so unstable and bloated) and "power users" (they couldn't fix security holes because that would break things people were using).

The UI accommodation mantra is this (with apologies to Abraham Lincoln): "You can fool all the people into thinking they have been accommodated some of the time, you can fool some of the people into thinking they have been accommodated all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time."

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Also - I forgot to mention, I'm completely open to new UI ideas - I much prefer Windows 7's 'pin to taksbar' approach, and very much like the idea of getting rid of the system tray, and having my taskbar on the left of the screen. I just want the ideas to work for me, Gnome3s do not.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a beautiful sentiment that doesn't work in the real world quite that simply. In reality you have a large number of people who rely on the technology who you are disrupting in the name of an ideal. And arguably, the new approach is still going to take just as much effort for newcomers to learn in the end. So all this pie-in-the-sky idealism just ensures that you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

People learn how to drive. And use cellphones. If they can do that, they can learn how to use computers. And last I checked, even tech-illiterate children in Africa weren't so stupid as to not be able to use a pretty traditional laptop that was given to them with minimal training. So what you're basically doing here is condescending to people and hiding behind an ideal.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[sqldr]

Too right. I'm writing a cross-platform app, and switch between visual studio on windows and eclipse on linux. Visual studio has an advanced mode, and I very rarely turn it on. 99% of what I click on is there in beginner mode. Advanced mode is full of features I don't understand or care about. Eclipse just has menu, after menu, after menu, after.. HOW DO I CREATE A FUCKING WORKING SET?!!?!? (half an hour later..) oh, there it is.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[10101001 10101001]

It's more ignorant to think that users need to know the underlying system or how URL is formed to use computer or internet.

The issue isn't so much if the all inclusive need to know exists. The issue is more that it should be possible to know and how much people do have a general want or need to know.

Truth is, no one wants to have to learn things they don't care about. While you may think it's essential for everyone to know how computers operate, many people think otherwise.

Well, people may not want to learn things they don't care about, but they may need to.

Likewise, I bet you don't have to learn things you don't care about just to enjoy them.

That's quite untrue. I want to eat enjoyable food. To have them, I need to know what makes them enjoyable and possible how to fix them. That is, there exists a necessary cause to lead to an effect. The effect is wanted and the cause is needed. Pragmatically, this paradigm is the root of many wants.

We have almost 7 billion people on earth - we can specialize in things and enjoy all the things world offers but someone has to simplify it for the rest of us so that we have the time to enjoy and use everything.

Granted, but to simplify things is to abstract them to a point that one need understand a more minimal scope of things to reach those desires. To use my analogy above, if I want enjoyable food I could fix the food myself and have a need to learn to cook. Or, I can rely upon the specialization of others in cooking and then my need is procuring that premade food. Upon the latter point, the need exists to locate and acquire that food. To that end, one or more URLs of sorts exists in the real world for acquiring that food. To say I don't "need" to understand real world URLs might even be true: I could always use a third party for that. But that's just another level of indirection, is often more expensive, and it doesn't really get me away from my base need. So, at some point, I still have to learn and understand something or I'm left to pure ignorance and hope in the benevolence of others, forever. That simply isn't realistically viable.

You can't learn everything, and for majority of people computers are just something they want to use, not something they want to learn to understand.

And the majority of people need to learn something to use a computer. Now, I am not one who can reasonably say with absolute certainly where that cut off point is for all people, the majority of people, or even a minority of people. But, never the less there clearly is some amount of learning that is necessary. The argument is then just how much abstraction can exist before so little learning occurs that the majority of people feel the velvet glove that hinders them rather than helps them. I can certainly see why there is the feeling that hiding URLs is one of those things that prevents people from adequately achieving their goals by hindering their ability to learn what is needed to accomplish their goals. That doesn't mean no one can benefit from hiding URLs. But, then, is Safari really intended for just those people?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[wfstanle]

"Experienced users want it the way they got used to."

Exactly! Instead of ramming a new GUI down our throats why don't the designers do something radical. When upgrading to a newer version offer the option to continue using the older ("classic") version of a GUI. Newbies will be happy because of all the new eye candy and experienced users can continue using a computer in the way they are used to. Later on, if the new way of doing things isn't just the latest fad and really is better the older users will surely migrate to a new GUI. It's the test of time.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[wfstanle]

Get your facts straight...

Apple and Microsoft got the idea of the GUI from the PARC at Xerox. You make it sound as if Apple invented the idea. They didn't invent it, Xerox did but Xerox never patented the idea. Apple just was the first to put it on the mass market.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more ignorant to think that users need to know the underlying system or how URL is formed to use computer or internet. Truth is, no one wants to have to learn things they don't care about

"Maastricht doesn't work."

"Excuse me? What do you mean with `Maastricht doesn't work'?"

"Exactly what I say, I want to go to Maastricht and it doesn't work."

"You mean you can't get to Maastricht?"

"That's what I said."

"How are you going to Maastricht?"

"The same way I always do."

"By car? By train?"

"I don't know what that is, you're the expert."

etc. etc. In the end it turns out there's a traffic jam somewhere.

Every time I have a very similar conversation with someone who thinks I know all about computers and expects me to be able to solve their problem, without getting any useful information out of them because they know far less about computers than they know about roads, railway stations, cars, traffic jams or timetables, I see clear evidence that users do need to know more about the underlying system.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Fri13]

Experienced users want it the way they got used to.

Counter argument: Experienced users do know what they need and how they get it. They are ready to throw away learned things to get a better one, but not ready to throw away better one for worse.

Basic/New user does not know what they need and how to get it but only what they want.

A good consultant is the one who does not give a client what client wants, but what client needs.
A good interface is such what adapts to user needs, and not force user to learn how interface was designed.
So the interface needs to be very flexible, and configurable. By default, it needs to be configured to work with new users so they learn it fast, but it needs to be so flexible and easy to use so experienced users can change it so how it fits to their needs.
(easy to use != easy to learn)

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

Assassin's Creed is the game which is infamous for taking 1 minute to quit (other than alt-f4 or taskmgr kill) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwOvuY0UbFM

As for OS X, say you have multiple windows open each in multiple different apps. How many steps does it take to switch from a window in one app to another specific window of another app? How do you do it in one step?

With Windows in "classic mode" and ungrouped taskbar buttons, it takes _one_ click and there doesn't have to be any animation at all, you're just waiting for as long as it takes for the computer to draw the newly raised window, nothing more than that. If you have a double-height taskbar, it still takes one click even if you have 30+ windows open (emails, IM, browser search results, references/documentation, ssh/remote sessions, editor/IDE, etc, it all adds up, I find it slower to keep closing and reopening regularly used windows/apps than to leave them open and just click on the window I want to raise).

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Cederic]

..and yet, because I spend a full weekend configuring, changing, setting up and slimming down any new PC I get, it keeps running for years after with minimal maintenance.

My total time spent tinkering/customising nets out at far less than the time most people I know spend trying to fix their computer because they didn't do that initial work and do trust the various software vendors to do everything for them, and I have a far superior computing experience on top.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm.. nope.
The Desktop was first developed by Xeroxs PARC scientist. The first commercial computer with a desktop was the Xerox Star. Apple's programmers took over their ideas. Many Xerox developers were hired by Apple and Microsoft in the early 80s. Do the math... ;)
Oh. BTW there was a thing called "Magic Desk I" for the C64. REleased 1983. Desktop concept, even had a trash can. Go figure.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Fri13]

Everyone should keep open mind and eyes and ears open. Human can learn a lot that way, only finding out even much later to understand that information what learned long time ago.

If you learn basics, you can master many things and live without problems. But if you do not want learn the basics, then you live with problems all the time.

Information is power and control. When someone knows how stuff works and you don't, they have advantage of you. And they will use it to benefit from you.
As one thing you can trust, and it is a creed.

People do not need to know how to write perfect computer code or even write the computer code, but they need to know what computer code means.
They do not need to know how CPU works calculating 1's and 0's, but they need to know what CPU is, what difference is with architectures and how the speed is gained.
Neither they do not need to memorize whole workflow. but only the every part of it how they affect the results so they can change any part of workflow if wanted.

Learn and observe all the time. Usually much later you just find out that you can combine observed things to new things. You can have a problem for what you find help from totally different area.

Whole life is like science. When you learn what the thermodynamic is, you can use it to get flying devices or better house heating etc etc. When you learn how to mix different chemicals you get a huge skills from it etc.
There basicly is no information what is not useful at somepoint of life. And no matter how small it is, it can result much bigger innovations or helpfulness than it was originally.

Instead if people just keep eyes and ears focused to only interested things, they will miss a lot of information what would give them and others much better quality of life.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[colinrichardday]

The Internet is more than the Web. Does Safari have a built-in client for every port?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[stewbacca]

Another whine about how PARC and Xerox invented all this stuff....*yawn*

Name one customer who ever used the Xerox-invented UI...

Re:Easy and Advanced

[b4dc0d3r]

The only people who seem to be comfortable with it are either complete novices or people who were not very adept at other interfaces, effectively making the current one the only one they truly know. And that leaves them no basis for comparison.

Have you paid attention to the folder layout of Windows 7, starting at your "Desktop"? There's no simple "My Documents" any more where all your stuff is.

There's the Desktop, where you presumably keep everything you're working on. But there's no real point putting stuff there because you only see it if you use one app at a time, or just after your computer starts.

[Username], which holds all of your folders. In the OS, it's \user\desktop\ but in the desktop paragidm it's desktop\user\

My documents, My music, My everything are all under the username folder. And half of those are actually shortcuts to elsewhere because they moved the structure around. And a quarter are just shortcuts that link to other folders that are right next to them!

Special folders like Recent (c:\users\user\recent\ ) are hidden under \application data\microsoft\roaming\appdata\recent\ or something like that and it's not a shortcut, it's a JUNCTION. Which is arguably how they should have been done in the first place, but now you have both SHORTCUTS and JUNCTIONS to deal with.

As an aside, I tried to de-duplify some data with an app that was not aware of all the junctions in Windows 7. I deleted piles of files that appeared to be distinct, when they were actually the same thing accessed through junction points.

Bottom line, you can't have a reasonable metaphor when you create spaghetti links to support backwards compatibility, allow users to discover locations "intuitively", support a 1-to-1 mapping of real life, and whatever else they were trying to do. It's messy, does not make things easier, and is not sustainable. Torch it and start over, let people bitch for a year, and you're done.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Xtravar]

If you're running the apps full screen/maximized, which is usually the most useful mode, then all it takes is a swipe or two across the trackpad to switch virtual desktops, or control-Left/Right.

I realize that's not the answer you wanted, but again, 80% of the time you will be using apps maximized, and 80% of the time you will only be switching between two of them, and 80% of the time you will only have one window from each app open.

I'm not saying it's perfect by any means. Yes, it could do a better job with cues on how to use it efficiently or guard-rails for common confusing workflows. And it's very confusing coming from Windows or Linux. But I've come to like it, particularly with the added gestures in Lion.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[drinkypoo]

for most people, you can do anything in a browser.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[zippthorne]

I'm an experienced user. If what I got used to is better than what I can get now, then yeah, I want what I got used to.

I'm willing to learn new (or old stuff that I didn't know about) ways of doing things to accomplish this. Not long ago I decided to learn Vim, for instance, because I need to sift through a lot of text to make sense of certain thing for my job. For the range of things I need to do with text, there's nothing else that even comes close to what vim can do except maybe heavily scripting a word processor and spreadsheet suite....

Here is what I want - from the time that I decide in my mind to do something, to the time that the computer starts doing it - I want that time to be as short as possible. Further, I want to be able to change my mind at any time and start working on something else.

The second part should be "easy" and, while not trivial to implement, there is one thing that should be obvious - no action should lock the entire UI.

For web browsing, that means that no page should prevent things from happening in other tabs/pages. (also, hitting the back/forward buttons should NOT force a page refresh...) and nothing should ever cause the OS-level UI to hang in normal operation. I don't care if there is a task with a lot of disk or network hits, I should be able to do other stuff that's already in memory while that's happening. The UI should be at nice -100.

I want the UI to look good, too, so I don't get sick of it. Fonts should be crisp, but smooth. UI elements should be clean in appearance and unobtrusive. Gradients and shadows fit this. "making the thing look like the real-world thing that it does" gets old fast. I don't mind if "wooden bookshelf" is a selectable skin for something, but it better not be the only way I can organize things.

Sometimes New is not Better. We should complain when this is the case.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[quacking duck]

To your question about OSX and multiple windows: this can be done using Exposé, in as little as two steps: 1) invoke Exposé's "Show all windows" function (either by keyboard, designated mouseclick, gesture, or moving mouse to a designated screen corner), then 2) use mouse or arrow keys to select from thumbnails of windows, which are laid out in a grid instead of a cycling stack. It's not perfect, for instance it won't show windows for apps that are hidden/"minimized" (this may have changed in the latest OSX).

The other nice thing about OSX is that it's program/app oriented first, not task/window-based. The Exposé "all windows" mode is nice to have as a power option, but I almost never use it... jumping between programs with command-tab brings up all that program's windows, and 95% of the time the window I left at the top of a program's window stack is the one I want anyway (the other 5% of the time I command-` to cycle within the windows once I switch to that program).

I use Windows 7 at work, ungrouped windows. I put my taskbar on the screen's left because on a widescreen monitor, doubling-up the task bar on the bottom is a waste of space. This is very frustrating for a power user who also keeps lots of task windows open, though.

Once I get beyond the number of task buttons that'll fit into the vertical taskbar, it splits them onto two "pages". It's impossible to have more than one task column visible like you could in XP. A new task in a newly launched program will appear on the second page, forcing me to click back to the first page to access older tasks (no keyboard command to jump taskbar pages that I've found). And unlike XP, Win7 groups child tasks together even if they appear in the taskbar separately. Very annoying. And the whole reason I ungroup tasks in the first place is I want to not only switch tasks with a single click, but also MINIMIZE tasks with a single click.

Default Alt-tab behaviour in Win7 is also brain-dead. When I first hit alt-tab I get the task list, but if I haven't selected something inside a second, it does that Aero peek. Continuing to alt-tab at that point is useless when I have peek at 30 freaking windows. I disabled Aero peek to keep a proper task switching palette the whole time have alt held down.

Win-tab behaviour is also of limited use if you have more than a half-dozen windows open, it's a useless stack animation where you can't tell the contents of most windows until you've cycled it to the front of the stack.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[ThePromenader]

They both copied the PARC gui - that was limited in its function (no overlapping windows, etc) - but Apple copied it better. And have been ahead ever since.

It's not from where you take ideas that is important, it's where you take them.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

The GNOME 3 discussion isn't just on slashdot. The change to GNOME shell even drove Linus away from GNOME.

The problem with GNOME Shell is that it takes away options. All of them...

I agree. But remember, the (most?) important choice that Gnome cannot take away from you. The choice to move to another desktop environment. I'm moving away from Gnome.

I'm disappointed that I invested time and energy into learning Gnome only to find out that the creators of Gnome want to limit their system to newbies. But I'll survive. I'll find a system that starts me out easy but lets me grow/customize it for my workflow and/or enjoyment.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

Anyone can design a UI that allows a user to manage 1-3 windows/items. But experienced users don't need much help to handle 1-3 windows.

Car analogy: a Desktop UI that only works well for the case where you are only switching between two or three windows is as good as a car that only travels as fast and as far as an experienced and fit person can walk. The feature that it looks cool while doing so, does not impress me from a technological or practical point of view. The reason why I want a car is so that for the 10% case, I can reasonably quickly, comfortably and safely travel 30+ times the distance I can walk.

I do run most apps full screen/maximized but I don't see how just a single swipe will quickly take me to any specific window out of 30+ windows. At work I often have 30+ task buttons on my task bar (I've already mentioned the reasons why I do that - it'll be rather stupid if a modern desktop computer can't handle more windows than I can).

80% of the time you will be using apps maximized, and 80% of the time you will only be switching between two of them, and 80% of the time you will only have one window from each app open.

On MS Windows most people can learn to quickly switch between two windows in one step. It's called alt-tab. If a more modern and recent Desktop GUI can't help more/better than that it's disappointing.

With Windows 7, you can actually do winkey+[number] and it will raise a window of application #[number]. So it can be fast with multiple apps, IF you only have one window per app...

But that's not always the case. Some time back, at a project, I had to switch amongst 4 or more windows. It was something like: compare two documents by bit, sometimes refer to one or more references, then update/add stuff to another document, then repeat.

Yes it would help if I had many big monitors. Unfortunately I only had a laptop with one screen. Fortunately I had written a program that allowed me to map alt+[number] to different windows ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/ ). So I could do alt+1, alt+2, etc.

But I found it silly that modern Desktop GUIs didn't help me whereas there was already similar concept on stuff like GNU Screen and the linux/*BSD text consoles.

GUI designers focus on helping newbies which is good, but most newbies can learn to go beyond that. Most people can go beyond crawling and learn how to stand, walk, run, and drive a car.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[cjb658]

I like having everything visible in Gnome2, and not having to search for the precise name of what I am looking for. Sometimes I don't know it (e.g. to change the screen resolution, it can be under "Display", "Monitors, or "Screen resolution.") I guess it's the whole Windows 95 style of putting everything into a menu so you don't have to come out of whatever app you're in to find the option you want.

It's funny that most mobile phones now have what's basically the Windows 3.1 interface. The home screen is a bunch of icons for all their apps, and one of those apps is the Control Panel that lets them configure system settings. It works really well for small touchscreens, but with a large screen and a mouse, it's rather annoying (see: Windows 8).

Re:Easy and Advanced

[NoOneInParticular]

I think the argument is that everyone that ever used a Mac or a Windows machine has used the Xerox-invented UI. Note that the concept of a "window", as well as the "mouse" came from Xerox.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Xtravar]

If you have over 30 tasks that you are actively using and need to constantly switch between, you're far, far in the minority, my friend. And while yes, they may be catering to new users, they are also catering to people who prefer simple, non-cluttered screens. If I have to perform an additional click to do something that I only need 1% of the time, then I really don't mind if it simplifies the UI I have to stare at 100% of the time.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[hey]

The hate that kind of thing too. Just because we have the resolution to do that doesn't mean we should. Its like a video game.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

So OS X definitely takes at least one extra step? I don't count that as an improvement. "Swipe, wait, move to click on icon", or "move to corner, wait, move to click icon" vs "move to click icon".

I doubleheight the taskbar at the bottom because as you said Windows 7 does not do vertical taskbars well if you have many taskbuttons.

By the way, maybe winkey+[number] might be helpful for you. It's not so helpful for me, since I often have multiple windows open for each app (emails, IM, browser, IDE, ssh etc). So it's either direct mouse clicking, or if I really want rapid access amongst a bunch of windows then I use a utility I wrote ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/ ).

I find win-tab useless as well. It looks nice and works if you have only a few windows open. But if you only have a few windows open, you don't really need that much help from the GUI do you?

Car analogy: a Desktop UI that only works well for the case where you are only switching between two or three windows is as good as a car that only travels as fast and as far as an experienced and fit person can walk. That it looks cool while doing so, does not impress me from a technological or practical point of view. The reason why I want a car is so that I can reasonably quickly, comfortably and safely travel 30+ times the distance I can walk.

OS analogy: an OS that only manages 3 processes well is a crappy OS. With modern hardware, you'd want an OS that can handle hundreds or even thousands of processes well.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that the concept of a "window", as well as the "mouse" came from Xerox.

No, they didn't. Google Douglas Engelbart and SRI.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[bonch]

So if companies would quit playing Proprietary Lockdown games, we really do need "Basic / Advanced" versions of a UI at the click of a button.

This would be one of the worst things you could do. Departments would have to support two versions of the interface and would have to figure out which version an uninformed user stumbled into.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

I don't need to constantly switch between them. I just don't see the point of closing a window/app, only to have to reopen it later. As long as the computer has enough free memory, I can just leave it open, and click on it when I need to. If you don't keep opening and closing stuff, the windows are exactly where you left them, even days later and normally in good usable condition ;).

I have my windows maximized, so the "clutter" is only on the double-height taskbar. And that doesn't bother me, any more than the rest of the office that appears around the screen, or the 100+ keys on the keyboard near the screen. Do you consider those clutter too?

I know I'm in the minority, but what I said still applies to others too. There is no need to _force_ an additional click. You can _keep_ the additional click for newbies, but add shortcuts - like winkey+number and other stuff so that those who want shortcuts can have them. As I said, there's evidence that significant numbers of "normal" people can learn to go way beyond "newbieness", "normal competence" and into "skilled". Of course only a few become masters (I'm far from one of them).

Build a suitable desktop UI and we might see some really impressive desktop UI mastery. Just like we see in games:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC544Z37qo#t=3m00s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htkTn8QsjwU#t=2m31s

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

The change to GNOME shell even drove Linus away from GNOME.

So what? Last I checked Linus is a great hacker and project leader, but he's hardly an expert on UI, other than having a strong opinion on the matter (just like everyone else).

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Pentium100]

Other than watching videos or playing video games, I almost never maximize an app. I keep it at around 1200x1000 or smaller (my desktop resolution is usually 1600x1200, but I can switch it to 1920x1440 if I run out of space). I do not usually need the app window to be larger and if I keep it this way, I can have parts of other windows poking out from below (Z axis), so I can switch to them without clicking on the taskbar. It is a bit faster for me to remember where I left the window rather than what its title is supposed to be.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[quacking duck]

As I said, the Mac is program-centric instead of task-centric. It's been this way since maybe 1990, when Macs got the ability to switch between more than one program. This gives certain advantages but it's not without drawbacks or compromises.

Even when Macs added command-tab (late 90s), inherited the Dock from NeXT (early 2000s) and added all-window Exposé mode (mid 2000s), the program-centric model remained consistent. Meanwhile Microsoft tried several windowing and task-grouping/switching methods, often making things worse. The new alt- and win-tabbing in Win7 are just recent examples, IMHO the worst was the abomination that is MDI which tried to mimic the Mac's program-centric model without any consideration for doing it properly.

I think you'll agree that the Win7 default of grouping tasks is also a 2-step operation, if there's more than one window (click task group, then click again to select window).

Re:Easy and Advanced

[hawk]

Get your own facts straight, and stop regurgitating urban legends.

The PARC visit influenced the Lisa's GUI, but apple was already working on a GUI. Google a bit, and you'll find pr-visit mockups of the proposed Lisa GUI.

Also, the xerox design itself owes something to Raskin's 1968 (?) master's thesis, and who was Raskin working for?

hawk

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Nursie]

That's indeed the choice that I made. When my debian (testing branch) system updated to GNOME Shell, I tried it, didn't like it, and went to XFCE. With a few minor tweaks I had an XFCE 4 desktop looking the way I wanted again.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[colinrichardday]

But is this because they don't know about the possibilities of computing?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

I think you'll agree that the Win7 default of grouping tasks is also a 2-step operation

Yes, but you still have the option to ungroup so it behaves like Windows 95/2000. How can you speed it up if you're using OS X?

After more than a decade, it's quite disappointing to see so few improvements for "experienced users", despite the billions Microsoft has spent.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it that you do that makes your computing experience "far superior" to the rest of us? Can you describe in a bit more detail your setup? What's the OS & desktop? Explain your main deviations from the default setup and customizations and anything else you do, that makes you work "far superior" to most.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[tsa]

I do the same thing. What use are windows when you maximize them all?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Xtravar]

I'm sure there are key commands in most shells, it's just that they're not apparent and nobody takes the time to learn them. Further, I still think your framing of the argument as "newbie" vs "advanced user", while well-intentioned, is misguided and inadvertently divisive. Yes, I think UIs still have a way to advance, but I don't think they're catering to new users so much as attempting new paradigms. And yes, I find that the more that's on my screen, the less I can focus on the one task I'm doing. Different strokes for different folks. That's why some people like KDE and others (like me) prefer Gnome, and it has absolutely no bearing on how "advanced" the user is. Luckily, my preference is on the winning side!

Re:Easy and Advanced

[shmlco]

"But what I see nowadays are UIs where you have click/swipe, _WAIT_ for fancy animation, click again, _WAIT_ for fancy animation, then only finally get what you want."

Baloney. He mentions the window minimization thing, but that's rendered by the GPU and you don’t have to sit there and watch it, you know? Just click and go to the next thing. And his OS X menu rendering animation was playing at, what, 1/100th speed? It happens in the blink of an eye on my MBP.

As it happens, I agree with the skeuomorphic interface choices, but it seems Apple is listening there, too. The latest version of iBooks on the iPad adds a “clean” mode that allows you to dump the fake book binding and pages.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

...But sometimes, without warning, in some dull commercial app
A hack of wondrous cleverness emerges from the crap.
A metaphor that's graceful, a real need that it can fill
Double-click upon that icon; the Apple Lisa's living still!

from "Heart of the Apple Lisa"
http://www.jg.org/folk/artists/fredsmall/applelisa.html
Lyrics copyright 1995 by Jordin Kare
Music: Heart of the Appaloosa, by Fred Small

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jbolden]

I've been using office productivity applications at least partially since the mid 1980s, with some computerized interfaces like type writer word processors before that. I'm comfortable with and prefer the ribbon interface. I think it is an upgrade. Essentially it creates complex context sensitive submenus which is a major feature that people have talked about for decades.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jbolden]

IMHO a large group of people that learned Unix under Ubuntu are the main people freaked about GNOME 3. Those people have been with Gnome for a decade and are upset. KDE has always been the power user desktop. There are plenty of great options.

Gnome has every intention of losing the majority of their existing user base. That user base is tiny and is going to tie them to a very small market segment.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jbolden]

They aren't going to do that, because there are features of the UI (like notifications) that don't exist in Gnome 2 and can't be added. They want all their applications to support those features.

When you decided to go with a GUI instead of a window manager, you wanted integration. This is the downside of integration. You are more experienced now then you were a decade ago. Maybe next time you go for a window manager.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[ceoyoyo]

Since your mention of Safari suggests you're using a Mac, see that icon that says Terminal? If you don't see it, you can find it in Applications, Utilities and drag it somewhere where you can see it. Got it? Click it. There you are. Advanced UI at the click of a button.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Nursie]

KDE has never been my desktop of choice and they lost a lot of people with KDE 4 (many of who I think have now gone back as 4 is now mature. Whether KDE is the choice of power users or not I don't know.

I do know that Gnome has been the default desktop for Redhat, Ubuntu, debian and various others for a long time. Pretty sure these account for the largest part of the linux desktop market... of course those are only defaults. But I'm not sure the user base was tiny. Gnome was also the only sane desktop environment available on some Solaris releases too. I don't think this qualifies as tiny, unless you're talking about desktop users across all operating systems, in which case yes, the entire linux desktop segment is a tiny percentage.

I have a feeling you and I may differ on the definition of power user also. As a software developer I am a power user of computers in general, but all I want of a desktop environment is about what gnome 2 provides - some status info, some shortcuts and a menu, and a bottom bar with a button for each open application. AFAICT I can now get this with any desktop environment I choose *except* gnome.

Anyway, I lost the point of what I was trying to say, I think there are objective problems with the gnome 3 approach which (as you rightly point out, but condescendingly and in a very partisan way) they can be got around by abandoning gnome.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[ceoyoyo]

I think your example is a little off. Safari is close to the simplest interface you can put on a web browser. Address bar, search bar, a back and forward button some tabs (yeah, I guess you could get rid of those) and the content.

When Windows users get on my Mac the first thing they try to do is type a google search into the address bar. It doesn't work, but they're used to those two functions being combined. Indistinguishable, even.

So how would you redesign Safari to force users to understand what a URL is?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[quacking duck]

You can't. There might be 3rd party utilities but nothing built in. And while it's nice Win7 has the ungroup option, it inexplicably took away the power user options I want in my task bar configuration.

To me the taskbar paging is worse than not having a single-click window selector on a Mac, because the UI model that's specific to Windows is broken or just not quite configurable enough, wheras in the Mac UI model I can easily get by without the all-window selector.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jbolden]

For KDE was the default for Caldera/Suse/TurboLinux/Conectiva the United Linux guys. Suse and Turbo are both major players. Knoppix and Mandrake were important second tier distributions. But no question Gnome has always been more popular and by the time of Ubuntu there was no comparison. You are right about KDE-4 hurting their percentages. KDE has had some rough years, but right now it is in excellent shape. In terms of power users, basically you are saying that switching would be no big deal and you don't use many desktop features.

Yes the entire Linux desktop user base is tiny. The market Gnome is going after is the cell phone and tablet market. Also the low end computer market. They have no interest in supporting software developers. KDE on the other hand you are their target customer.

But as you mentioned, you could use anything.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

Well I can't work around OS X's deficiencies (except maybe with 3rd party utilities?). Being forced to take extra steps to do stuff, feels like I'm being crippled by the OS.

From what I see it sure seems the Desktop UI bunch aren't really improving things much for either of us.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[TheLink]

I'm sure there are key commands in most shells, it's just that they're not apparent and nobody takes the time to learn them

Further, I still think your framing of the argument as "newbie" vs "advanced user", while well-intentioned, is misguided and inadvertently divisive.

As far as I'm concerned "advanced users" are those who look stuff like this up in order to figure out how the OS can best _augment_ them:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Keyboard-shortcuts
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/gestures.html

Users who don't bother, and just stick to what's immediately apparent, I consider "newbie/novice" level.

Advanced users will also know how to configure the Desktop UI so that they are able to do many things with it faster than the newbie/novice users can (it may take some pre-setup time to configure dock/taskbar, start menu, etc, but that is just one-time). 3rd party utilities don't count for this (otherwise you could just install a new desktop environment ;) ).

For example, in 9x/2K/XP(classic mode) I do stuff like this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175866&cid=14627608

Some of that no longer works on Windows 7. So on windows 7 I take longer to do stuff that I used to be able to do in a split second. OS X feels even more crippling and primitive (if you ignore the looks factor).

As for winning side, on the contrary. I think everyone loses if they no longer are able to be augmented as much. From what I see you it is not impossible to have a Desktop UI that caters for novices, and still provides short-cuts for those who want further augmentation.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[dskzero]

Guys, we are missing the point here: the vast majority of people who use a computer don't need to know how it works. Not everyone's a programmr or sys admin.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Xtravar]

As far as I'm concerned "advanced users" are those who look stuff like this up in order to figure out how the OS can best _augment_ them:

Like I said, misleading and divisive. A little condescending, too.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[clodney]

Instead of ramming a new GUI down our throats why don't the designers do something radical. When upgrading to a newer version offer the option to continue using the older ("classic") version of a GUI. Newbies will be happy because of all the new eye candy and experienced users can continue using a computer in the way they are used to. Later on, if the new way of doing things isn't just the latest fad and really is better the older users will surely migrate to a new GUI. It's the test of time.

This is actually fairly common (going all the way back to Lotus 1-2-3 keyboard shortcuts in early versions of Excel). However, there are several disadvantages/costs to doing so:

1. Time to implement and code complexity - now you are maintaining 2 different GUIs, you have to test 2, you have to document 2. Costs quite a bit more. And just like politicians can ignore the extreme wing of their own party, the people who care passionately about your existing UI are the ones least likely to move to a competitor.
2. Incompatibility with new features. This doesn't happen all the time by any means, but sometimes a new GUI or interface metaphor comes about because new features aren't a good fit for how you did things before. I'm talking about a radical departure like adding 3D to a 2D drawing app - all sorts of things have to change to accommodate that.
3. Where does it end? If MS supports the Windows "classic" theme, at what point does it have to support the "Windows 95 classic", "XP Classic", "Win 7 Classic", "Metro Classic", etc? How many layers of crufty old code have to coexist so that people who have been doing the same things for 20 years don't have to change?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[drinkypoo]

Or because they don't care, and because you can actually do a whole lot in a browser?

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus didn't even like Gnome 2. Linus was pissed at the rewrite of KDE 3, and even more pissed at how buggy kde 4 was. It was that 1-2 combo that drove him away.

Gnome is still a condescending UI; always has been.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[colinrichardday]

Or because they don't care,

Which may have been what the OP was complaining about.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[jbmartin6]

I have the same feelings about mouse and keyboard. Great when you are just starting out, but I always think there has to be a better way to enter text and use the system. Faster and less error-prone at least. I love Swype on the phone since it is at least something different than tap tap tap tap tap.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[MarkVVV]

It seems you're a little late:

https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/WTLyn7dqYoR

Linus is back to GNOME.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[drinkypoo]

We could all complain that everyone else in the world isn't just like us, or we could accept that not everyone thinks the way we do, and not everyone wants to know how the computer works. Some of them just want to check their email just like some people couldn't give a shit how their car works or how to throw a clay pot or how to build a house.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Yunzil]

Because then you'd be complaining about code bloat.

You can't please everyone.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Code bloat in the entire package on disk (or wherever), but not in RAM where it really matters is not a problem. Code bloat that really matters is code for features that is loaded into memory but never is used. Code bloat where the unused code remains on the install disks really isn't that bothersome.

Re:Easy and Advanced

[badkarmadayaccount]

You forgot microsoft.

Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Xugumad]

I've spent a decade in the firing line (developer exposed directly to users), and this goes directly against everything we've heard from the vast majority. Yes, your power users are going to be frustrated by simplified UI, sorry guys, you're not our main audience. The average user does not want to spend time learning the UI, they want to pick up the app, do what they need to do and move on with their life.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[InsightIn140Bytes]

I don't think he has. He sounds like grumpy old guy who just wants to do things the old, especially since he is talking about how Windows Classic theme "just feels right" because he knows how it functions. He just wants to use something he has got used to it, and doesn't even think if it's really better for other users. Having used both, Windows 7 theme is still much better than classic one, especially since it groups windows in task bar and only show icons with a hint of the windows title. When you hover your mouse over the icons, it quickly shows all windows. This is much better design than in the Windows Classic theme where everything was just dumped together.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[hackertourist]

There are two types of users: casual users and power users. Catering to one group currently often means frustrating the other, but computers are flexible enough that this needn't be the case. Power users may not be the majority of your audience, but if you can cater to them by offering an alternative interface, why not? The power users are potentially powerful advocates for your app, much more so than the casual users.

To take the Ribbon as an example: Make the damn thing default but provide the classic menus and (customizable) toolbars as an option.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[vlm]

I've spent a decade in the firing line (developer exposed directly to users), and this goes directly against everything we've heard from the vast majority. Yes, your power users are going to be frustrated by simplified UI, sorry guys, you're not our main audience. The average user does not want to spend time learning the UI, they want to pick up the app, do what they need to do and move on with their life.

Not anymore. This has been the rallying cry my entire life, from the late mini-era thru the birth of PCs to today. For decades we've been telling ourselves all the growth means "most users will be noobs". All must bow their heads and bend their knees to the whim of the noob because only noobs matter. This cannot go on forever and is changing.

Standard /. car (err, motorcycle) analogy: Imagine the motorcycle is invented, and its the first form of 2 wheel transportation to exist (no bicycles). Noobs need training wheels. A whole industry and ecology springs up around training wheels and the assumption that all users are noobs. Plain training wheels, free/open training wheels, solid gold training wheels, really expensive and well designed training wheels, the whole thing. Everyone needs training wheels and its antisocial and unpractical to suggest a motorcycle could be used without them. "noob focus" is nearly total. Eventually, people realize they are simple not useful, are gaudy, and mostly just slow you down and get in the way. Bye bye training wheels to all but the 6 year old kids.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Cost versus return. Supporting the advanced UI does take away some resources.

However, what I would say is not being discussed in this feature is lack of clarity in the UI. I've seen quite a few ambiguous UI options, where I couldn't tell what option was selected, let alone what it did. Ok, so this was mostly just older open source UIs and even that's not something I see too much now, but it's stuck with me.

Because it was the most annoying BS ever.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly why GIMP is a total PAIN.....the UI is far beyond me and I worked helpdesk at a college and have used everything from Adobe CS to Auto CADD, to you name it. Yet GIMP still never ceases to anger and infuriate me.

I have no doubt GIMP is great software, but i cant figure the thing out in enough time whenever i need it

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[geekmux]

I've spent a decade in the firing line (developer exposed directly to users), and this goes directly against everything we've heard from the vast majority. Yes, your power users are going to be frustrated by simplified UI, sorry guys, you're not our main audience. The average user does not want to spend time learning the UI, they want to pick up the app, do what they need to do and move on with their life.

And most of us have absolutely no problem with the "For Dummies" theme that's skinned over so many products today.

The problem isn't even if it's the default look and feel.

The problem is generated when frustrated (and experienced) users cannot change it to suit their liking.

And while you may be doing your job to address your "main" audience of "I'm-too-damn-lazy-to-learn", I wonder if they recognize the irony of the downward spiral they're helping perpetuate by forcing you to placate to the masses that continue to lower the bar. You know what they say when you constantly try and make something idiot-proof. Someone usually comes along and builds a better idiot.

We keep this up, and computers are going to look like Babys first cell phone because people don't want to spend more than 17 seconds learning anything these days.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[gbjbaanb]

which is exactly why the new UIs are so poor.

Remember when Windows first came out, it has menus and every app had the same menu bar. Everything had a file menu that had new/open/print/etc items on it.

You could open any app and instantly know how to create a new document - because there was the file|new menu item, every time. You'd received training for all apps, instant familiarity, instant productivity.

Fast forward to today and we have different interfaces for everything. The new UIs with shiny orbs and animated transitions mean you have to figure out where all the new bits are for each app. Then some of them start working differently (eg Excel that has multiple icons in the task bar, but they're all running in a single instance so you close 1 you close them all kind of bo**ocks), and some don't even have menus - well, they have menus, but they're tucked away behind a little coloured icon so they appear when you click it, if you can find the f***er in the first place (eg the new hide-everything-away browser interfaces). The the ribbon comes along (which is a fine toolbar repacement BTW) but is used as a menu replacement too - with loads of bits hidden away in little menus behind tiny ">" icons.

The old interfaces were fugly, but functional. They made us productive and really that's what is needed for line-of-business apps. No-one really cares that excel looks cool, not when you're typing in the accounts.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[wisnoskij]

Because slowing down an app with a page turning animation makes it easier to use?

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Xugumad]

Yes; the issue is the length of animation used, but the basic concept of using an animation to reflect a transition of display from one state to another is sound. You generally want such animations to be aroun 200-400ms though, so your eye just as time to catch it, but it's not something you're generally aware of.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[0xdeadbeef]

That's not what he's saying, but hey, why try to understand an argument when it is going to threaten your conventional wisdom anyway.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[zigfreed]

He's older than that. You have some powerfully tinted rose-colored goggles if you want OS X to look like OS 9.

Back then, the Mac desktop was filled up with aliases, you didn't default copy things from disk (you just made 'links'), and the dock was more like a control panel with advertising for whatever you installed. Although his argument could apply to OS 10.7, a user can turn the extra features off.

With Windows, the 'classic' Windows 7 theme is a lot less usable than a 'tuned' Aero Windows 7 theme. Aero has better notification, better window management, and buttons that cram more usefullness out of limited screen real estate.

What is condescending in Windows, and most graphical interfaces, is the requirement of using a program like AutoHotkey to do custom keyboard shortcuts. When touch devices start to wear out (or when the mouse pointer goes mad), (i)OS X and Windows don't have an alternative, fast method for an experienced user to navigate the system, but Ubuntu Unity does.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[thasmudyan]

I can see where you're coming from, but I worry about the fact that "power users" are nobody's core audience anymore. What does consequently catering to the lowest common denominator do to a society? We now have UI that actually spreads tech illiteracy to a whole generation of young people, how is that a good thing? I also worry that we're losing any but the most basic functionalities, instead we're increasingly having advanced features being handed down to us "auto-magically" and behind the scenes whenever the UI designer sees fit - a process that lacks transparency and dis-empowers the user in a tremendous fashion. As users we're now spending a lot of time on deceiving the UI, tricking it really, into whatever we actually want it to do (and software gets better at thwarting us at this with every version that goes by).

And people who say that I can always drop OS X in favor of some open source pseudo-GUI wrapper around a commandline don't get it, either.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[vlm]

A delay that long would drive me completely bonkers. I don't need my eyes to catch it, I'm not reacting to the computer, the computer is supposed to react (preferably instantly) to me. It is my servant, not the other way around.

The basic concept is a bug not a feature. No one who reads old fashioned physical books does it for the experience of the delay while turning pages. For example, I cannot go to a convenience store without an unwashed slacker taking their time at cashier duty. That does not mean that adding a USB operated B.O. generator, inserting "like" in between every three words, making it really slow, having to wait in line, and taking 45 seconds to figure out the change coinage for $1.76 would be a huge improvement to the amazon.com web interface.

IF you're using firefox, that means you can use greasemonkey to write scripts. I am not conversant in greasemonkey enough to do this myself, but I triple dog dare you to write a greasemonkey script, that wraps /. inside it, and each time you scroll down via "pg down" or wheel, it freezes for 300 ms, displays an animation of an ancient roman scroll winding up and unwinding, makes a paper turning sound, and then finally displays the next page of /.. I will make a bet that within a week you throw a chair thru your monitor, or disable that script, or admit I was correct.

This is another example where horrific UI mistakes by OS designers are "OK" because there is no competition or choice, but a website would be laughed off the internet if it tried to implement something that awful.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[stewbacca]

It's a fraction of a second, and it follows UI guidelines that you should provide visual evidence that something has changed when the user clicks something. The problem in the last version of iCal is you could accidentally change to the next month, and if you weren't paying close attention, you weren't aware you were in the next month. Then you get all mad because you can't find your appointment on Wednesday, and you could have sworn today was the 10th, not the 9th.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[amiga3D]

I'm not liking unity. The one thing I kind of like is the dock on the left side. While I could do this in Gnome2 it didn't work as well. Little else about it appeals to me. I feel like Gnome2 in Ubuntu was just about perfect. Compiz worked great and it was much faster in Ubuntu 10.10 I've been using 11.10 now since it's arrival and I'm still not happy with it so I don't think it's about "what I'm used to" anymore either. At least it's stable now though, 11.04 was pushed out too soon.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Neurotrace]

I absolutely agree with you. UI's should be rather simple for the lay user so they can just pick it up and go. I think the real problem here (as others have mentioned) is the lack of advanced options. As a power user, I feel hindered by the Ribbon UI but if I could find some option hidden away in the deep recesses of the preference that would change it, everything would be fine.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[d0s]

Dude there wasn't any dock before OSX and why would you fill your desktop with aliases when you could just favorite something and have it sit in the apple menu?

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Oligonicella]

"... but the basic concept of using an animation to reflect a transition of display from one state to another is sound."

Only if the transition is lengthy. On the order of a number of seconds lengthy, not 1/4-1/2 second.

If the developer feels the absolute *need* to farm out some sort of "Hey, I'm reacting to the key-press!", a simple click would suffice, not an animation of a fake page turning.

If, in turn, the developer simply gets his rocks off by making little gifs to use, fine. Include them and allow me to turn off the annoying little bastards - and make that easy to find.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Hatta]

Yes, your power users are going to be frustrated by simplified UI, sorry guys, you're not our main audience.

That is precisely the problem. You'll never make a good product unless you address the needs of those who really want to master it.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

I change the Windows 7 taskbar to show all windows, ungrouped. Why do I need to waste time hovering over a picture to see what is beneath it? Waste of time.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[peppepz]

I like the old style (Windows 95) because it's consistent. I don't need to re-learn every application I use, because they all follow the same principles.

The new Windows 7 theme makes switching between windows harder, because what could be done with one click before, now may require two clicks, the second of which has to be applied to an invisible surface that only appears after a certain delay after the first click, which fatigues the eye.

The new Windows 7 buttons mix running applications with launch shortcuts. You can only tell that an application is running because of a semi-transparent border appearing around its icon, which is hard to discern, especially considering that the taskbar is itself transparent and shows the underlying background.

The buttons unexpectedly and unintuitively change their function after they've been clicked: this goes against the user interface principle that one control should have one function. The first click opens an application, the second click will either bring the application to front, send the application to the background, or reveal an hidden box allowing you to choose between different open windows, depending on the window manager state. What if I want to open an Internet Explorer window after I've already opened one? Intuitively, I would click again on the same shortcut that opened the first window. It won't work, and I have to learn that instead what I have to do is to right-click the same icon, which will bring about an hidden box containing a set of application-dependent shortcuts, one of which might let me open a new window.

The whole "hovering" metaphor should be used with care, considering that it can't be applied to touchscreen interfaces which are supposed to become more and more important even on the desktop (surprisingly, Windows 8 relies on "hovering" even more if what we've seen in the developer preview is going to end in the finished product). Moreover, it makes the physical act of moving the mouse do something different than moving the virtual mouse pointer on the screen, which again will surprise most users; consider for example what happens when you hover over an application thumbnail in the window selection panel on Windows 7: the whole computer screen will change, only as a result of having moved the mouse, but the change is an illusion, because the shown image will instantly disappear as soon as you actually try to reach it with the mouse pointer, just like a mirage.

The old design was easier to use and to learn. I admit it was uglier to look at.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's simple... and then there's the cretinous transferring of real world objects and their interface into the digital world - i.e. the bookshelf.

The computer offers a new way to access/analyse information. You aren't simplifying that when you slather some idiotic metaphor on top of it that just forces users to work in ways that are no longer appropriate and are actually quite restrictive.

That's not simplification. It's just lazy design.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[just_a_monkey]

To take the Ribbon as an example: Make the damn thing default but provide the classic menus and (customizable) toolbars as an option.

And then only lusers would use the ribbon. My guess is that that does not fly with the Microsoft Ribbon design team.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[jedidiah]

...that's the catch right there.

It is a complex bit of software that can do more than the most simple things yet people try to use it for the most simple things. The fact that they try do this infrequently doesn't help.

Simpler tools need to be better. Most aren't. They make compromises on technicial correctness and hope n00bs won't notice. It's not just the UI that gets dumbed down but the "guts" do too.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[jedidiah]

Nope. It just makes it less obvious to the end user that they are being sold 10 year old technology for a higher price than the latest and greatest. It's sleight of hand to distract from the fact that things are running on the equivalent of a 500Mhz Pentium or less.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[mikael]

The irony is that back in the DOS command prompt days, every DOS application had it's own user interface down to the color scheme. Application would either have their own text-based windows system (Borland C++, WordStar, Modula-2) or a full-screen graphics renderer like AutoCAD.

Windows 3.1 was an attempt to standardize the appearance of all these applications, but was limited to 256 and 16-bit color. Even then, application vendors still designed their applications for full-screen mode and maintained their own GUI systems.

Windows 95/NT was another attempt to standardize developers onto using the same consistent GUI widget system. Then developers started developing and implementing custom "skins" to differentiate their apps from each other.

Funny how the industry keeps flip-flopping between the two ideals.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[hitmark]

And this may well be why iOS is selling, like it or not for most of us here on /.

Then again, i do not mind if there is a easy interface to start out with. As long as there is a way to "pop the hood"...

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[hitmark]

The term learned helplessness comes to mind. But i think MS and the rest do not mind, as that just means they can sell certifications and consultation hours.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[hackertourist]

Well, screw them. The UI design team should be working for us users, not the other way round. Score one for capitalism.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[grumbel]

The basic concept is a bug not a feature.

The concept of transition animation is perfectly valid, as it tells you what changed on the screen and where your last positions was. To see how bad things can get when you don't have them, try a vanilla Emacs. Emacs will by default scroll through text not per line and not per page, but per half-page, this makes it extremely easy to lose track in a document, as you have no real indication for how far it has scrolled. Proper smooth scrolling can easily fix that, as it provides you with guidance where the text went, how far it has scrolled and where your last reading positions was.

Where it becomes a problem is when the animation is non-skipable and blocking user input, that is something that should never happen. If the user pressed page-flip, the computer should flip the page, if it's in a transition animation, it should simply scroll faster. And of course it should never take to long to scroll to begin with. But even if you just have an animation that is 100ms long, which is what humans normally accept as instantly, that's still gives you 6 frames that you can use for a transition animation that can provide valuable information for the user.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[couchslug]

"The old interfaces were fugly, but functional."

So are the LETTERS we type in these posts, but they are STANDARD over hundreds of years which makes them effective. It would be artsy and cute to change to a different variety of calligraphy every few years, but wouldn't do much for communication.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[EvilIdler]

Every menu can be customised with a shortcut key of your choice on OS X. Even menus which don't have a shortcut by default.

Don't remember the menu? Ctrl+F2 (Fn also if you have alternate mode for your F-keys). More keys here: http://osxdaily.com/2007/12/13/navigating-mac-os-x-with-only-the-keyboard/

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[aaaaaaargh!]

There is a hidden fallacy in your argument and in many other posts about GUI design here. The majority does not count at all, what counts is the objective measurements of productivity of users of different UIs for features these users actually use. Most users only use extremely few features. It obviously doesn't make sense to base your GUI design decisions on the opinion of users who don't actually use the features you write part of the GUI for.

For example: I'm not using tabs in Browsers at all, I've never used Spotlight on OS X and barely used the file search function, I've never used "clean up desktop" on Mac OS X, I've used the "remove unused desktop icons" wizard only once in my life in Windows XP (that sucked...), I'm not using work spaces on Ubuntu and barely know any Gnome 2 keyboard shortcuts. Other people use all these features. Obviously, my opinion about these features and how they could be improved is insignificant in comparison to those of the people who use them. In other words, everybody is a power-user of some feature, even if it's just the Google search bar, but almost nobody is a power-user of the GUI as a whole. A good GUI design must take this into account.

The "main audience" is a complete myth. There are clusters of users of features, say type A uses b, c, d type B uses c, d, g ,and so on, with only partial overlap. If you build the intersection of these sets you'll not end up with the GUI the "main audience" wants, you'll end up with a shitty, dumbed-down GUI nobody likes. That's what happened to Gnome 3 and Unity and might happen to OS X and Windows 8 soon. That's what I have learned from my users, and I'm also in the firing line for over a decade.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Office does have customizable toolbars. Right click on any option and you can add it to the "quick access toolbar" and then, if you want, you can set the toolbar to appear below the ribbon. Or you can right-click the toolbar and "customize" it and add whatever you want to it. Or you can access it through the options dialog.

Incidentally, you can also create your own tabs on the ribbon or edit the ones that are there. You can also create custom commands, but that is a little more complicated to do. Finally, on the office add-in website, there are a couple of add-ins that add the old menus; but I really believe, like you, that Microsoft should have included it as a built-in option as well. (Just like Firefox should have with their old UIs as well.)

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, of course, and I think your example is hilarious, but there are occasionally times when a delay-injecting animation can be beneficial. The example everyone always uses is restoring minimized windows -- the window flies in from off-screen as it restores -- because the animation helps you determine where the window is instead of forcing you to look for it. I think a better example is reading a wall of text where there are no clear visual cues to follow. Say you're reading a newspaper article, hit the bottom of the page, and press page down. I bet you have to seek around a bit before you can find where you left off, right? Far better would be to insert a scrolling animation which takes just long enough for your eyes to be able to follow the text as it scrolls up.

If you need evidence that this is a problem, note that most people read walls o' text either by scrolling down one line at a time or by using selection/highlighting as a marker. I bet you do one of those two things. Next time you're in a situation like that, try doing it without either of those aids. It's surprisingly difficult. That's a case where deliberately adding latency can actually improve (user) efficiency, because the time it takes to figure out where you left off is going to be far greater than the 200-400ms animation you put in.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Fri13]

I had training wheels in my bicycle when I was 4, and I had them the whole 3-5 minutes... It was my first bicycle and my first try and I got it right from the beginning. I went to our own hill where the asphalt road came to house and I came down from there. So I only needed training wheels to turn around up there.
My dad felt frustrating as he needed to spend few minutes more to un-screw them.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Kielistic]

Actually people are constantly coming up with improved typefaces. Look at 100 year old writing and see if it looks like modern writing. As an example see every designers favourite font: Frutiger

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Fri13]

No, not just easier to use but easier to learn.

Two different things are those two....

With simple animation (what is visual information) can user be distracted or helped. Question is about the animation length, type and when it does occur.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Fri13]

I will make a bet that within a week you throw a chair thru your monitor, or disable that script, or admit I was correct.

Ah.... Steve Ballmer was then using Firefox! That is news!

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

The new (since a year) Slashdot look already haves some of these features you mention:
You have to wait a long time for the scripts to load.
Then wait again for some of the comments to load
Then wait while it unfolds nested comments
Then press "get more" at the bottom to get more stories
And wait

With the previous interface, you could go to today, yesterday or friday.

And the version before that, you had page numbers you could click on.

So Slashdot is yet another example of dumbing down the user interface and making it slower.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[bonch]

No, but it makes it more fun and pleasing to use, much like the color of your car or the feel of its leather interior doesn't make it drive any easier.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[bonch]

Have you actually used the version of iCal being discussed? The animation is less than half a second, and if you need to visit a month immediately, you can do that other ways without manually clicking through every month--which is inefficient in the first place!

This is another example where horrific UI mistakes by OS designers are "OK" because there is no competition or choice, but a website would be laughed off the internet if it tried to implement something that awful.

This is absurd. These paradigms aren't successful because of some evil monopoly. Websites have implemented custom, animation-heavy interfaces for decades via Flash and now HTML5.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[vlm]

To see how bad things can get when you don't have them, try a vanilla Emacs. Emacs will by default scroll through text not per line and not per page, but per half-page, this makes it extremely easy to lose track in a document, as you have no real indication for how far it has scrolled. Proper smooth scrolling can easily fix that,

Isn't it much simpler, easier for the user, more intuitive, to simply "go one page down" when you press "page down"?

Slow animations would help if there was an emacs bug where it scrolled down a completely random number of lines each time.

However, that class of bug is best fixed at the cause rather than the effect stage. The bug is Page down should be page down, not "down a random number of lines".

I agree with you 100% that user interactivity and response time is critical and, of course, often ignored.

The most important effect to remember is that all "UI improvements" supposedly are the result of spending time/money/effort and seem to have no other justification, other than maybe a paid study proving that spending money is great. In ye olden days we blew lots of money to upgrade from 2400 baud RS-232 monitors and stat muxes to get nearly instant updates, low latency and speed was the ultimate (expensive) cure all... Now spending lots of money time and effort on making page changes ultra slow is supposedly the new ideal. I think not.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[grumbel]

Isn't it much simpler, easier for the user, more intuitive, to simply "go one page down" when you press "page down"?

Without a transition animation you simply see two screens that look completely different and have no feedback for why they look differently. Say you accidentally pressed the up instead of the down button, with a transition animation you would notice it instantly, without one it could take quite a bit to notice that something went wrong.

Slow animations would help if there was an emacs bug where it scrolled down a completely random number of lines each time.

Your webbrowser will scroll a random number of lines when you reach the end of the webpage. It only scrolls one full screen as long as you are in the middle of the page, but once you reach the end of a webpage it will scroll however long it takes to reach the end, anything from a single line to a full screen. That's confusion that could be a avoided with smooth scrolling.

Of course that is all just theoretically speaking, in practical terms I agree that most transition animation in software today do far more harm then good. That doesn't make them fundamentally evil, but it certainly does mean that they have to be used with care.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

So.. you hold the hands of all those uninformed users that you cater to, right? Oh wait, no? You mean, you leave that job to all the power users out there? Yeah.. fuck you too.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Haeleth]

You have some powerfully tinted rose-colored goggles if you want OS X to look like OS 9.

The desktop, perhaps.

The Finder, on the other hand ...

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

To see how bad things can get when you don't have them, try a vanilla Emacs. Emacs will by default scroll through text not per line and not per page, but per half-page, this makes it extremely easy to lose track in a document, as you have no real indication for how far it has scrolled.

You have a couple of pretty good indications:

• The scrollbar, which shows exactly where you are in the document and how much of the document is on screen, has just moved by half its length.
• The cursor, which shows what line you're in, has just jumped from the bottom of the screen to halfway up it.
• And since you are not a baby or an idiot, after the second time you trigger this, you grasp that it scrolls half a page at a time and know intuitively where things have moved to.

Smooth scrolling just slows things down and adds an annoying distraction, just to make your life slightly easier the first two times you scroll. That kind of tradeoff is anathema to the Emacs developers, whose philosophy is that the program should be designed to cater for the needs of experienced users, with newcomers left to fend for themselves.

(This philosophy does, of course, mean that Emacs is not gaining many new users these days. Nobody is denying that it's hard to use. I'm just pointing out that that's deliberate. Emacs is what a non-condescending UI looks like - and it's clear that it's not the right answer for everyone. The difference between Emacs and, say, GNOME 3 or Unity is that Emacs knows it's not suitable for everyone, and doesn't try to insinuate that anyone who chooses a different interface is misguided or foolish.)

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[rapidreload]

I'm OK with certain transition animations - the opening/closing animations in Vista/7 are neat, and since they fade in with the content already visible it doesn't feel like I'd be able to work any quicker if the transitions were disabled.

On the other hand, I absolutely HATE the current trend on the Internet that a lot of sites (particularly blogs) are using, which is that if you click on a link to an image, the image will not just appear on your screen, a transition animation of a black box expanding from the center of the screen to the width of the image, and then the height, and THEN the imagine fading into view... is fucking annoying and a total waste of time.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[jbolden]

It doesn't make sense to do that if your long term direction is going to be to offer functionality that cannot be easily expressed in menus. The point of the ribbon interface is to move towards context sensitive options and move away from menus. 10 years from now an office application might have 30,000 menu items if you were to look at them statically.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[jbolden]

Interesting point. It makes sense. It depends if end users are using lots of apps or a small number of apps.

If they are using lots of apps they want the OS to set the standards. If they are using a small number they want each app to work as well as possible and thus setup an app specific interface.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[grumbel]

The scrollbar, which shows exactly where you are in the document and how much of the document is on screen, has just moved by half its length.

Doesn't provide enough information on a long document.

The cursor, which shows what line you're in, has just jumped from the bottom of the screen to halfway up it.

Yes, it's however still disorienting to follow a constantly jumping cursor. Furthermore, not all applications have a cursor, i.e. your webbrowser has none.

And since you are not a baby or an idiot, after the second time you trigger this, you grasp that it scrolls half a page at a time and know intuitively where things have moved to.

Actually no, I never did. I consider Emacs default scrolling completely fucked up and unusable, which is why I switched Emacs to line-by-line scrolling a decade ago. That said, smooth scrolling alone wouldn't have fixed Emacs either, but it would have made it a little less disorienting.

Emacs is what a non-condescending UI looks like - and it's clear that it's not the right answer for everyone.

Emacs GUI isn't exactly non-condescending, for most part it's just an ugly broken mess, slapped together by programmers with absolutely no regard to usability. Which is a little sad, as some parts of rest of the interface are really really good from a usability point of view (type-ahead search, all functions accessible via M-x, documentation for each functions, direct jump to source code of each functions, etc.).

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Kjella]

Standard /. car (err, motorcycle) analogy: Imagine the motorcycle is invented, and its the first form of 2 wheel transportation to exist (no bicycles). (...) Bye bye training wheels to all but the 6 year old kids.

Somehow 6 year old kids on motorcycles, with or without training wheels doesn't seem like a good idea...

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[TiggsPanther]

And most of us have absolutely no problem with the "For Dummies" theme that's skinned over so many products today.

The problem isn't even if it's the default look and feel.

The problem is generated when frustrated (and experienced) users cannot change it to suit their liking.

My sentiments exactly.

Going back to the Ribbon, it was a complete break from how things used to work. I will grant that it's probably a better method for people first learning how to use the software. It does make a certian amount of sense from that perspective.
My issue with it was it became the One True Interface. If you wanted the new improvements or needed reliable file file format compatibility (as the compatibility pack wasn't perfect) - or just bought a new PC from a shop - you were lumbered with the Ribbon. There was no (Microsoft produced) method of reverting back to classic menus and icons. A nice third-party solution did exist, that I used for a short while.

From a personal point fo view, I did adjust to the Ribbon. It took a while, but I am now pretty good at using it. I can work my way around it as natively as I could the old menus.

But here's the thing, I still prefer the classic interface. This isn't a technical limitation I have. It's not a lack of desire to learn something new. From an preference and aesthetic viewpoint, I just don't like it. I can (and do) use the RIbbon. I'd just rather not. Even now.

And that's where mandated UI changes really piss me off. It's not a "new default". It's a whole new interface, whether you like it or not. If your preference is for heirarchical menus, or power user options, or vertical layout (or whatever non-standard layout you favour) you are out of luck. Your opinion does not count. "We created this shiney new perfect UI, this is all you get with the newer releases." Which really sucks when using older versions is not an option for whatever reasons.

One size does not fit all. Options are nice.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "move on with their life" could be to use the software, more then ones, maybe even learn it... and as fast they do.. they get annoyed of the UI and dump the program for an other.. sounds like a good idea?

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with nostalgia.

Classic is faster, takes less space due to rectangular button and bar shapes, and thus allows smaller bar sizes while having sufficient space for fonts etc. it is just functionality over looks. Just like with browser customization the small themes with square shapes allow for the most efficient use of screen space.

Re:Has he ever actually talked to users?

[lennier]

Websites have implemented custom, animation-heavy interfaces for decades via Flash and now HTML5.

And despite that marketeers and web designers keep trying to hawk them as improvements, those elements of those websites are universally awful and reviled.

Remember what made Google successful. A simple, clean design in the GeoCities era of flashing background "under construction" GIFs.

You young'uns maybe don't remember the 90s, let alone the 80s, but trust me - things have been a lot worse in the "every app does it differently" direction in which we're currently trending back towards. As users we really don't want to repeat those past UI mistakes, but the current crop of designers seem hell-bent on it.

Oh well. Another twenty years and the clean and classic look should be back in fashion.

Wait.

[knuthin]

No mention of Unity? It has been made to look worse than the ribbon these days (by techwriters).

Also one could comment on UI on websites, webapps, phone apps. The author didn't seem to mind them at all, though they are the ones that successfully annoy the shit out of me.

Re:Wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

But in reality Unity is pretty much a normal desktop, with the bottom bar moved to the left. And also dash replacing launching applications.

Re:Wait.

[GrandTeddyBearOfDoom]

I run Unity, but I use the Guake console and have a 'u' command so that I press F12 to get the console and 'u m' for my mail program, 'u c' for chromium, etc. I have an n command so that n f.pdf launces evince, n t.tex latex's it etc. I doesn't reflect well on UI design that I like linux because a drop down command line console is a useabiliy feature I need.

Re:Wait.

[knuthin]

In fact, dropdown consoles are the first thing I install.

If you want something more active in development, try Yakuake, though it has KDE dependencies. I personally run Tilda on my Xfce laptop, and it works just fine.

But why are we discussing dropdown consoles anyway? :P

Re:Wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

True, mobile websites are almost universally awful. For example HSBC made a mobile version of their website. "Great!" I though, "It will have all the same functions but in a more suitable layout!"

Nope. Literally the only thing you can do is check your balance. You can do nothing else. You can't even see the transactions of an account.

Another great example: Flickr. A website that is entirely about looking at photos. But there is no way to zoom! Seriously guys, how can you get the one thing you ares supposed to be good at so wrong?

Re:Wait.

[Fri13]

I love Unity, as it is so simple that people don't anymore ask questions how to get desktop work as they want because it is impossible to tweak Unity without third party effects from private PPA and even then it is so simple that people just try to focus their work instead fighting with it.

Isn't that goal of Unity? :D

My thought of the day for Paul Miller

[heinousjay]

It's not your lawn, Paul. We don't have to get off of it.

Most People Need Handholding

[Froggels]

Although most Slashdotters do not. Most "normal" users out there do however require as much handholding as they can get and it's a major selling point for commercial OS manufacturers. (They call it "user friendliness") I also switched the interface to "classic" (or whatever it's called) on my windows 7 installation which I hardly ever boot anyway.

Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[loufoque]

I thought everyone that knew about computers and used windows already ran it in classic mode. It's the obvious thing to do.
It was especially obvious in Windows XP where the main theme looked like an amusement park for disabled kids.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[IrquiM]

Haven't got access to change to classic at work because of locked down environment. But even if I had, there's no Office "Classic" mode. Been using ribbons for quite a while now, and it's still not logical.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran XP in Classic, but when I switched to 7 I just tweaked the colour scheme a bit and I've been fairly happy with it ever since. Happier still since installing the Explorer portion of ClassicShell, but overall everything else they did to the interface I was fine with. I'm sure I'll be on the lookout for something similar to get rid of the damned ribbon in Window 8 if I bother upgrading...

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Switching to a classic/minimal theme and deactivating all effects is the first thing I do when I use any OS. When I am sitting behind a machine for hours on end, the last thing I need is eye candy exploding my retina.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[lightknight]

Nonsense. I like my eye-candy, and the silver Luna theme in XP was awesome.

If I'm going to be staring at my computer screen all-day, it might as well be pretty.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[loufoque]

Eye-candy gets in the way. The XP theme in particular for some things to be bigger or to have rounded corners. This is clearly a non-optimal use of screen space. A computer is a tool to get work done. The UI should be functional, and not waste any of the computer resources needlessly.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[lightknight]

Meh, the additional screen-space is so minimal that it didn't bother me. The browser bars that everyone ships their software with take up much more space than those corners.

And a computer is useful for many things, work just being one thing. Visual Studio on one monitor, Doctor Who on the other. I could code for hours / days like that. But we're out of Doctor Who...

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[loufoque]

s/for/forces/

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh God, the gradients... The horror.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Joce640k]

Is it just me or does switching to "classic" not actually disable all the things people claim to hate, eg. the ribbon? (even the screenshots in the article still show a ribbon in "classic" mode).

If all you're doing is changing the screen colors, does that really make things better?

Seems silly to me.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Noughmad]

... knew about computers ... used windows ...

Your definition of "knowing about computers" is abviously different than mine.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[tachyon]

I call it the Fisher Price look and feel

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[loufoque]

People in the know usually use Linux, but you'd be surprised to see how many still choose to use Windows.
Some weird people also use Mac OS X as well. These I will never understand.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Oligonicella]

They can ladle in, layer on and apply all the eye-candy they want - just let me turn it off. That way, when you close a window in 7, you can delight into it's apparently falling back to the ground (sans shatter, one would think they'd remember the finale) and I can have mine simply disappear.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[X3J11]

Indeed. I recently switched to classic with 7, and with a few exceptions I prefer it over the Aero appearance. On XP, it was the first thing I did upon a new install. Even my father, who is the stereotypical older, not quite computer illiterate person runs XP with the classic theme.

The only things that I miss is how I cannot click on the icons the Alt-Tab task switcher displays and Aero peek.

I might have stuck with Aero if it could handle changing the window title bar size (making it smaller), but for whatever Microsoft reason it affects the notification area icons; they become annoyingly blurry.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[X3J11]

Visual Studio on one monitor, Doctor Who on the other. I could code for hours / days like that. But we're out of Doctor Who...

Me too! Christmas special soon!

Though I am equally as likely to be watching old school Who, which I maintain was superior to new. I feel the shoestring budget and serialized storytelling made a better show.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[sycomonkey]

Man I figured you could back Win7 up to the XP look but I'd never actually tried it. Myself, I like my transparencies, tyvm. I mean, in my linux boxes I lately have been using XFCE, but I still use transparencies, to the point where having a completely opaque terminal is a showstopper. Anyway, so I tried setting Win7 to the classic theme and it looked like the mid 90's puked all over my computer. All I'd need to do was switch to a 1280x1024 CRT and set my wallpaper to some poorly rendered fractal and it would be like I was in middle school all over again.

I switched back to Aero pretty quick. We're talking about pure aesthetics here, but I can't imagine why you'd intentionally go back to that look.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[lightknight]

Been working my ways backward through Doctor Who. The question marks, here and there, are somewhat charming.

On a separate note, I heard they are coming out with more Red Dwarf.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[lightknight]

Oh yes. Have the screen zoom out until the program is a window on the Tardis. Then have the Tardis do a little twirl, and get sucked through a wormhole.

I can do this...maybe. How is 7 for programming advanced program closing sequences?

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think they know better usually use Linux.

TFTFY

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[LazyBoot]

The problem I had with the classic xp theme was that everything was bigger than 2k and 9x anyway...

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Nimey]

I used to back when I switched from 98 to XP, but I got over it and no longer mind the colorful UI.

There's no reason to do such a thing in Win7, though, since Aero actually makes good use of eye candy and the UI's faster with 3D acceleration anyway.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[kerohazel]

Different definitions of pretty, I guess. My aunt loves the "Fisher Price" XP theme, and takes it a step further by putting everything in Comic Sans. Now her computer is "fun".

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Noughmad]

The thing is, most people think they know better. Just like more than half the people think they're above average, no matter what you're trying to measure.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

the silver Luna theme in XP was awesome.

I can't believe I just read that. The fact that you call it the "Luna" theme proves that you actually cared about the set of XP themes on some level. Well, to each his own...

I think he's talking about the puffy blue theme with the green start button, and the pixelated picture of the green rolling hills afflicted by obvious JPEG compression. The super-default one, the one you see in most screen shots depicting XP. Like this.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except on servers it's mostly only IT wannabes that still run Windows in classic mode, at least as of Vista and Windows 7. XP is more debatable, but the Royale theme was quite decent.

Apart from being garish -- not just because of the gunmetal gray, but because classic mode is given little thought from the design perspective -- you lose technical benefits such as the DWM, with GPU acceleration and updates timed to the vsync to avoid nasty tearing.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[ripdajacker]

I run Windows Basic, because the transparency kinda pisses me off. I chose basic over classic because you can use arrow keys while holding ALT+TAB.

As for TFA, the writer has a point. For my linux machines I have chosen Trinity (re-incarnation of KDE 3.5), which looks like a cartoon drawing of todays desktops, but has all the functionality one could want.

OS X (not to mention the rest of the iProducts) is much worse in condescending than MS Office is. The OS assumes you are a retarded chimp, and the filemanager is inconfigurable (what's with the automatic unzip???).

I think this is a general development that is partly caused by our parents and grandparents all going online, not to mention every kid from the age of 7-8 and upward. In the old days there were only geeks and computers were seen as tools, today they are seen as a medium of expression through which users can punish developers by requesting retarded UI changes.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other themes that you can (with some trickery) use in Windows XP; most of them are crap but some are really really slick (or just cute, like the pink Sakura theme).
I can only judge from friends and family, but from what I've seen almost everyone sticks to the default theme, often complete with the standard hills wallpaper. Most of the remainder changes the theme and wallpaper and tend to pretty much customise everything they can get their hands on. And three people I know have put it in classic mode. One is a programmer, but the others aren't really what you'd call gurus; they can type in Word all right but that's about it.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Pentium100]

I use a red style (it's called RubyXP, but googling it finds a different one, basically it's the same as the standard blue style, just red and the start button is smaller and with no text). The classic (Windows 2000) theme is my 2nd favorite, the only problem I have with it is that it's harder to make it look good in red. I probably could just switch to the classic theme, but as I used this one for many years, I am used to it (and back when I was 14 or so, the XP theme looked better to me than 2000, I guess I was the target demographic for it). I do not like Windows 7 theme though. So, basically, I prefer the classic theme with one exception - the Windows XP style that I got used to.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Vegemeister]

The problem with turning off Aero is that Aero is required for desktop vsync.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're trying very hard to sound like a jerk and mostly succeeded.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[dskzero]

Eye-candy gets in the way.

Hmmm no it doesn't. I wonder what kind of "work" you're trying to get done if that little eye-candy takes away vital space and computer resources.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[dskzero]

You DO realize that out there, when you have a job, you most likely will be forced to use Windows, right?

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Noughmad]

No, I don't. In fact, both places I've worked so far as a student were swarming with Macs with a couple of people running Linux or Windows. Note that both are government research institutes where most of the work is done in small teams, so I have no experience in working for a large corporation, but this is also where I'm most likely to get a job.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[dskzero]

Both large and small corporations use Windows. The point isn't whether they are right or wrong, the point is that you will have to deal with it most likely than no. Both me and my father, me being an ABAP developer (also a computer engineer) and my father being a RPG developer with at least 30 years of experience, perhaps more, have to deal with Windows on a daily basis.

I do believe we "know about computers".

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[Noughmad]

I understand, and I also know that in many technical fields the best software is for Windows only. Fortunately, this is not the case in my field (physics), and only partially in software development.

Re:Doesn't everyone run in classic?

[dskzero]

There you go. You have to look at the bigger picture. I run Linux at home (Ubuntu) and Windows on my gaming machine, but I don't have the freedom of choice at the office. And we both are in the vast minority anyway.

It's not condescension

[Anonymous Coward]

Many users really can't use menus and other less "condescending" UI concepts. The UI is meant to be helpful, not condescending, like holding the door open for someone isn't condescending, even when they can open the door themselves.

This

[Compaqt]

... is what a lot of Slashdotters have been saying over the past few years/months regarding the weird new direction of Ubuntu/Gnome: It's not that they've made it simpler to do what you were doing before (as in Program Manager to Start Menu), but rather you can't get there from here. It's actively and actually harder to do stuff you used to take for granted before.

Options.

[Anonymous Coward]

They say you can't please everyone. You probably can't, but I've got a secret trick that gets you most of the way.

Options.

Re:Ribbon

[TaoPhoenix]

Oh, it's you again. Nice astroturf.

See my "Easy and Advanced" comment below. I don't like the Ribbon, and I don't like corp. gamesmanship forcing me into it. So I installed a plugin to put the old menus back so I could get my real work done.

Yawn

[PCM2]

This hatred of the Ribbon is becoming a lame cliche. Don't like the Ribbon? Would rather use key commands? Cool, hide the Ribbon and use key commands. Or wait, that would be too easy -- or it wouldn't let you whine as much.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

I Solve the ribbon problem by using Open/Libre Office

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what is even lamer than that? People who adopt the opposite to whatever is the popular opinion within a group just so they can stand out.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Does microsoft pay you with a check or direct debit?

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Except there's no consistent menu bar.

They didn't retain the consistent default text-based menu bar that typically starts with "File, Edit, View...", and usually has selections like "Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Perferences, Options, Tools, Blah blah blah..."

You can't press "Alt", and expose the menu bar. So FTFY.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I like writing tracker music. I used protracker a lot: http://www.pouet.net/screenshots/13364.png

See? Buttons everywhere! Why browse through menus when you can just click on something. What I can't figure out is how microsoft managed to get a patent on it. Prior art anyone?

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, except that Microsoft often changes keyboard shortcuts in their software in localized versions. Keyboard shortcuts that makes no sense compared to similar software or even their own English version (ie. ctrl-f is supposed to be find, not bold text) is what made me rely on the regular file menu in the first place. Ribbons made Office useless to me, so I've switched to Open- and now LibreOffice. Implying that the complaints are frivolous is also becoming a lame cliche.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I don't like the 'ribbon', and I don't care for 'search', either. Both of them are wrong-headed, and absolutely suck, IMO.

I can deal with either if I am certain what I am trying to do exists in the application. If I have difficulty finding where the feature is kept in the ribbon, I can search for what I want to do, create a keyboard shortcut (or make a mental note of how to do it), and be off to the races.

But, what do you do when you don't know what the feature that you need is called? In the old menu/toolbar interface, it's no problem. You just explore the menus, see all the different options you have, and eventually you'll find what you want to do. Once you learn it, you're golden.

Good luck with that using the ribbon, or search. As much as is hidden by ribbons, you can poke around, but what you want to do may not even be accessible from the ribbon. And, you are going to have a hard time searching for something when you don't know what it is called.

Your only choice is to RTFM, which likely doesn't exist, or to try to use the help file as a manual (lol).

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be nice if they hadn't bust it. I've started using the Ribbon for the first time ever on a daily basis; saw no reason to upgrade my ten year old Office suite but now have a job where Office 2010 is installed. I was quite looking forward to the Ribbon because I like shiny new things and it seems to have polarized users so I was interested in what the kerfuffle was all about.

Turns out I'm not very keen on it for any number of reasons you can read on posts below and above mine. What's realy incensed me though is that the basic keyboard commands that I have used everywhere over the last few decades have been bust. I can print this web page off with "Ctrl+P, Enter". It's a basic, historically pertinant and pretty much universal sequence across the Windows platform AFAIK (Linux, Mac anyone?) This no longer works in Office and I have to Tab before Enter. I know, I know; one extra key press; I'll get over it; move on; people have cancer; can you sense the but coming yet?

I've only been at it a couple of weeks and it turns out the few Alt key sequences I use are different (which is fine) but have extra keys to press (which is not) but Iooks like I'm gonna have to use more ribbonized progs, more often over the next year or so. How much more work will that give me? More work=less productive=poor UI design.

Can I whine now?

Re:Yawn

[PCM2]

You can't press "Alt", and expose the menu bar. So FTFY.

Might want to press Alt before you say things like that.

Re:Yawn

[TuringTest]

But they have a consistent default text-based tab bar that starts with Home, Insert, Page Layout... and you can press "Alt" and expose it when it's folded.

So what's the complaint, that they changed the default categories? Oh poor boy! Well that's was the whole point: people - even heavy users - couldn't find the features they wanted, so the the old categories you cherish so much simply didn't work. They've changed them to some new task-based ones that actually make sense as the logical position for many (not all) of the commands placed inside them.

Re:Yawn

[PCM2]

You know what's even lamer than that? People who don't have an opinion until they figure out what's popular.

Re:Yawn

[PCM2]

Well, except that Microsoft often changes keyboard shortcuts in their software in localized versions.

I can't really speak to localized versions but this seems like a separate issue. In the English version, nothing significant has changed with the key commands in the last ten years.

Re:Yawn

[Waccoon]

"You're holding it wrong."

Re:Yawn

[dskzero]

Heh, I'd rather deal with the Ribbon than dealing with Open Office.

I recently switched my UI too.

[Old Sparky]

OK, it wasn't really recent; it was in 2001. And I switched to Linux, and I've never been happier!

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[Joce640k]

Yeah, Linux users interfaces are all perfect.

Unity.

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[Robert Zenz]

I hate to spoil your party, but Linux is not a UI, it's a kernel. What are you using? Plain Terminal, Gnome, Awesome, KDE?

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[Old Sparky]

Well, I really didn't expect anyone to see this as I figured the M$ Mafia would mod it down.
I started off using Redhat ~ 5.9, Back In The Day.
I'm partial to KDE for a GUI, but I try to keep that stuff off of my server, just using the console.

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[jbolden]

No, in english we have the notion of homographs. The same word having related but different meanings. Linux is a family of operating systems that use the Linux kernel. UIs popular are on Linux are rightfully called Linux UIs.

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[Robert Zenz]

Uuhhh...great. So if I say "I'm using Linux" you know what Distribution with what Desktop Environment/Windowmanager I use?

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[Robert Zenz]

I never really tried KDE to be honest, but I've heard good things about it.

And I agree, there's no good reason to have a GUI running on a server, it's just wasting system resources.

Re:I recently switched my UI too.

[jbolden]

No but I know what collection of Desktop environments you are using. You aren't using Aero or Aqua. You aren't using one of the proprietary Unix GUIs like CDE or Display Postscript. It is for that reason that many people aren't clear what Android is a "Linux" in the proper sense since it doesn't use most of the Linux tool chain.

While there were people on both sides of the GNU/Linux debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy) the reason there was a debate was because the word Linux is being used to refer to an entire operating system.

The article is a bit over the top really...

[hattig]

I fail to see how a UI THEME somehow makes a UI less 'condescending'. The Ribbon is still there in Windows 7 'classic', you just lose the GPU acceleration, and instead get the plain grey (with wider window borders) ugliness that Windows has had since Win95 (when it had to look okay in 16 colours). Of course, the Ribbon looks really out of place in the classic theme.

As for the faux-real-world UIs in the Apple apps, the real issue they have is that they present an expectation of more functionality that should be present because they are so similar to the real world example. They're only offensive if you think of the wasted RAM and CPU cycles that go into rendering these interfaces. Then again if you sync with Google you can just use Google's rather stark online applications instead and not worry about the bit of faux leather or torn paper UI silliness.

At least Office on the Mac still gives you the menu alongside the Ribbon. Best of both worlds eh?

Re:The article is a bit over the top really...

[InsightIn140Bytes]

That's because he doesn't really hate the feature changes. He just wants it to look the way he got used to, ie. Win95.

Re:The article is a bit over the top really...

[Anonymous Coward]

The boarders are thicker in the non-classic themes, transparency adds nothing and can be annoying in some cases (I don't WANT to see whats under this window), the little preview windows add nothing for me, and the top reason, I prefer the behavior of the classic ctrl-tab switcher (I know theres a registry hack, but why bother).

"Upgrades" a justification for price?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in the case of Microsoft, the "new look" seems to be a justification for maintaining a high price point.
The new interfaces also seem to be vendor lock-ins.
MS Word became bloated _years_ ago. I hope Libre Office doesn't follow suit like the OS UIs!

I so needed to hear this! Thank you! This needs to be stopped, and unlike the United States government, let's work together to make this happen!

maybe he should use vi.

[decora]

it's not condescending. it assumes you have memorized dozens of little one-letter commands.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[vlm]

You really only need the "i" and "esc" keys. And "esc-:wq". with those three things you can use vi.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[allo]

and each additional command you learn will double your productivity again.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[vlm]

and each additional command you learn will double your productivity again.

learning VI is like learning skyrim dragon shouts. Very good!

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[DarkOx]

Ah Slashdot where there is never a middle ground, its vi + tex or Office 2010.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: STRG+c instead of ESC will put you into command mode without the trek to the upper left corner.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is so productive these days! Press a key and DOUBLE your productivity! What, exactly, do you produce? Is there a mountain of stuff or food somehwere produced by you? And if you're so productive, why does it take 25 years to pay off a house built in six weeks? Seems like you're about 200 times less productive than a mason or a carpenter.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone is trying to publish any relevant text, MS Office (or any other office application) doesn't cut it, while TeX and LaTeX attained the status of de-facto standard in any publishing means. MS Office is to the publishing world what MS Paint is to the graphics design world: it's readily availble, it's widely used but it simply is impossible to do any real work in it.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

VI doesn't require "dozens of little one-letter commands" to be used. A user only needs to understand that VI relies on the modes paradigm, switching between visual mode and line editor mode. With this, the user only needs to know that the 'i' command puts the program in line edit mode, which is to insert text you type at the cursor, and that 'Esc' brings the user back to visual mode. That's it. That's your "dozens one-letter commands" you referred to.

After that, if your user decides to explore vi a bit further then he may learn other commands that are used in visual mode, such as the delete line command 'dd', yank line 'y' and paste 'p'. To search for a bit of text then there is the search command '/'. This means that all a user needs to know to use VI as any other text editor are... 5 commands. Then, if a user really needs to, he can look at

So, where exactly do you count "dozens one-letter commands"? Can you actually provide any basis for your assertion? To make it simpler for you, care to point out which feature did I left out which constitutes a new command?

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Hentes]

Indeed. Even if you need a well-formatted document (and most of the time plaintext is just fine), it's much easier to write it in plaintext first, and copy+format later.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Vegemeister]

WTF is STRG?

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[countertrolling]

Ctrl

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[oakgrove]

How long did it take to grow the trees the wood was harvested from to build that 6-week house?

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[vlm]

WTF is STRG?

I think its a bizarre corruption of Ctrl-[ which does the same thing as hitting escape.

He could have done something weird with the imap command and STRG perhaps it means something in his environment. Like :imap STRG "escape key" or something like that would break you out of insert mode anytime you type STRG inside insert mode. Not so good if STRG is a reserved language word or your favorite variable name.

Personally, I live and die by perltidy and other source code reformatters, so I don't use tab at all when editing, and I could remap tab to escape inside vi like many other people do, but thats just going to confuse the F out of me on other peoples unmodified machines, so I don't do that.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Erikderzweite]

STRG stands for Steuerung which is German for Control. So, STRG=Ctrl.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

How long did that cow grow to make your steaks?

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[allo]

The String-Key ;). (A pun which does not work for non-german persons.)

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how kewl kids always mention :wq and never ZZ.

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[ColdWetDog]

Ah Slashdot where there is never a middle ground, its vi + tex or Office 2010.

Screw that - it's COPY CON or Wordstar.

Kids these days....

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah Slashdot where there is never a middle ground, its vi + tex or Office 2010.

once heard a designer say that you should always design to the extremes and the middle ground works itself out

Re:maybe he should use vi.

[ceoyoyo]

I'm actually enjoying all these comments with people whining about how they're so leet the GUI (!) is getting in their way and they pine for the days when GUIs were simpler.

What happened to shunning GUIs and using the command line?

Re:Windows 7 theme

[TaoPhoenix]

You're fun. Who's paying you?

I got a new Win 7 machine at work a few months ago, and the first thing I had to do to it was to unhook a lot of the annoyances of the Win 7 theme. Grouped Windows was a disaster for me. As for "Dumped" of course you know that in Win 7 you can physically move your related tasks in the task bar next to each other. Moving them also lets you visually see your priorities.

I hate "pinned" apps. If it's not open I don't need it "pretending" to be open on my task bar. It's already got a desktop shortcut.

So yes, sometimes it's possible to have a golden age then begin to slide away from it.

Adreesbook metaphor

[jruschme]

Mr. Miller talks about the physical book metaphor used by the Mac OS X Address Book and iCal. This is nothing new, though, or confined to Apple. I can well remember using a few different "daily planner" apps back in the late 90s that used the same kind of visual, right down to little metal "rings" in the center of the window.

Re:Adreesbook metaphor

[narcc]

Yeah, making apps look and act like their real-world counterparts was really popular in the mid-90's Of course, it was mostly abandoned because it was a terrible way to interact with a computer.

See, taking the metaphor to it's ultimate conclusion doesn't offer the user any advantage over the actual thing it's replacing. A date book on the computer that looks and acts just like a real datebook, for example, is actually less convenient than just having a date book! If that wasn't bad enough, adding features like recurring appointments unnecessarily complicates the UI. Had the program been designed with a UI suited for use on a computer, those advantageous features won't break the metaphor, and are consequently easier to understand and use.

I remember a parking meter app for the Blackberry Playbook that did the "real-world UI" thing that had a realistic-looking meter and ticket. It was obscenely complicated to use, because you had to work out how to do simple things like set the time on the meter, which is not at all obvious. Had the app just used standard UI elements instead of a goofy metaphor, the app would have been much easier to use and allowed for additional convenience features.

Sure, the app looks cool, and is probably fun the first time you use it. Of course, this sort of UI quickly loses it's novelty. As users struggle to enter their data quickly (read: conveniently), the failings of this approach quickly become apparent. You can probably think of several features that you'd like an app like this to have that are difficult or impossible to fit into that UI with its fundamentally low information density.

All-touch interfaces suffer from a similar problem with their over-use of one type of interaction. Touch is great for things like clicking icons or scrolling. However, it's miserable for typing or fine adjustments (like positioning the text cursor) or fine control (selecting text) Sure, it can be done, but only by making fine control coarse (zoom in on the page, slide giant tabs, etc. all extra steps). Things like a trackpad or keyboard help with these tasks immensely, but are often ignored in favor of a "simple UI" that fails at the ultimate goal of simplicity -- making it easier for users to accomplish common tasks.

This again?

[Gumbercules!!]

Surely we've had enough of this ribbon is bad garbage by now? It's actually not bad - it's the result of trying to cope with massive numbers of command potentials, instead of trying to arbitrary declare they belong under files, options, tools, edit, etc. It was Microsoft saying "there's been a proliferation of new commands in Office and we can't just keep putting menus and sub menus like this forever" - and good on them for realising it. It allows for more generic group and rapid navigation between them. Hot keys still work for common tasks (alt-f-s etc).

Just because some developer / blogger is now past 40 and can no longer learn new things, doesn't mean new things are bad. This is the geek equivalent of visiting your grandmothers to hear all about how things were better in the old days. It basically boils down to "I learnt something and felt special because I was good at it and many other people are not. Now it's no longer relevant, so I'm upset". Well, go get good at the next thing!

If you hate it that much, turn it off. Google "hide ribbon office 2010" and about 43,700,000 people are pretty happy to tell you exactly how to do it. I don't see much complaining about Firefox, Chrome etc removing the old style menu. Seems to be just another anti-MS/Office rant. Boring.

Re:This again?

[Lumpy]

"Surely we've had enough of this ribbon is bad garbage by now? It's actually not bad "

No, but it helped me get the entire company off of Microsoft Office and only Libre office without a fight. on a test group of 10 we set up both. All of the test group told us they preferred Office 2003 first and Libre Office second. none wanted Office 2010.

I personally love "ribbons" it helped me continue the switch away from Microsoft in my company.

Re:This again?

[Gumbercules!!]

So what you're saying is because people weren't immediately familiar with something new & different, rather than guide them through to new knowledge, you helped them find a way to stay where they are now, on a less feature rich product? Well done!

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how they still didn't want the FLOSS dogshit.

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody gives a damn about the menus.
The toolbars is what people care about.

You people who keep blasting those who hate Office are morons and don't know a damn thing about WHY we hate Ribbon.

Posts like yours are boring.

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft wants money, they must provide value to their customers. For many customers, that means sticking with a doomed UI because it's familiar and they just need to get shit done, not learn a new system that's theoretically better for some imaginary person who needs to use all the millions of commands the product has bloated to. They don't care that the menus are incomprehensible, because they don't use them anyway except for about 10 commands (and that's generous). So, if another product like Libre Office delivers what they need -- a word processor that they can use without any additional training -- then (all other things being equal) that product is a better fit for the organization.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

It was Microsoft saying "there's been a proliferation of new commands in Office and we can't just keep putting menus and sub menus like this forever"

Except that's exactly what the ribbon does, except it uses huge buttons instead of concise text. What the ribbon did was take away a static toolbar and a static menu, so you constantly have to hunt around for stuff, especially if you tend to resize windows a lot or move between computers with different size monitors (like a laptop). It is still basically a menu bar, only one level deep is constantly displayed. There are still submenus - they just look like a button with a downward pointing arrow on it now. Most of the benefits of the reorganized ribbon could have been achieved by reorganizing the menus and adding a context-sensitive menu bar (like the "Inspector" in the older versions of Mac office or the old pictures toolbar that would automatically appear when you were editing a picture).

The ribbon would have been a neat accessory, or even replacement for toolbars. But ditching the menus was stupid and hurt the productivity of long-time Office users. Since the Mac version of office still has a menu system alongside the ribbon, and it surely sells fewer units, I don't think expense of development has anything to do with it - MS is just being dictatorial.

Re:This again?

[Lumpy]

More features, I can legally give each employee 37,000 copies to take home, give to friends, sell on the street for crack, etc.. Zero cost to the IT department, removes liability from BSA audits, removes future costs, removes training costs.

It's why I stayed employed and promoted, instead of being laid off because of money issues in the company. Oh an also why the company I am with is still in business and growing while ALL of our competition in the state has went bankrupt and out of business. We are the last man standing.

If we had did the lemming upgrade to Office 2010 and a windows backend we would have wasted a lot of money and been out of business. Now we are on OSS for Office suite, and Google for email, OSS for the backend.

From where I am standing, where the CEO is standing and where the shareholders are standing, OSS was the smart move. Got some real info to back up your claim that Office 2010 is superior and far more features? Because I could not find ANY real advantages to staying with MS Office.

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually not bad - it's the result of trying to cope with massive numbers of command potentials, instead of trying to arbitrary declare they belong under files, options, tools, edit, etc.

It is a text writing program, not a space shuttle cockpit. It shouldn't be users' problem if MS wants to cram more commands in it. But MS made it users' problem by changing UI.

If it's so great then why didn't they do ribbon 20 years ago? It's not like text writing has changed much since then, is it?

Now they say ribbon is hot shit, but wait another 20 years and they'll change it again. Just because.

Re:This again?

[Fri13]

I don't see much complaining about Firefox, Chrome etc removing the old style menu. Seems to be just another anti-MS/Office rant. Boring.

Switching from menubar to A style is totally different thing than replacing menubar with B menu.

Change is not always good. Change is not always needed.

Young people want usually to change things so they can gain merits and they have need to try new things.

Your argument about grandmother telling how things were better in old days, is not valid. As many things were better in the old times. But it does not either mean that we have not improved anything.

But just fixing something because it is need to sell new versions and to separate from every competitor ain't good purpose to fix things.

Why did Microsoft copy Ribbon from Macromedia and Lotus? Why didn't Microsoft invent something own? Did you know that Ribbon isn't Microsoft invention?

Did you know that one and single user inteface does not usually work well every possible situation?
We usually need to have multiple different user interfaces on every different situation and task.
Just forcing to have single UI everywhere isn't smart thing. Like pushing a Ribbon to filemanager, office writer, office bredsheet or office vision. Metro to phone, to tablet, to desktop, to servers. Everyone else has being learning that better make a user interface what fits to the situation, environment and tool what user is using. It is said that Microsoft is chasing taillights, and it might be the case again...

Re:This again?

[Gumbercules!!]

Libre Office might be fine if all your staff do is edit documents. What about if they want to integrate with Sharepoint or another document management system? What about if they want live collaboration on the same document, at the same time, with multiple users? Maybe they want to use their existing fleet of VBA macros in Excel - and mock it all you like but this forms the foundation of most of the world's financial / accounting based workers, especially for reporting. What if they want to integrate with a corporate communication / email / scheduling system like Outlook + Exchange + Communicator tools? What if they want to integrate with their CRM, like SugarCRM or Dynamics or SalesForce? What if they maybe want to use plugins for, oh I don't know, virtually any product at all?

Coz if the answer to any of the above is "yes:" then you've just cost your company either productivity, opportunity or money in other ways as they must now work around their problems.

If they don't do any of the above, then I whole heartedly agree with your change; once the life cycle of the software allowed for it. However I have seen enough smaller IT shops force OS solutions on business out of personal choice when it was actually a terrible idea (usually because they business basically ran on VBA) to be highly suspicious when people talk about changes like this. Sorry for the personal bias.

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Microsoft saying "there's been a proliferation of new commands in Office and we can't just keep putting menus and sub menus like this forever"

Except that's exactly what the ribbon does, except it uses huge buttons instead of concise text. What the ribbon did was take away a static toolbar and a static menu, so you constantly have to hunt around for stuff, especially if you tend to resize windows a lot or move between computers with different size monitors (like a laptop). It is still basically a menu bar, only one level deep is constantly displayed. There are still submenus - they just look like a button with a downward pointing arrow on it now. Most of the benefits of the reorganized ribbon could have been achieved by reorganizing the menus and adding a context-sensitive menu bar...But ditching the menus was stupid and hurt the productivity of long-time Office users. Since the Mac version of office still has a menu system alongside the ribbon, and it surely sells fewer units, I don't think expense of development has anything to do with it - MS is just being dictatorial.

Your last sub-clause is probably very close to the actual truth. What I really believe occurred is that Microsoft feared that too many were discovering they could do everything in free software suites (Open Office, Libre Office) that they did in their expensive software from Microsoft. In order to combat this Microsoft, rather than lowering their price or actually improving their software, used their monopolistic advantage and simply changed the interface, knowing that most new users will get MS Office and learn the ribbon, thus putting other competitors that use the menus again at a disadvantage. I'm sure they rightly figure that most current users either use MS office because they are given it at work or have just always used it and won't switch. They'll grumble but make the switch.

I wonder if the guy that came up with the ribbon idea is the same ass who originally came up with the idea of hiding most of each of the menus by default in Office 2003.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

I wonder if the guy that came up with the ribbon idea is the same ass who originally came up with the idea of hiding most of each of the menus by default in Office 2003.

LOL, I hate that guy - I even have to turn that off on other people's computers it bothers me so much. I think they should let that guy do the same thing to the ribbon... have some of the buttons occasionally disappear! :)

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

Open office has a document management collaboration and document management solution http://www.o3spaces.com/ Funny enough Abiword (remember them) is taking the lead here on free collaboration https://abicollab.net/ In terms of the rest... CRM works just as well for most any document system. As for email / scheduling there are open source solutions for that as well.

Microsoft offers a damn good suite for a medium sized per user cost. You can however build an Unixy environment and offer these same features. And frankly the fully unix solutions (like the ones from Oracle) are often quite a bit better than the Microsoft alternatives.

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

The code base for the Mac and Windows products have almost nothing in common. Don't judge the product direction by Mac.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

Nonetheless, it proves that MS is willing to co-develop both interfaces under certain market conditions.

Re:This again?

[dskzero]

... and you needed a test to make sure people hate change?

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

The direction on Mac has been towards the ribbon interface. The old interface for Office for Mac was pre-existing. They aren't willing to develop both interface, rather what they have shown is a willingness not to discontinue them both at the same time. Given how much work they were doing for Office-Mac-2008 I can understand ribbon not being on the todo list.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

The old Office 2003 interface was "pre-existing" as well. Both Mac 2008 and Win 2003 version of office had traditional menus, and yet when the respective replacements came out, they kept the traditional interface alongside the ribbon on Mac and hid the menus entirely on the Windows version. Partly this must have to do with the ridiculous situation that would arise if they did away with the menus on Mac, which would leave a big empty grey bar across the top of the screen for no reason other than sheer stubbornness. In any case, I'm pretty sure a single intern could keep the menu items hooked up to the respective dialog boxes that are now invoked by buttons on the ribbon - it's not a case of development effort.

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

I'm reading your comment. You do realize that Office for Mac 2011 has a partially ribbon interface? Anyway, according to Microsoft they are going to make the ribbon much more context sensitive by say 2020 the ribbon interface might represent 30,000 menu items.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

Yes, I use Office 2011 on Mac and 2010 on PC - you can turn the ribbon on or off on the Mac version. It is almost exactly the same as the MS Office 2010 PC version of the ribbon (some features are missing in the Mac version). There are (free?) plugins that give you the menus back on the PC version. It's not a matter of MS being short on resources, it's about them deliberately forcing you to relearn the interface for their own purposes.

Maybe by 2020 I'll be more efficient, but I'm still not quite up to where I was a year ago when I made the switch from 2003 - and when on the Mac version I often still "cheat" and use the menus. I'm trying to recover some of my old speed by using keyboard shortcuts, but the ribbon shortcuts are all pretty long - Alt and then the ribbon tab letter shortcut and then the sub-button (is that a word?) shortcut, and then the item shortcut. For some things like the paste special options in Excel there is no keyboard shortcut and so you have to make your own button. Fine, that's always been the case... but now my button disappears when the ribbon decides to change unless it is important enough to go in the "don't call it a toolbar" toolbar in the Windows version. The Mac version still lets you customize the toolbar and menu items, so you can still just add the built-in "Paste Values" button (for instance) in the old way, or you can make a custom macro and put it there.

LOL, listen to me... I'm not even one of the haters. I'm the guy that all the ribbon haters come to when they want to know how to do something :) But I can definitely sympathize with them - there may be some eventual advantage gained by going with "the Ribbon" exclusively, but right now it is just frustrating a lot of long-time users with zero productivity gain... in fact the exact opposite.

Re:This again?

[thoromyr]

It was Microsoft saying "there's been a proliferation of new commands in Office and we can't just keep putting menus and sub menus like this forever"

Except that's exactly what the ribbon does, except it uses huge buttons instead of concise text. What the ribbon did was take away a static toolbar and a static menu, so you constantly have to hunt around for stuff, especially if you tend to resize windows a lot or move between computers with different size monitors (like a laptop).

What this really made me think of was Apple's Help/Search menu function. For casual users of complicated programs (myself using Photoshop, for instance) we may *know* we can do something, but not remember how it is done -- I use Photoshop for a few hours a couple of times a year. That is not anywhere near enough to maintain proficiency. But the ability to search the menus is much faster than trying to google for it. It also facilitates discovery of features if the menu name is logical.

Providing an immediately accessible way to search through labyrinthine menus makes them more accessible. If Microsoft had done something like that I think they'd be lauded instead of reviled for removing a good UI element.

Re:This again?

[arose]

Any moderately complex (and up) software package should provide a search-and-launch ability. It might feel silly to imitate an ancient Emacs feature but there are a few things anyone could learn from Emacs in regards to documentation and efficient UI (even if you think it lacks a good editor ;).

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

My guess is that over time having these sorts of non context specific buttons won't work. The product is going to be able to get a lot more complex if all the interactions are specific.

Say for example you are doing the biography of a document. And you have things like the "footnotes" menu that will adjust footnotes in line with the biography, the link docs menu so that you can propagate biography changes into other documents that link or possibly all documents that use that reference (similar to linking OLE with a biography managers now)...

"paste values" is kinda vague. For example how should the system handle something like 23.45 in fixed format going into a float field? Maybe there should be an entire paste menu "paste values preserving formats", "paste values casting formats", "paste values asking me manually about format conflicts", etc...

Part of the issue is that while the ribbon change allows for this sort of layering, Microsoft hasn't done it yet. The product looks like a more confusing version of the old product not a product with tens of thousands of menu items making heavy use of AI determined contexts.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

Part of the issue is that while the ribbon change allows for this sort of layering, Microsoft hasn't done it yet. The product looks like a more confusing version of the old product not a product with tens of thousands of menu items making heavy use of AI determined contexts.

Exactly. It's a GUI element that may or may not be better for very complicated software - but Office certainly doesn't need it now. Even if you argue that it is better - as some fairly do - there is no good reason to cut out the menus in this version.

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

My guess is they wanted to allow for a more gradual transition. Sort of like Windows 3.1 -> Windows NT.

They first shifted people over to the NT interface while leaving the DOS based GUTS the same same (Windows 95) then shifted away from DOS all together so stuff like PIFs just wouldn't work the same.

If 2020 office looks different and is different they want to move people gradually.

They can't have a version with a non functioning GUI so possibly the idea is

Step 1) Same functionality new GUI (change the GUI not the underlying product)
Step 2) Additional functionality but same workflow
Step 3) Additional functionality that requires a new workflow.

If you assume that's their goal. They don't want people having to go from Step 0 (legacy interface) to Step 2 directly. So they want to "force" people to learn ribbon.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

The tech lore is that Bill Gates was wowed by the guy heading the ribbon team...

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

I don't buy it, contexts make sense. Power users of office just don't like the fact that their skills have been effectively diminished. It is the same reason that windows power users who do not develop are often the most negative about Linux desktops.

Tabbed toolbars which is what they were called in the 1990s have been around a long time. Contexts makes sense. I suspect Microsoft moving fast (for them) is more from the threat of open office. I think they wanted to be well ahead of open office for another decade or two.

Re:This again?

[MightyYar]

Yeah, who knows? You could certainly be right!

Personally, I look at Office and I see nearly the same program that I was using in 1994 or 1995. Sure, there have been some nice new features - but aside from incremental improvements and a whole lot of fluff (Clippy, web export, new views, etc.), the feature set has largely been static. I can see a deranged manager thinking that they need an entirely new interface so that Office can "grow", but honestly, the idea that Office will have a large number of new features requiring such a beast is not supported by history. They may have great plans, but I'll believe it when I see it :)

Re:This again?

[jbolden]

Honestly, in some ways I see it as a downgrade from what existed in 1995 or even 1991. I will agree the OLE is awesome. But on many of the core features I see stuff removed. For example look at the the list of functions in Excel today compared to what existed then. In 1993 Excel was talking about buying a mini version of the mathematica engine to do symbolic math, today user functions are even allowed, and they have a great strategy at research.microsoft.com. Access isn't standard anymore. I don't see why visio and project aren't bundled in. The note taking app is nice.

You are absolutely right though the products have been stagnant for 15+ years. And as a result lots of other products have caught up, in particular open office. That I think is what got Microsoft off their butts to finally push things along and resume being way ahead of the competition.

I don't think it is deranged to believe that office needs a new interface to grow. The easiest way to grow office is to essentially bundle in hundreds of "extensions" per product and allow each of those to fill a niche for each user. For example time value of money solver, IRR, NPV ... solvers. Allowing for symbolic functions and user defined functions. An advanced stats package. Calculus and numerical methods. Powerful integration with dynamics. Etc.. Do a few hundred of those and suddenly everyone has one or two features that justifies the few hundred for Excel over Open Office. But.... to do that you need at least another level maybe two on hierarchical menus and that's too complex. So make it easier go with context based menus.

I want to see it to. So far Microsoft has great ideas but an inability to execute. But I agree the plan is a good one. I fully support the plan.

It's a matter of priorities

[overshoot]

In office products and other general computing tasks, performance/productivity isn't really very important. It's much more important to be "friendly," whatever "friendly" means to the people making buying decisions (often the ones running the help desk.)

When performance is important, you get a different picture. For instance, how many FPS games have a ribbon-type interface for weapon selection? FPS is probably the single most performance-emphasizing part of general computing, so there may be a lesson or two to be found there.

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[DarkOx]

Yea, where is Clippy when you need him? I just imagine:

Clippy: 'You appear to be trying to take out a unit of virtual Nazi soldiers with no backup, would you like me to recommend a weapon from your inventory?'

User (while taking heavy damage): *clicks yes*

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[Cl1mh4224rd]

When performance is important, you get a different picture. For instance, how many FPS games have a ribbon-type interface for weapon selection?

Quite a few, actually. The Half-Life series being one I'm immediately aware of.

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[westlake]

In office products...performance/productivity isn't really very important. It's much more important to be "friendly," whatever "friendly" means to the people making buying decisions (often the ones running the help desk.)
When performance is important, you get a different picture.

The office manager is expected to get work out the door on time --- no matter how many of his staff are temps, part-timers, senior or student volunteers.

There are days when he will be caught desperately short-handed, shuffling people about trying to fill all those empty chairs.

That is why he keeps things simple, stupid.

For instance, how many FPS games have a ribbon-type interface for weapon selection? FPS is probably the single most performance-emphasizing part of general computing

The user's "performance" in a FPS is almost entirely illusion.

Like the game of golf,* most of the difficulties are purely artificial. Presented as challenges to the player and scalable to his ability. The environments, advesaries, weaponry and tactics do not have to be realistic.

_____

* When the time-and-motion man Frederick Winslow Taylor discovered golf he couldn't stop thinking of ways to remove its difficulties. The perfect green. The perfect ball. The perfect club...

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

just rember that modern fps's are designed with a gamepad in mind and then ported to pc.
thus fps uis arent really optimised for people with a full keyboard.
lots of things that we should learn to avoid though, like not allowing someone to reassign buttons as they see fit and giving them a limmited set of arbitary presets instead

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Are you suggesting we should take all the 1000+ commands in word and condense them into ~10 keys? Good luck with that.

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[Electricity Likes Me]

No, but if you consider a menu bar, it very easily let's you access the whole thing from the keyboard. It even tells you in the UI *how* to do this. Not so for the Ribbon.

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Push the alt key.

Re:It's a matter of priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

For instance, how many FPS games have a ribbon-type interface for weapon selection? FPS is probably the single most performance-emphasizing part of general computing, so there may be a lesson or two to be found there.

With notable exceptions. Have you tried using the squad/spawn interface in Battlefield 3? The worst.

Alternative interfaces

[frisket]

I wish there was a similar OS 9 mode for OS X.

It's called Unity :-)

Desktop effects

[Hero Zzyzzx]

I often wonder how many aggregate person-lifetimes are wasted waiting for desktop effects to complete. . . could we, for instance, bring up the designer of the OSX minimize effect on murder charges?

Re:Desktop effects

[Anonymous Coward]

I often apply your reasoning to anti-virus and Windows systems (boot time 5x longer; daily 30-45 min background scan; updating virus definitions; updating virus software; occassional manual virus scans— an entire economy has sprouted around this neverending and absurd exercise), and the only sane conclusion is the OS is fundamentally broken. Starts out about 10% broken, but within a few short months rapidly reaches 60-80% broken. Its amazing that somehow its continued licensing and use is rationalized by "it runs the software we need," when the cumulative centuries upon centuries wasted trying to operate the broken system could have been spent developing mountains of software on a system that isn't broken, and is still somehow free.

Re:Desktop effects

[Robert Zenz]

Agreed. Especially if the argument is "it runs the applications I need" where "applications" is Facebook, an illegal copy of Photoshop and the Bold-Button of Microsoft Word.

Re:Desktop effects

[drx]

No time is wasted, because, no matter what you personally feel, in the 0.3 seconds the animation runs you are anyway occupied mentally switching the context to the next motion or thought you want to execute. The animation might only be perceived in the corner of your eye, but it will help you later to locate for example minimized objects. If the animation is not wrongly designed of course. ;)

The binary style of "window is there" / "is not there" or "window is big" / "small", without transitions in between, is more or less wasting a lot of perceptive potential. People have learned as babies how objects are behaving, tapping this knowledge with UI animations is fine.

Also, "fastness" is not the main point to look for in efficient UIs. Most of the time is spent thinking, not typing. Except when you're receiving a dictate you just have to type down. If you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again and want your software to be faster, without animation, your task should be replaced by a script. Or the GUI needs to be completely re-organized, for example by collecting all choices you have to make and present them at one point in time, then executing them without supervision.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[heinousjay]

Ah, the shill argument, the first resort of the "my opinion is obviously objectively right" nerd.

At least you have the courtesy to start out with a line that lets us know you have nothing useful to say.

Re:Like and Okay

[TaoPhoenix]

It's a difficult problem!

I remarked that my two Anecdotal Users "liked" that ultra low level understanding of Safari = Internet. I think it's rather disturbing, but I will politely call it the "wide base of learning problem" where any brand new field of information will have a wide swath of extremely confused users in a big circle at the base. These are decent guys who just didn't get the whole Computer Revolution thing, but they're stuck needing to check their email, so that's the best they can do.

Likewise, don't ask me any car questions. Or road navigation. Or hunting/fishing/golf/_____/____/_____ questions. I'd look equally dumb. Not even Command Line ones! (Oops, is my Geek Cred now at risk? Oh well!)

However, once I DO know how to do something, the message for companies is "don't take it away later." It's like the story Harrison Bergeron - "Let's move everything around so much that Everyone Becomes Equal because none of the stuff the old power users liked works anymore."

Re:Windows 7 theme

[InsightIn140Bytes]

I hate "pinned" apps. If it's not open I don't need it "pretending" to be open on my task bar. It's already got a desktop shortcut.

In turn, this is one of the things I love about it most. I rarely see my desktop. In fact, the only time I do is when I boot up my computer. If I have to minimize everything to start a desktop shortcut it messes up my workflow and the window orientations. I pin my most used programs to taskbar and they're quickly there if I need them, and they're out of way when I'm actually using them already. If it wasn't for that I would have to go to start menu, write part of the programs name and run it there. I also do have separate pinned programs in start menu, but they're ones I'm not constantly running. In task bar I have those that are almost always running. That combination makes things much faster and nicer.

Non sequeter

[ilsaloving]

First he complains about things like the ribbon bar, or the way apps like iCal look, and he 'solves' it by changing the OS theme? How exactly does that help?

Re:Non sequeter

[Fri13]

He did not change OS theme (as there ain't such) but he changed the desktop and application style and theme.

And no, it does not help...

Why is amazon cool and apple junk?

[vlm]

Miller's got some harsh words for Apple, too: 'And of course, there is the transgression of the century: Apple's downward spiral into overt 1:1 metaphors. The physical bookshelf, the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page), the false-paginated address book...these new tricks are horrible and offensive [and likened to Microsoft Bob]. They're not only condescending and overwrought, they're actually counter-functional.

Why is amazon.com cool, and apple junk?

If the design teams were switched, I would imagine the worlds biggest online retailer would be something like second life, no "grep" or "search" just have to walk endlessly around a virtual walmart, standing in virtual lines at the checkout counter, trying to sign virtual credit card receipt after being handed it by virtual slacker teen by waving the mouse around to make cursive signature, and empty because no one uses it, no one would ever put up with that garbage. If a website tried anything that stupid, it would be insta-replaced by a slightly more intelligent website. God only knows what stock trading websites would look like if OS UI designers made them. Imagine if /. were designed by the same gang of idiots, we'd have a cork background and have to use MS-Paint with virtual dry erase markers to hand draw our comments and then push pins inserted with mouse gestures. Overall, website UIs are much better than OS UIs, because they have to be.

I would theorize that the cost of setting up a computer OS and hardware business creates so much friction that competition cannot create a better UI. Sure, I could trivially do better than MS or Apple or Unity, but I cannot afford to try, so we get junk.

You want to see the future of OS UIs, go to websites. The future looks a lot like the google homepage, or Amazon.

I have the technology and skills to make a website UI as bad as an OS UI, but I'm not dumb enough to try it because market forces would crush me. Won't happen to multibillion dollar multinational corporations, so thats why their products are trash.

Re:Why is amazon cool and apple junk?

[DarkOx]

Amazon.com would make an interesting FPS. First Person Shopper?

Re:Why is amazon cool and apple junk?

[ceoyoyo]

Crowded, slow, confusing and mostly ads. Sounds great.

You don't memorize them

[Colin Smith]

They become part of you.

User interface as a message from the designer

[TuringTest]

The best advice I've found for thinking about user interfaces is by CS. De Souza, the author of the
Semiotics of Human-Computer Interaction. She calls the interface a 'design deputy', meaning that the interface is to be seen as a message from the designer saying "this is what I know of you and what I think will serve you best".

The most the designer knows about the users, the better tailored the interface will be. A designer may indeed be condescending when giving that message if she doesn't really know enough about the targeted user.

Re:User interface as a message from the designer

[TuringTest]

s/design deputy/designer's deputy/

Re:User interface as a message from the designer

[westlake]

A designer may indeed be condescending when giving that message if she doesn't really know enough about the targeted user.

The key words here are "targeted user."

For an office suite, that will be the 9 to 5 clerical worker, the office temp, and the senior volunteer.

They are the ones who will be doing the heavy lifting.

Re:courtesy

[TaoPhoenix]

Nah, UI is one of those topics that isn't "objectively right".

But opinion is growing that the fellow I replied to is a commissioned marketer somewhere related to the Microsoft-oriented sphere. Check his posts, he's "on message" a lot.

So I gave him the slightly-snarky tip of the hat, in that sometimes it's fun to banter with a paid marketer.

It's not better, it's different.

[Lumpy]

And that is the problem.

Every single Iteration of Linux or Windows creates a ball of confusion for everyone. Microsoft starts hiding things, moving things, or WORSE, re-naming things.

Honestly, if you put in consistency so that a person looking for system tools like. Updates, Software Manager, Hardware Manager, etc.. It's easy to find.

But the latest iteration of Ubuntu and Mint, it's easier to drop to a shell and type sudo apt-get update than it is to find the farking Update manager.
In windows, Add and remove programs is now renamed. And unless you change away from the "idiot at the wheel mode" of control panel you will have a bugger of a time finding it.

Microsoft renames and reshuffled everything to force their certifications to be updated every release, but the Linux people have ZERO excuse for making thing confusing as hell by renaming and putting something important like Update Manager Under "Menu,Other" It fricking goes under Menu,System... Anyone in charge of layout in Mint that put it in "other" needs to be beaten with a sack of doorknobs until they lose consciousness.

It seems we have entered into the era of change for the sake of change and not for the sake of better. I honestly am waiting for Windows to rename "control panel" to "shiny stuff" in windows 9.0

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[vlm]

I honestly am waiting for Windows to rename "control panel" to "shiny stuff" in windows 9.0

With the long term trend in the groupthink arena toward icon-ization, we are nearing the point where there will no longer be words or names. The inability to discuss the interface is an advantage for marketing, to some extent. It is 1984 new-speak like.

So, click on the shiny ball (color depends on your local theme). Then click on the paradichlorobenzene molecule, don't know what that is, well tough cookies. Then click on the smiley face. Ta da you're now upgraded. Whatever you do, don't click on the icon that looks like two mating centipedes. And the Cthulhu icon, thats not a good choice either. Who knows what any of this will do, and if it doesn't do what you wanted it to do, thats because you're using it wrong; the user is always to be blamed either for being too much of a power user or too much of a noob. Our UI did great in the focus groups; everyone knows focus groups are never wrong; after all they brought us Palin, Hillary, and Britney Spears; our UI is proven perfect QED.

Think about even simple stuff like replacing the "my pr0n" directory with a wordless ribbon-like icon... we probably won't be able to agree on an icon of exactly what body part, nor agree on female or male, nor even what species.

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[Erikderzweite]

To be fair, it has always been easier (at the very least, much much quicker) to do apt-get from a command line than to deal with a GUI.

Me, I like fiddling with interfaces, see new paradigms and ideas. As long as I can have drop-down quake-style terminal (yakuake or guake).

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideally the "My Pr0n" icon should change depending on the gender and age of the user. If you're between 13 and 18, it defaults to that really hot picture you found in the woods on a dirty mattress that one time. If you're female, it's a beefcake. If you're male, it's just a pair of tits, and they bounce when you mouse over the icon.

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[Tooke]

Ubuntu, Mint != every single iteration of Linux. If you think they're too confusing, find a better distro. I use Arch myself.

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[rapidreload]

Off-topic, but it's probably not a good idea to label your "my pr0n" directory as such. If it's just a general cache of porn, then call it "pr0n". "my pr0n" suggests it's actually porn you did yourself, which might not be quite so interesting to someone borrowing your computer.

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[Waccoon]

To be fair, we were on an upswing for a while. I remember when every interface in the early 90's was getting icons everywhere, showing off all this newfangled Truecolor hardware. By the late 90's, things started returning to sanity and we started getting text lables again, most notably in the navigation buttons of Netscape (the new face of computing).

Ten years from now, good GUI design will be back. It's a shame we'll have to wait that long. There will always be marketeers looking for ways to shake things up, and it will probably be based on something that happened this year.

Anybody else want to imply hot design is just a cycle of fads?

Re:It's not better, it's different.

[vlm]

Anybody else want to imply hot design is just a cycle of fads?

Programmers... the women's fashion designers of the future

Indeed

[lightknight]

That appears to be the focus of GUIs these days.

A well-designed GUI is fast, efficient, user-friendly, and conveys the maximum amount of information possible to the user without overloading the user's senses.

Many GUIs these days fail to do this. Why? Many reasons, which I will now list:

1.) The CLI Guys -> these people believe the command-line interface is that cat's ass. Anything that can be done with a GUI can be done with a CLI, plus it works with pipes! What's not to like?
2.) The Artists -> these people think that a GUI is a social commentary on the growth of the computing industry and mankind's adjustment to technology. They treat every GUI like it should belong in an art gallery somewhere, and their work tends to resize like sh*t. Elements are not anchored correctly, discerning what is an clickable element and what is just an image / background may take several moments and a careful read of the online help manual. Look for navy blue text (size 8) on a royal blue background.
3.) The LCDs -> these people create GUIs for the lowest common denominator. They assume that the user is an absolute idiot, and make even the smallest configuration changes go through a 15-page wizard. The greatest experience an IT professional can feel is setting this program up correctly once, and never having to run one of those wizards again.
4.) The Minimalists -> these people are like the CLI guys, but they decided to include a half-broken GUI just to tease you into thinking that you won't be spending several hours looking through various usenet posts looking for the proper flag to launch the GUI with. The GUI will be extremely simple, with a poor design and badly labeled elements (the checkbox with a non-descriptive name or in a few instances, no name), which includes a link to the manual explaining a highly comprehensive scripting system for anything more complex.

   

Re:Indeed

[vlm]

I like your list

I'd add some more categories

The Mappers. If your app/OS has a menu-like structure, they have it memorized like a big city mass transit commuter has memorized their home city travel maps. They utterly despise dynamic menus and icons, because they can't talk with each other about a fundamentally non-constant geography. Changing the map, especially without telling them, makes them rage.

The Realists. "Emptying the virtual trash can" (the concept of which is a disease of Realists to begin with) should involve using the WASD FPS keys and mouse look to walk over to a photorealistic rendered trash can, then use the E key to pick up the bag, and WASD and mouse look to walk outside the kitchen door to the garbage cans and drop the bag in. Once a week on Thursday mornings you have to wake up early and log in before 6am to haul the garbage cans to the curb, if you're late, well, you gotta haul twice as much next week, mkay? Complete with sounds of crickets chirping, and a USB powered rotten vegetable smell emitter.

The Scripters. Wrote a puppet script to install and configure this app. Finances done in VI (vim) editing a scripting language that when run, outputs my balance/income/cashflow sheets (crazy as it sounds, been there, done that in the pre-Quicken era). If it can't be done with pipes, it can't be done. Master of the crontab, the concept of which is a great mystery to windows/mac users (whaddaya mean you ran the 5am report, you aren't even at work at 5am?)

Re:Indeed

[deanklear]

5) That dude who made Microsoft Bob => who finally landed another job designing iCal and Address Book for OS X Lion.

Re:Indeed

[lightknight]

Hmm. I thought B. Gate's future wife headed up that project...

Re:Indeed

[lightknight]

Ah, puppet...

I'm going to give you a 6/10. I can sense some angst in your writings, but I feel you're holding back on me. Now, think about some the tasks you will perform at work on Monday, or when someone asks you to come over and 'help' them with some sort of program that will kill your Tuesday night. Focus...focus...and go!

The one advantage of the ribbon

[Anonymous Coward]

It took me a while to get used to the ribbon, and I'm still not sure I like it; however it does have one advantage: reformatting options can give you a full-document preview before you make the change. With a drop-down menu that's visually more difficult.

Going back to the original post, it's not so much condescending in the sense of over-simplification, but rather entertainment for those with poor concentration.

Re:The one advantage of the ribbon

[Fri13]

Preview function and Ribbon toolbar are two different things. The real time preview could have been added without ribbon and vice versa.

ps. Did you know that Microsoft did not invent Ribbon but Ribbon is from Lotus and Macromedia? They abandoned it because it was too hard and difficult for advanced users.

Training Wheels

[drooling-dog]

I look at it like training wheels on 2-wheel bicycles. They definitely make it easier for a beginner to make it down the driveway and back, but at some point they become a hindrance and you'll want them off.

This isn't about old geezers pining for the UI they used back in the day; they're used to changing UIs and have been through many. This is about not being able to remove the training wheels, or to get a bike without them.

Re:Training Wheels

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, there are people who use a Tricycle, or a Quadcycle, instead of trying a Bicycle, or as more commonly known, the Motorcycle.

Re:Training Wheels

[bonch]

I look at it like training wheels on 2-wheel bicycles. They definitely make it easier for a beginner to make it down the driveway and back, but at some point they become a hindrance and you'll want them off.

This is a bad analogy because it's not applicable. The training wheels exist because the person on the bike hasn't developed a physical sense of balance yet and will fall onto the street without them. They're not hiding some part of the interface of a bike. You still pedal the bike with or without training wheels. The success of these new UI paradigms in the market suggests that they are not considered a hindrance to most people.

This isn't about old geezers pining for the UI they used back in the day; they're used to changing UIs and have been through many.

And yet, like the author of this submission switching to Windows Classic, they disable new features so that they get a behavior similar to the specific UI they're used to.

Re:Training Wheels

[janeil]

I'm curious, since I've recently bought a new laptop with win7. What new features (other than visual eye-candy) does one lose when switching to windows classic?

Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not defending the ribbon, but as for the screen real estate issue with Ribbon, you can improve that by double clicking on the "Home" tab (or any other tab). The meat of the ribbon will be hidden, and now it's more like a good ol menu (gosh!!). Double-clicking on Home again restores the ribbon to it's full, bloated glory.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[repvik]

THANK YOU!

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah, that was so simple it is embarrassing that I didn't realize it. I'm still not wild about the ribbon, but I mostly do not find it hurts my productivity. The quickbar or whatever they call it makes it tolerable because I can put most of the things they left out or buried that I use all the time there.

But there are still some things that it inexplicably won't let you do, like put superscript or subscript on the quickbar in Excel. You can do it in Word, but not Excel. It makes putting in complex units and equations on graphs almost intolerable. And if you try to get clever and make the titles in word and paste them in, it doesn't seem to keep formatting and strips the super/subscripts.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

CTRL+F1 does the same, for those of you who prefer keyboard shortcuts.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Surfing the internet is occasionally really useful. This is a great tip. Thanks.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for repvik, but I've been using Office 2003 until very recently, specifically because any "modern" version sucks. I'd argue that a user interface that requires you to Google how to make it useful is exactly the kind of condescension this thread is about. Menus are compact, the keyboard shortcut is written right on the menu item, so it teaches you the fast interface. The only people a ribbon helps are new users.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[theArtificial]

Menus are compact, the keyboard shortcut is written right on the menu item, so it teaches you the fast interface. The only people a ribbon helps are new users.

Which apparently the world is full of. FAQs were created to address common questions and are deployed across websites, software, and even helpdesks to address common issues much like what the Ribbon does. Less basic questions are a good thing for everyone. If you're as proficient as you state you have (hopefully) realized you are able to continue using the same familiar keyboard shortcuts. New users win, power users win. I fail to see the challenge here.

I'd argue that a user interface that requires you to Google how to make it useful is exactly the kind of condescension this thread is about.

There is a help system built in which can address questions a user may have and apparently that wasn't used either. It has videos and text instruction. While typing in "hide ribbon" which someone would by double clicking (or even right clicking! are you going to argue most users don't do either of these things too - I see people double clicking hyperlinks all the time) customizing the ribbon is detailed as well as how to restore the classic menu (since I can't link you to the 2010 help system). Let me guess tl;dr? I don't even use office daily and yet I know these things. What does that say about you? At some point you need to become proficient with the tools you use on a daily basis, it's not that hard and if it is why don't you take some initiative and change that? It's not 1986 anymore and office computer proficiency is an essential skill for an increasing majority of paid professions at some point.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were too stupid to find that out by yourself, you have no business complaining about the Ribbon.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

My main problem with the ribbon is how little sense the categories make. It's like they hired someone to design it who has some strange neurobiological condition where they are mentally incapable of placing things in the proper categories.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[geminidomino]

It's like they hired someone to design it who has some strange neurobiological condition where they are mentally incapable of placing things in the proper categories.

Hey, all those developers making point-and-click "pixel hunter" adventure games in the 80s and 90s need to make a living, too, you know.

And H2G2, you are still a bastard.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[frist]

Yeah except the menus would be there while the ribbon is hidden and you can't do jack. So of course you have to click again to get it back...

Ribbon is about the most retarded thing I've ever seen. Different targets, different size, some pictures, some words, some pictures and words, some big pictures, some little pictures, crap spread accross different ribbon tabs.

OMG so bad. Old menu system + toolbar was so good. Ribbon is so bad. So bad and inconsistant. Review ribbon tab makes no sense in Visio but it's there. Not to mention that now some apps have ribbons some have menus....

Office 2003 was the last good version. When I was forced to upgrade to 2010 from 2003, I desperately started looking for an alternative. I even downloaded openoffice and seriously considered using it...

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[phlinn]

Unfortunately, the quickbar does not work with roaming profiles because it's stored in local application settings instead of roaming data (This information may be outdated.) It's not alone, lots of programs don't handle roaming well one way or another.

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[randizzle3000]

Wow! Why don't more people know this, I'm telling everyone about this. Thanks AC!

Re:Menu-izing the Ribbon for screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

so instead of having to click to find the right tab and then click on the button, I get to double-click to open the ribbon and double-click to close it again in addition to clicking the tab and button. Wow, thanks, Microsoft, you make my life better in so many ways!

HA! that's a condescending comment!

[Anonymous Coward]

To paraphrase you:

"Ribbon is better, and if you don't like it, that is because you are resisting change"

I think that's the biggest mistake the designers and proponents of the new UIs are making (mind you, not all of them, but it is widespread to the point of being annoying).

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[Nursie]

It's a line with many variants that's used all over the place. Esp. in software departments IMHO. Any criticism of management can always be put down to developer negativity or obstructionism, regardless of actual merit of argument.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[quixote9]

Exactly. And a commenter who shows so little understanding of what condescension is doesn't inspire me to believe that they'd have a clue about which UIs condescend.

Just for the record, I'm a user who completely agrees with the post. Make it easy for me to customize the UI to suit my workflow = Not Condescending. Shove big shiny buttons at me that mean my work takes more clicks to accomplish = Condescending. (Why, yes, I do hate Unity. Why do you ask?)

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[BasilBrush]

Make a UI customisable and people that like customising will waste far more time customising it than they'll ever save from the customisations they've done.

It also makes documentation, training and support harder, when users have different UIs due to customisation.

(I'm distinguishing here between "options" that change how an app works, and "customisations" that affect the look and feel of an app.)

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[sqldr]

I found embracing change makes me a less angry computer user. Hell, I am one of those rare people who likes gnome 3 and always hated the taskbar anyway. I'm managing fine without one!

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[cyber-vandal]

The ribbon would be fine if there was a way to turn it off for those who don't want it. However imposing it on people who know their way around the existing interface is bound to cause resistance. I got patronised for my trouble when I criticised that decision.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[bonch]

You don't explain what makes it a mistake. Much of the resistance to these new interfaces comes from nerds--people who are well-known for being crotchety, resistant to change, and attached to obsolete realms of knowledge that they invested time in.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[ulricr]

in the article, you can see that it is largely about change that Paul Miller has a problem with, especially with regards to Microsoft. He says he feels betters with Windows 7 with the poorly implemented Windows 95 theme mode! Are you saying Win95 was a paragon of good design compared to today? that doesn't make sense. his points about Apple and real-work metaphors not actually being helpful on a computer is a good point, but it's really borrowed from another article (which he links to) and he doesn't expand on that. He just says that the new operating systems are just new lipsticks on the old OS and he's rather use the old OS directly instead and not have all of this glitter. the ribbon is interesting. you may not like it, but you have to explain why without referring (muscle memory, screen real estate on old computers) otherwise you are just indeed complaining about change.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[im_thatoneguy]

Except that these companies do extensive user testing and have found that these new UIs are faster than the old alternative for the vast majority of users.

So they aren't being condescending, users are just superstitious. "The earth is round." "IS NOT! IT OBVIOUSLY IS FLAT!" "Ok.... Ummm.. you're wrong." "STOP BEING CONDESCENDING!"

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[PaladinAlpha]

Aren't you the guy carrying on elsewhere about how programs can't be condescending? And here you are describing the very process by which a condescending UI is designed. "Well, the users can't handle that, so we'd better not give them the option."

Doc and support is a non-issue. Support request? Options->Interface->Change to default interface. Done!

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[BrokenBeta]

Well maybe for some examples, not the ribbon though. The ribbon objectively IS better than the Office 2003 setup.

We know this, because Microsoft did an absolute SHITLOAD of user interface testing on this.

(link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx)

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[cheekyjohnson]

Are you saying that my opinions isn't 100% objective fact? Are you trying to say that forcing something on someone won't always make them like it? Please! My opinion reigns supreme! You're just resisting change!

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[BasilBrush]

Aren't you the guy carrying on elsewhere about how programs can't be condescending?

Yes.

And here you are describing the very process by which a condescending UI is designed. "Well, the users can't handle that, so we'd better not give them the option."

I didn't say that, so don't use quotation marks. It's your opinion that not giving customisation options is "condescending". I don't agree. If you buy an electric drill from a hardware store, do you expect a choice of colours? Tools don't need customisation.

Doc and support is a non-issue. Support request? Options->Interface->Change to default interface. Done!

And then when you've finished you need to inform the user how to change back to their customisations, otherwise they're pissed that you broke their app. Two extra things that need doing. And all for nothing.

Customisation is such an all round waste of time.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[PaladinAlpha]

I didn't say that, so don't use quotation marks. It's your opinion that not giving customisation options is "condescending". I don't agree. If you buy an electric drill from a hardware store, do you expect a choice of colours? Tools don't need customisation.

First, changing buttons around on a toolbar is nothing at all like changing colours on a drill. Changing buttons/menus/other layout is a functional difference, not a cosmetic one, reflecting changing the patterns in which functions of the tool in question are accessed. Changing the color of the drill would be much closer to ... changing the color of the toolbar, and that's still not quite there, because the drill doesn't glow in your face while you're working. Maybe changing the color of your mouse?

Second, an electric drill is pretty much in no way comparable to a software product. They are both tools, true, but the solution space of an electric drill is a tightly-closed one-dimensional interval, and everyone who needs an electric drill has a lot in common in their problem space, i.e. they need to drill a hole. Since you know almost every detail of the use case, you can specialize ruthlessly, and so I agree that electric drills don't need a lot of flexibility. But word processors are used by a tremendously wide variety of people for a staggering array of tasks -- some of them will never, ever need to print, and some will never, ever need to fool with drawing, and some will never, ever need to fool with scripting, and so forth.

The whole premise of a modern word processor is that each person needs a subset of advanced editing functionality, non-aligned with someone else's subset; forcing a user to sift through features that are of absolutely no value because you feel they would waste time if they were given the opportunity to customize the layout is, exactly, condescension.

And then when you've finished you need to inform the user how to change back to their customisations, otherwise they're pissed that you broke their app. Two extra things that need doing. And all for nothing.

Customisation is such an all round waste of time.

Options->Interface->Revert to personalized interface. Done!

Of course, profiles would be better, but would need to be transparent and have a really obvious shift to default settings. Just because an interface requires some thought doesn't mean the functionality it represents isn't worthwhile.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[fuzzywig]

Trouble is, the tone of TFA is "the ribbon and all modern GUIs are bad, and if you like them you are a moron"

As ever, the truth is somewhere between the two extremes.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[avandesande]

I always say this to people who get mad if nobody laughs at their joke. If nobody laughs when you tell a joke you have failed.
It doesn't matter if the joke was funny and if you're delivery was good. When you are trying to make someone laugh you are catering to their sense of humor.

I wish interface designers thought this way.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[BasilBrush]

Since you know almost every detail of the use case, you can specialize ruthlessly, and so I agree that electric drills don't need a lot of flexibility. But word processors are used by a tremendously wide variety of people for a staggering array of tasks -- some of them will never, ever need to print, and some will never, ever need to fool with drawing, and some will never, ever need to fool with scripting, and so forth.

The whole premise of a modern word processor is that each person needs a subset of advanced editing functionality, non-aligned with someone else's subset; forcing a user to sift through features that are of absolutely no value because you feel they would waste time if they were given the opportunity to customize the layout is, exactly, condescension.

What you're really talking about there is not "modern word processors" but MS Word. That has pretty much the monopoly. And the open source competitor Open/Libre Office competes as most open source does by copying.

It got to be this enormous monolithic thing because every few years Microsoft wanted to sell an upgrade, and so they added features. For 20 years.

And so now, understandably you find it too complex, and want to hide the things you don't use. But that's the wrong fix. The problem is it tries to do too much. Much of the functionality of office should be catered for by other apps. For example mail merging should be done by a separate app. People that don't do mail-merging won't install that app. So the UI disappears without any need for customising.

Yes, an electric drill is a specialised tool that doesn't require any customising. And a carpenter has a tool box full of many other specialist tools, that also don't need customising. By using them in combination, he does a wide variety of work. That's how computing should be.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[PaladinAlpha]

What you're really talking about there is not "modern word processors" but MS Word. That has pretty much the monopoly. And the open source competitor Open/Libre Office competes as most open source does by copying.

It got to be this enormous monolithic thing because every few years Microsoft wanted to sell an upgrade, and so they added features. For 20 years.

And so now, understandably you find it too complex, and want to hide the things you don't use.

Not at all. Complex and comprehensive word processing predates MS Word by a considerable margin. The primary difference is the shift to the comprehensive GUI. Consider the alternatives: Tex, which, being script-oriented, by default presents only the requested functionality, and no one would waste time learning options for features or packages they don't need. WordPerfect in its prime had a huge number of options, but the display was devoted to the content and the options were accessed through modifier keys; you simply didn't bother with ones that weren't relevant to your task. More modern "small" word processors such as AbiWord and KWrite (Calligra Words now?) similarly have more than any one person needs. The availability of features is not a firm diagnosis of a bloated product. Regarding Word specifically, I don't find it too complex at all -- but I would be more productive if I could collect the features I use in a single area of the interface. That's trivially obvious.

The problem is it tries to do too much. Much of the functionality of office should be catered for by other apps. For example mail merging should be done by a separate app. People that don't do mail-merging won't install that app. So the UI disappears without any need for customising.

Yes, an electric drill is a specialised tool that doesn't require any customising. And a carpenter has a tool box full of many other specialist tools, that also don't need customising. By using them in combination, he does a wide variety of work. That's how computing should be.

This is completely orthogonal to your original assertion that omission of interface customization due to a belief that users could not function effectively in its presence is not condescension. In the interest of discussion, however, there is a gain in efficiency to be had from proper tool specialization. Suggesting that programs only contain features that they can present on the surface, however, takes the idea beyond its ability to contribute to productivity.

Consider, again the electric drill. Why don't carpenters carry an electric drill for each size bit, instead of a drill with an exchangeable bit? Surely customizing the bit indicates that the drill is trying to do too much? Similarly, app proliferation introduces more complexity than it solves when applied past a very coarse-grained threshold. Mail-merging is a fine example. You posit a separate mail-merging app -- one that must be maintained and updated separately. One that must, on its own, parse the file format of the original word processor, and handle its own rendering. What level of editing does it allow? How does it print? What if you want to save a copy of the result? What if you want to change formatting? These aren't "fringe" features. A mail merge is very seldom a matter of simply saying, "okay, merge this stuff." There are editing and formatting considerations, and there is no reason to move the solution outside the domain of the program that can solve them. The existence of the feature need not impact those that don't need it -- as long as they have the option of modifying the shortcuts presented to them.

Re:HA! that's a condescending comment!

[BasilBrush]

Add WordStar to your list. That was the de-facto monopoly Word Processor when I started. And mailmerge was a separate app.

Mailmerge and other things were gradually accreted onto Word Processors as I said because vendors had to sell new versions, and compete with competitors, at a time when feature checklists were a major marketing tool. People are suckered into feature checklists, believing they are getting more for their money. But the truth is they become less productive as their apps have ever more complex UIs.

Consider, again the electric drill. Why don't carpenters carry an electric drill for each size bit, instead of a drill with an exchangeable bit? Surely customizing the bit indicates that the drill is trying to do too much?

Not at all. As you point out the conceptual model of an electric drill is a thing that makes holes. The bit size is only a parameter. It doesn't do something different. By the time you get to using an electric drill for things that aren't drilling holes... sanding, grinding, sawing... yes you can get attachments for those things, but you're better off with dedicated power tools for those jobs.

You posit a separate mail-merging app -- one that must be maintained and updated separately. One that must, on its own, parse the file format of the original word processor, and handle its own rendering. How does it print?

But there you are talking about the convenience of the machine, or the developer. Applications should be designed for the user. All the things you mention are perfectly possible with either libraries or industry standard formats.

What level of editing does it allow?

Mail-merge is that which takes a document with field markers, and substitutes data from a file, usually of names and addresses. I'd expect to be able to edit the names and addresses. Possibly to take a Word-Processed file without field markers and to insert them in the mail merge app. But general editing of the document itself is the Word Processors job.

What if you want to save a copy of the result?

Do it.

What if you want to change formatting?

Word Processor.

You see these are two very different tasks that may not even be performed by the same person. For example creating the document will often be a marketing task. Merging names and addresses in an admin or operations task. You may not want the operations staff doing mail-merging to be at risk of accidentally or misguidedly editing the formatting or text of the document itself.

Sure, they often are performed by the same person, and yet it is still a very different task, that may be performed at different times.

The big win of not having the mail-merge functionality cluttering up the Word Process UI is shared by the 90% of WP users that never need to do mail-merging.

Meanwhile the task of doing mail-merging is made simpler for those that do it by having a UI dedicated to just that job.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate "pinned" apps. If it's not open I don't need it "pretending" to be open on my task bar. It's already got a desktop shortcut.

I Love that i can pin my commonly used programs to the taskbar. I have my task bar running vertically, up the right side of my monitor, and i often have multiple windows open plus tones of notes with sticky notes. Having those programs pinned, allows me a one click solution to opening them, if they were on the desktop, i would have to minimize all the windows first before clicking, or pull a windows+D then click. Again, one click solution for pinned items.. sounds like a great idea to me :)

Re:Like and Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

> Likewise, don't ask me any car questions.

The difference being that you'd probably be embarrassed by your lack and knowledge and want to correct that. So, if someone said to you "you use a Ford to access the Interstate" you'd call them out on that as it seems wrong.

Yet many casual computer users revel in their ignorance.

So wrong in so many ways

[stewbacca]

This article is terrible.

People don't like the ribbon because it sucks, not because it's condescending. It makes doing the job HARDER for both new users AND experienced users.

The bookshelf/faux leather metaphor is simply that. It has no functionality. It doesn't get in the way, so it's a complete non-issue. It is slightly offensive to anyone with a design-sense, but the world doesn't end because of it.

The fact that geeks like this author feel like they are being talked down to is why the millions of other non-geeks call us geeks. Computers aren't the sole domain for us. Companies have to make money, and when there are millions of more computer-challenged customers than experts like this guy, so they'll make their product for them. The fact this guy is mad about that tells me somebody should give him a Linux build.

Re:So wrong in so many ways

[Livius]

"People don't like the ribbon because it sucks, not because it's condescending."

I always understood it to be both. There's an argument to be made that the condescension is the root cause of the other problems.

Re:So wrong in so many ways

[itsdapead]

The bookshelf/faux leather metaphor is simply that. It has no functionality.

However, the functionality has been changed as part of the same "update". The old version of iCal had a 3 pane design with a list of your calendars and a mini calendar for the month for quick navigation. These have gone (the calendar list is now a pop-up). Likewise, address book has gone from a 3-column layout with groups/names/details side-by-side to a dual mode "groups" and "names & details" system which, as the summary says, doesn't even make any sense within the book metaphor.

This isn't about "condescension" though - the designs have been copied over from the iPad. On a tablet, they use less screen real estate have bigger objects to click on with our fat fingers, work better in portrait mode and the metaphors (e.g. running your finger down the A-Z tabs, and the page turn effects tie in with the swipe gesture used to turn pages) make more sense.

OS X Lion was mainly about rolling tablet features back into the desktop operating system for the benefit of (mainly) the Macbook Airs. Others start making sense if you try using a trackpad instead of a mouse. By and large, the changes can be ignored if you have a larger Mac, once you realize that "full screen mode" = "tablet mode" and if you want to use multiple monitors it makes more sense just to maximize windows. The iCal and Address Book changes are among those that you can't ignore.

Re:So wrong in so many ways

[EvilIdler]

Yes! The article *is* terrible. The Address Book GUI is just decorated with more crap. I don't care much for it, but I don't find it harder to use the program because of it. He's complaining about OS X no longer looking like OS 9. 1)Things improve (thank fuck - did he just thaw out of cryogenic storage?). 2)You CAN get the same block of icons as in OS 9! It's called Launchpad in Lion.

He's basically whining like he's just now started looking at the interface, briefly, but didn't make any attempt to even search for customisation settings. Maybe he's on Snow Leopard, the caveman :)

Re:So wrong in so many ways

[Kohath]

The article writer makes emotion-based arguments. UI design is a rational exercise, so emotion-based criticisms are of little value.

A UI is for getting something useful done. It's not about how you feel.

Re:So wrong in so many ways

[stewbacca]

Well stated. I'm not sure your comment will go over well in these parts. UI is not a science...to them.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Attila Dimedici]

In XP (and Vista) I have a Quicklaunch section of my taskbar for those apps I often open when I have something obscuring the desktop and then I have the taskbar itself showing me what is actually open. In Windows 7, Quicklaunch was merged into the taskbar, so certain apps are indistinguishable if they are open or just a quicklaunch icon. Additionally, in XP if I have multiple windows of an app open and there is room on the taskbar, they show as separate instances. In Win 7, they show as a single instance and I have to pick them out when I hover the mouse over them.

please

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. If you think you're clever, focus on custom software that is used within a company. Now, that's horrible. I could only WISH!! it was 1% as good ("condescending") as MS's and Apple's. Stop complaining about pretty good UIs, Mr. never have to do anything substantial on a PC.

Windows Classic theme

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I have been using Windows Classic scheme, with "optimize for speed not appearance" for ever. It removes drop shadows and animated windows opening and closing etc.

But despite this, the theme does not extend into the application user interface. If the user has selected windows classic, why cant the applications also decide to dispense with all the bells and whistles and provide a clean UI? I would actually like to set one knob that says, "I know what I am doing, treat me like an adult" all the way down to "I can't find my own nose in fog" and all parts of the computer, from OS user interface all the way down to application user interfaces and dialogs inherit the setting and behave appropriately?

Re:Windows Classic theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using Windows Classic scheme, with "optimize for speed not appearance" for ever. It removes drop shadows and animated windows opening and closing etc.

Just a side note, and I know it was not your only argument, but fyi if you are using Windows 7 on fairly new PC (3 year or less), you might be doing the opposite of optimizing for speed when turning Aero "eye candy" off. This is optimized to run hardware accelerated and often faster than the classic/barebone UI.

Re:Windows Classic theme

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it isn't in the dev budget, and it's hard to justify economically. If you want that, then you need to be willing to pay extra, and the publisher has to have a means of price discrimination, which in itself adds overhead too.

Plus, your particular mechanism is pretty obtuse. Would anyone else expect a non-Microsoft product to react to the choice of the classic theme?

Re:Windows Classic theme

[Tanuki64]

If the user has selected windows classic, why cant the applications also decide to dispense with all the bells and whistles and provide a clean UI?

I am software developer. And sorry, can't do this. Not because I don't want to, but it costs money.

I would actually like to set one knob that says, "I know what I am doing, treat me like an adult" all the way down to "I can't find my own nose in fog"

Again, sorry. Idiots rule. I would like to provide you with a clean interface, I do those for my own stuff, but idiots want bloated junk and that's where the money lies.

I want to vandalize the ribbon designer's homes...

[Zaphod-AVA]

I want to break into their houses, and take all of their possessions out of their closets and drawers and nail them shut. Then I'll lay all their stuff out in piles sorted by type and leave a note that says "There! Now you can find all of your stuff more easily! Have Fun!"

Aero doesn't let you change colors

[Chemisor]

I run classic, but not because I dislike the Aero look. I find it quite appealing. The deal breaker is the inability to change the theme's background color, which in every goddamned theme is bright white. Surely, everybody ought to know by now that black text on shining white background is the combination that causes the most eyestrain. Yes, most people seem to like it, and that's fine, but when you don't let those whose eyes hurt change the color to something more tolerable, it's little more than a giant middle finger poked right into our tearing eyes.

Re:Aero doesn't let you change colors

[Anonymous Coward]

You can change it for all applications except, sadly, explorer. Just click on "Advanced appearance settings." I keep a 200,200,200 grey all the time.

BTW, the inability to change the background color is one of the main reasons for me hating os/x.

Re:Aero doesn't let you change colors

[zippthorne]

I realize that this is not a solution, but it might alleviate your situation a little:

Get an LED monitor and turn the brightness down. LED, (or CRT, but where can you get those any more...) because the range is better. LCD backlights seem to only go down like 3dB in brightness between full bright and one bar above "off". And don't get any of those 300+ candela/m^2 screens...

Re:Aero doesn't let you change colors

[Chemisor]

No, turning down the brightness is not a solution. My monitor does can not be made dim enough to make pure white backgrounds tolerable, but even if it did, there are things like games that would be too dim to see with that setting. And, speaking of condescending UIs, all the monitors these days come only with buttons, making brightness adjustments a tedious chore of dozens of clicks. Making a simple wheel is clearly too difficult, or too "unaesthetic" a choice. Either that, or the designers simply don't think anybody would want to change the brightness setting more than once. None of them must have an office with a window, since experiencing the difference in lighting between the sun shining on your desk and heavy rain blocking it should have made the need painfully obvious.

Re:Aero doesn't let you change colors

[zippthorne]

On the Mac, the brightness button is the key that would be F1 and F2 on a pc keyboard. The rest of the UI is kind of condescending though. Especially Lion....

It's likely that your monitor has a driver & utilities disk with a utility that lets you control brightness and other settings in software, but if it's not physically capable of much range, then it's not going to do much good, I suppose. You might try looking at the accessibility options - there are some low/high contrast and inverted color settings that might be interesting for certain tasks.

Games are using pure-white backgrounds for text now? What ever happened to translucent HUD style overlays... I thought it was pretty much a solved problem for games. That IS annoying.

Re:Aero doesn't let you change colors

[Chemisor]

It's likely that your monitor has a driver & utilities disk with a utility that lets you control brightness and other settings in software

AFAIK this only works on laptops. Besides, my monitor is already at the lowest brightness settings. I even have to use the gamma correction slider to dim it further. It's a very powerful monitor :)

You might try looking at the accessibility options - there are some low/high contrast and inverted color settings that might be interesting for certain tasks.

"High contrast" means bright white text on black background, which is better than the reverse, but not by much. Inverted colors make the UI look very very ugly. Since the whole point of using Aero is that it looks better than the classic mode, inverted Aero has no point whatsoever.

There actually is a way to install a custom Aero theme if you crack the theme manager with UxTheme. I actually had that running for a while. The problem is that you have to create the whole theme yourself, and I don't feel like wasting a day figuring out how to do that. There are some existing dark themes, so I ran one of those. Unfortunately they are all using a black background, which causes problems with applications that force some of their colors and end up with black text on black background. After a month of that I gave up and went back to classic. There at least I don't have to learn a whole new programming API just to change the damn colors.

Re:Aero doesn't let you change colors

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical ignorant slashtard. You can change that in the advanced apperance settings. I guess if it's not a 20 line edit in a conf file, it can't be done. Fucking fags.

Re:courtesy

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, UI is one of those topics that isn't "objectively right".

But opinion is growing that the fellow I replied to is a commissioned marketer somewhere related to the Microsoft-oriented sphere. Check his posts, he's "on message" a lot.

So I gave him the slightly-snarky tip of the hat, in that sometimes it's fun to banter with a paid marketer.

Do you really think paid marketers bother with this obscure little corner of the web? I think that is seriously overestimating our importance to the world out there. You may have done more posting research on him than most, but these days shill and astroturf accusations are thrown out left and right whenever someone have an opinion different than your own (and yes,I've been here for years and it is getting worse). I've seen people with posting history clearly showing them to be Linux users and OSS proponents that have been called paid Microsoft shills because they dared to have a nuanced opinion contrary to some of the groupthink in a discussion.

It's the new Goodwins law.

Really?

[jon3k]

If the poster is so "advanced" he should know he can hide the ribbon and use keyboard shortcuts.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or does this entire article just seem like an older tech writer saying, "I want things back to the way they were with a UI." With the interfaces being designed for younger, and more established audiences, the way we're interacting with computers is changing and evolving. It's not that the UI is getting worse, it's that this writer's approach to a UI is still stuck in the past with designs that probably first got him using computers in the first place.

Kind of. GUIs today are in many ways worse - mostly due to added complexity and the tendency to base the interface on other software rather than real-world metaphors. There's a lack of focus on understanding how people actually accomplish their work.

BUT, this is nothing new. He's looking back with nostalgia and only seeing the good things that came before. The system GUIs may have been good, but LOTS of third-party software had thoroughly horrid GUIs. There was never a "golden age" of good GUI design.

We still need people who understand usability, and more importantly, we need to get the developers to listen to them.

Re:Really?

[twebb72]

Couldn't agree stronger. I'm in visual studio for the better part of my life, and I don't touch the mouse. I don't have to. Everything is a keystroke. And Microsoft has kept their OS completely accessible (minus web) via keyboard for 20+ years.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I hate "pinned" apps. If it's not open I don't need it "pretending" to be open on my task bar. It's already got a desktop shortcut.

I really like pinned apps, jump lists, and not having to care whether a document-centric application is already loaded any more.

There are plenty of usability things I do think they screw up in Windows 7, particularly relating to the basic Explorer window and command prompt, but I don't count pinned apps among them.

Only part of the population can think abstractly

[Kjella]

Apple's downward spiral into overt 1:1 metaphors. The physical bookshelf, the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page), the false-paginated address book

Only part of the population can think abstractly. The exact percentage differs somewhat depending on what standard you use, but about 40 to 60% of the population is able to think using purely abstract models in well developed countries, without a good education far less. The rest may be very smart if they're dealing with physical objects or people, but the less it works like the "real world" the more lost they get. I've noticed this myself with simple cubes for reporting. Once you pass three dimensions that you can draw up physically, people start to zone out. Programming is dark magic, as is writing an SQL query - for me I'm just making an abstract skeleton where "The hip bone is connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone is connected to the leg bone" and so on.

In theory, that sounds like a huge market but just because they can do it with some effort, doesn't mean it comes easily to people. The people that can easily, effortlessly think in the abstract and would like to do it in their daily computing is probably in the single digit range. And most of them are here on slashdot and swear by the CLI, which is the ultimate in abstraction. No graphical hints, no feedback, just type in a command and abstractly understand what it and any switches you apply will do, particularly if you daisy chain it though sed, awk and grep. You might argue that there should be a middle ground here where the UI is both powerful and easy to understand, but the people on either side aren't going to see it that way.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Gumbercules!!]

I got a new Win 7 machine at work a few months ago, and the first thing I had to do to it was to unhook a lot of the annoyances of the Win 7 theme.

Thus proving the parent argument. You didn't immediately understand the new UI, so you gave up and reverted to the old one. So your actual exposure to the new UI, from your own text above, is either negligible at worst or minimal at best.

To be fair, I likewise dislike pinned apps, versus the old quick launch bar, but this is because I equally never gave them a chance. Having seen others use them, I wonder if I made the right choice.

Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[Hentes]

Windowed UIs are a thing of the past, I would like an OS with a tabbed UI, which is as comfortable to use as a browser.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[burni2]

Yep, I concur.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[majesticmerc]

I've got just the thing for what ails ya: Chrome OS

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[Hentes]

Except that it's not an operating system. I won't dumb down my machine to a mere terminal.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what, Lion's fullscreen mode was made for such usage type.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[gl4ss]

.. are you an idiot?

run windows, keep programs maximised, the taskbar has your "tabs".

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[Anonymous Coward]

In Apple it's Command-tab. If you want to use the mouse, there's a tab list on the bottom called a Dock. Same thing with Windows. There a command (Ctrl-tab ??) to cycle through and a bunch of tabs at the bottom of the screen. If you like tabs up top, you can move them there in both systems.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see more installers with tabs, where the completed tabs are greened , the un-adjusted yellowed, and the incomplete/required in red.

Where all the questions are asked up front, rather than waiting for a blue line to make it part way through the install, then ask a couple questions, and repeat.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[Blakey Rat]

BeOS had windows with tab-like title bars, and any window could be added to a tab-set with any other window. (For example, you could create a tab set of your email and web browser, even though they were different apps.)

Any other implementation of tabs is completely half-assed. I can only assume the reason OS X/Windows haven't taken the idea is that someone holds a patent on it, or it's other legally grey.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[marsu_k]

Fluxbox does this, ditto for KWin nowadays. Although I personally find myself using the feature very seldom, just with a browser every now and then (one tab for misc browsing, one for documentation and one for work).

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[shutdown -p now]

GP is right. Taskbar is a system-wide "tab bar". What is wanted is app-wide tab bars (without having each app implement them in a subtly different way), or better yet, let user group windows into tabbed groups any way he wishes.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[shutdown -p now]

There are some X window managers that do something similar, but even on Linux they haven't been very popular.

I think one of the reasons is that, these days, we expect a little bit more from tabs than just closing them and moving them around. If some OS were to successfully implement it, they need to add some extensibility points there - e.g. the ability to extend the tab context menu, or to implement functionality like "reopen closed tabs", or even opening a new tab in the same group from some action inside the app (like middle-clicking a link); and the apps would then need to support it.

But it's certainly not impossible or even complicated, and yes, I'm also surprised that no-one picked it up.

Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI

[ceoyoyo]

Ew. The point of a multi tasking OS is that you can multitask. Two windows open, side by side, copying stuff from one to the other, or referring to one while doing something in the other. When I work I quite often have half a dozen terminal windows open, a few windows containing code and maybe a browser with some reference material (or Slashdot, for when I'm compiling, of course). All of which is arranged strategically so I can see everything that relates to a particular task all at the same time.

Tabs. I have an OS for you. It's called Windows 3.1.

Re:courtesy

[stewbacca]

Nah, UI is one of those topics that isn't "objectively right".

There are entire fields of study dedicated to "UI". There is are objective ways to measure good/bad interfaces.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Skulthur]

You can put back quicklaunch in Win7 easily (just google win7 quicklaunch). It's about the first thing I do in a Win7 install (while installing updates, say). That and removing about everything "Win7" like pinned tasks, grouped instances of the same application and the annoying maximize on moving the application to top of the screen and other idiocies. I still use the Win7 theme but it's about only for seeing the application when hovering it in the taskbar, which IS at least useful. I think I hated all those other changes that seems to be there just to be Mac-like. Hey MS if I liked the Mac UI, I would be on MacOS, not Windows, no?

why, did they steal your girlfriend?

[Lazy Jones]

Girls loved Clippy!

All change is bad

[bregmata]

All change is bad. Nothing must change. Everything should stay frozen the way it was when you were $(age_of_stasis).

Re:All change is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Including this counter-'argument'.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[amiga3D]

Windows7, the first time I was ever happy to see my work computer upgraded. Why? Because it meant no more Vista! I'm free, free! Thank you God and IT! The computer hasn't locked up in weeks. It's almost as good as using Linux.

Condescending? He needs to try gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul needs to meet gnome. It is not about change, it is about feature removal "because users are too dumb".

I am not sure about Apple, but Microsoft really doesn't come even close to being as condescending as Gnome, and as much as I hate Microsoft, you may bet I am not being kind to them.

Users are not retards.

What do you expect

[Sqreater]

when a society, from a warped sense of equality, gynocentrifies itself and ends up designing everything using a "cute" template for a feminine sensibility and a generally lower level of technical knowledge or interest. If you think it is bad now, wait a couple of years. You'll be talking to a computer that calls itself Hello Kitty.

Just change the desktop then...

[devent]

It's a shame you can't just change the desktop on Windows or OSX to something what you like. I would say the most best feature of Linux is KDE4 and it would be very nice for me to have the same desktop on Windows. Yes, you can install KDE for Windows, but it's not the same because the ugly and useless Windows desktop is still there.

PS: to not to start a flame war, please replace KDE with your favorite desktop, like Gnome or Xfce.

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[emurphy42]

I use fvwm, you insensitive clod! #okaynotreally

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want KDE3 back! Too bad there's no "classic mode" for KDE4.

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can. BB4Win..

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[notmyusualnickname]

Ah, but you /can/, sort of.

I used a *box like interface (bblean, and litestep) on my XP machines for quite a while.

.rc files are somewhere between between a joy and a pain in the arse to fiddle with though...

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. you can install things like 'Fly a kite OS' (or whatever it was called) on Windows, or you could a few years ago, changing it to a Mac like desktop, but i dislike OS X's irregular-looking dock, even a simple Gnome 2 panel at the bottom of the screen would IMO look way better,
- OSX's dock looks kind of pretty for 5 minutes, but it is in contradiction to the simple, clean lines that Apple bleats on about,
and as for intuitive - the built-in memory leak 'feature' on OSX - where closing the window with the red X window decoration,
  doesn't actually close the app, where as in the rest of the world red means Stop, or Danger - and an ' X ' window decoration means eXit,
thus OS X proves, in this respect, proves to be ' art for arts sake ' and is just being different for the sake of differentiating itself from the 'others'

The Gnome desktop environment, after looking very dull and tired for years, has just gone through a KDE4 type watershed, here again is a few UI failures they have been trying to redress, the hiding of standard and constantly needed UI elements is a 'bad thing' which is why beginners Linux distro's favour Gnome because of its lack of configuration (compared to, the famously configurable KDE)

I get many calls from people trying to do genuinly simple tasks on the PC because of this new fashion of hiding things from users. if you treat users like idiots, often go trying to install all kinds of dodgy shareware / adware /etc to get their objective done.

KDE really *is* where its at... its modern, very configurable, logical (for the most part) and it doesn't get in your way much .. i'm not talking about ' productivity ' here, because we all don't work in offices :) the majority of users are general desktop folks, who want to customise their desktop, like decorating, it makes a house into a home, its the first step into getting comfortable with a GUI. and hiding the lightswitch isn't really helping anyone ...

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[shutdown -p now]

It's a shame you can't just change the desktop on Windows or OSX to something what you like.

Sure you can. Windows desktop (icons etc) is explorer.exe used as a shell. There had been many other replacement shells for Windows. For example, here is BlackBox - look at the screenshots there.

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[Fri13]

What ugly and useless Windows desktop (aka windows shell)?
I have replaced explorer with plasma desktop and I have like desktop environment like I have when running Linux.
All widgets on desktops, own wanted panels and widgets on it, KickOff as menu, Dolphin as filemanager etc.

Only thing what shows to other people that it ain't pure KDE SC, is that I can replace WDM with KWin. And I love KWin as it is best window manager what is out there.

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[devent]

Cool, that's possible now?
Well, if MS could just update their OS to the "advanced" features, like symlinks and the possibility to open the same file multiple times in different applications.

PS: and you are modded 1, that's why /. mods are for the ass/

Re:Just change the desktop then...

[ceoyoyo]

You can run KDE on a Mac if you want. You'll have to compile it yourself though, because KDE doesn't provide binaries. Or you can use MacPorts to do it for you.

Re:want to correct that

[TaoPhoenix]

Hi AC!

The odd part is that somehow I don't want to correct my stunning lack of car knowledge. Or a lot of other topics. I call it the "benefit per study". My van only breaks something (wheel rod, shocks, whatever) say twice a year, so I just don't enjoy studying something I would never use. (I'm not about to try to replace a wheel rod!)

Sorta the same thing with the Manly Pursuits - it's just too steep of a curve for me in my tired old age (joking!) to learn how to sail a boat. Or get a hunting license.

Computers are fun to learn on, I got started early enough and quietly kept at it. So here I am.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, I am aware that I can put quicklaunch back. I just don't use Win 7 enough yet to do so. But how many versions down the road until MS eliminates that?

GUIs are condescending...

[malv]

They assume you are too stupid to type commands into a terminal.

Re:GUIs are condescending...

[Fri13]

You don't type commands to terminal, you type program names and their options in correct order. Then you combine them with used shell (terminal) functions like pipe, , alias and so on.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Oligonicella]

"You didn't immediately understand the new UI,"

There's a presumption on your part and a big one.

"A lot of the annoyances" sounds like he found those things annoying (window growth, window fall-back, semi-transparency...) and removed the annoyance.

I disconnected most of the new crap from Win7 as well. Not because I don't understand it, there's not that much to "understand" - I just don't like it. Simple as that.

Re:courtesy

[MightyYar]

Nah, UI is one of those topics that isn't "objectively right".

It can be if you have well-defined goals. At Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) they are probably words like "lower training time" and "looks awesome at Best Buy". I'd bet "more efficient for power users" is pretty low on the list. I can also see how those goals might be in direct conflict, and might result in a GUI that is frustrating for power users but actually preferred by casual users.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Yetihehe]

I love pinned apps, but only after I enabled showing app title, not only icons. If you enable titles, pinned apps are just icons, opened apps have titles. When they are opened, you don't have opened app AND icon in quicklaunch bar anymore, so it conserves some space.

Where is Variety and Choice?

[Anonymous Coward]

When is comes to free market products, there is supposed to be variety and choice. Some people want a simplistic GUI, others will prefer the bare CLI, and yet others are content with something in between. Every OS should offer these choices and then there will be no more controversies and arguments over ribbons, menus, or 1:1 metaphors. The world functions best when there is variety and choice.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

If he were being paid (by MS, I'm assuming you meant), I'd at least hope that he'd know enough that Win7 vs Classic theme does not affect grouped/icon-only taskbars. It's a separate option in the taskbar configuration dialog.

I For One, Disagree Wholeheartedly

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the Office ribbon is crap. That's not news. But, it's not crap because I feel it's condescending, It's crap because it is a moving target. They took a perfectly functional stationary menu/toolbar and replaced it with an "intelligent" and dynamic POS that is constantly being pulled out form under me. Where as I sue to know exactly where an option ALWAYS was, now it comes and goes and sometimes it moves here and there. It's crap.

But, 1:1 metaphors work extraordinarily well from the perspective of recognition and ease of first or simple use. They may not be the most efficient use of an interface, but they are still very good.

What does NOT work is the brief interface, such as that used in IE 9. The icons are moved or hidden, they are changed and no longer recognizable from what they use to be and offer no indication of what their function is. It is a terrible terrible design. But, they aren't the only ones. I'm seeing similar stuff in iApps and other places that I cannot recall at the moment.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Skulthur]

I don't know but this is a question I'm actually asking myself. Win8 looked to be continuing in the same trend (catering to the lowest common denominator) so I don't know what OS will be left for people who actually want to get things done. Linux is not really ready and the UIs do not seems to be what I want either from what I heard (the only one I tried personally was the one from ubuntu from last year or so but it seems it was all the same Mac-like stuff everywhere from what I heard). Am I the only one who want a better and refined XP? (say, something like a mix of Win7 and XP). I am a developer and I know I'm not the target market but why is it not customizable for the user? Why cater ONLY to the lowest denominator? What OS will developers (not-hardcore-enough-to-use-linux-yet I guess, I'm still pretty young) use to get things done when MS stop being that one? I wish I knew.

right

[Tom]

While I don't agree to all his details, the general point is strong and true.

One of the things that I have learnt to hate about all the recent MS Windows interfaces is how it tries to outsmart me. Not having used an option for a while? It'll hide it from you, so all the things that you need only rarely you always have to go and hunt around for. And I won't say anything about the "ribbons" interface, because there's not a single positive word I could say about it.

I also see the same trend in websites recently. Dumbing down and pseudo-smart seems the new trend. I long for my Unix commandline, where the system assumes I know what I'm doing and considers its two main jobs to be: a) do what I tell it to do and b) get out of my way as much as possible.

The computer interface is important, very important in fact. But not in and for itself. So let's kick all those artsy people and the managers and idiots out of user interface design and put some actual designers in charge again.

Re:right

[Blakey Rat]

One of the things that I have learnt to hate about all the recent MS Windows interfaces is how it tries to outsmart me. Not having used an option for a while? It'll hide it from you,

What year are you posting from? The last Microsoft product to do that was Office 2000. Fuck, man, you're talking about something Microsoft tried for about 3 years and rejected over a DECADE ago.

And I won't say anything about the "ribbons" interface, because there's not a single positive word I could say about it.

You've never even used it. Don't bullshit us.

Re:right

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never even used it. Don't bullshit us.

I have. Example: I wanted to make formatting marks visible. I thought: "..view formatting marks, it must in the 'view' menu."

Nope. View menu has all kinds of things to view, make visible and hide but noooo, formatting marks was in the 'home' menu.

Another example: "wow this is the new ribbon system, I'll learn hotkeys by memorizing them when I first do something with a mouse."

Nope. Hotkeys aren't visible anymore, like they used to on menu dropdowns after most commands.

I have to do raw text on a notepad now and then copy&paste it to Word for stylin' and printin' because of all the word processing bullshit. It really makes writing text much harder than what it is with a notepad.

Re:right

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? You *have* to paste in from Notepad? I know your UID is pretty old but come on man, you sound like someone who can't understand this new fangled electrical typewriter thingo. Press alt. All the hot keys will be visible. Not hard.

Re:right

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I won't press anything just to view something that should already be visible.

On second thought, they should hide icons and mouse cursor instead and make people press alt to see them.

Re:right

[danaris]

One of the things that I have learnt to hate about all the recent MS Windows interfaces is how it tries to outsmart me. Not having used an option for a while? It'll hide it from you,

What year are you posting from? The last Microsoft product to do that was Office 2000. Fuck, man, you're talking about something Microsoft tried for about 3 years and rejected over a DECADE ago.

That's not even remotely true. For instance, I'm absolutely 100% certain that Office 2003 did that—and a lot of people are still stuck using 2003.

Whether other or other MS products did, I can't say for certain, because I'm happily avoiding them now as much as possible.

Dan Aris

Re:want to correct that

[Anonymous Coward]

But you're missing the point.

A user interface is for when stuff is working *as designed*. You - quite reasonably - don't what to know how to mend your van when it breaks. And a normal computer use doesn't want to know how to replace a graphics card when it breaks.

But here, are you saying you can't be bothered to learn how to use that big round thing that's in front of you when you're in your van? Or the feet-pushy things that are down below? And all those little buttons and switches and dials in front of you. Gosh, I wonder what they're all for????

Re:Windows 7 theme

[oakgrove]

Insightin140bytes is almost certainly the latest in a long line of nicks that do nothing but paid shilling on Slashdot. This latest one started up right around the time CmdrPony dropped off. Before that it was cgeys, before that it was TechLA. This is the firm that is paid to shill on Slashdot.

next gen OS/apps

[Anonymous Coward]

I can hardly wait for the next version of Windows or OSX where you are not troubled by confusing files or settings, instead you have an "assistant" who “helps” (interviews) you: do you want to 1) do word processing, 2) do calculations, 3) view photos or movies, or 4) listen to music, (The selection process being a beautifully constructed point and click GUI with extreme GPU demands. Access to no other programs is allowed; the accessible programs are from the OS's walled garden only.)

On entering word processing another interview starts: Do you want to do create a new document, change an existing document ... on making that selection you are prompted to select from letter to a friend, office memo, office report... At the next level you will be interviewed as to document tone and "sensitivities” (gender sensitive, gay sensitive, Xian sensitive ...) Finally arriving at a new document you are again interviewed: start a new paragraph, end a paragraph, enter a heading, end a heading, enter a character ... On selecting enter a character, you will get to select from alphabetic, numeral, punctuation mark, special character, ... On selecting alphabetic, you get the menu upper case, lower case, selecting that leads to font and size ... menus. Another 5 min leads you to the actual character to be inserted, which is selected via a fancy scrolling/dissolving-overlay GUI. (No you can't just type the letter - how primitive that would be!) The PHBs will love it.

As to the claim that the ribbon interface is an improvement – that users just don’t like anything new and aren’t “used to it”: I’ve used the ribbon for several years now – it’s no longer new, I’m used to it, and I’m now convinced it's a bigger POS than when I first saw it. Last week I booted up a Win 3.1 machine (Athlon XP, 256K RAM) for the first time in years and was blown away by how fast and usable the old MS Office was on that antique. (Not that Win 3.1 was a decent OS, but you use the apps, they don’t use you.)

UI driving you crazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this guy thinks UI in the form of a physical bookshelf, a leather desk calendar and the false-paginated address book are "horrible" and "offensive", the paper-clip "condescending", I would suggest he has some mental issues.

Re:didn't immediately understand the new UI

[TaoPhoenix]

The difference is between choosing a UI to learn in the peace of home vs work. IT floated in, checked that data was saved to the server, and said "Hi. We're taking away your old machine with XP to do a fleet upgrade. Here's your new one with Win 7. Bye!"

Meanwhile reports were still due. So yes, I set about making "my" computer do what I needed to get work done.

Anyone seen the new Google Calendar / Gmail?

[AbRASiON]

I haven't been switched yet but I have briefly tried them.

Holy ......... what a mess, or rather - what a ridiculously over-clean, sparse user interface. Minimalism for the sake of minimalism. No lines to define where one item begins and another ends, worse shading and use of colours to identify rows / columns / boxes / sections. The entire thing is designed by committee. The old one feels like it was designed by technical people with design skills. Now it feels it's designed by designers with technical lackeys to perform the work.

The entire thing is more difficult to use and slows people down, a complete step backwards.
Sorry for the language here but this picture I've made was designed for another forum. Including the file name.
http://chattypics.com/files/newcalendarisfucked_4ynyf5yix1.jpg
I've outlined why the original one is better, it's designed logically and well themed, the colours match with gradients of light / dark depending on heading / menu / etc - there's simple, clean lines seperating items (which should be damned well seperated)
Etc

User interfaces seem to be generally getting worse and worse, it's quite unfortunate.

Re:Anyone seen the new Google Calendar / Gmail?

[gl4ss]

*Now it feels it's designed by designers with technical lackeys to perform the work.*

when your budget gets big enough, that's the only way to do things nowadays.. it's sad.

Re:Anyone seen the new Google Calendar / Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Gmail skin is like "Jitterbug" for email- more white space, more primary colors, less information density, seriously condescending to google users.

Re:Anyone seen the new Google Calendar / Gmail?

[swillden]

A lot of your comments on the new calendar look are just wrong.

I just opened up two calendars, side by side, one with the new look (including the removal of the black bar on top) and one with the "classic" look (which is still an option if you prefer it... just look under "Settings"). Things I noted:

1. The new look makes better use of vertical whitespace. Even with a slightly larger font I can see an additional hour of my schedule every day.
2. The extra lines and shadings separating UI elements, which you seem to like so much, make absolutely no difference for me. They don't make it any easier to find what I'm interested in. They're just clutter.
3. The darker bars on the top of each appointment don't accomplish anything useful. The layout of the text within the appointments is identical, except that in some cases the lack of the header bar allows more reflowing of text so that you can see more of the information.

In fairness, your screenshot was from a "mid-change" version. The full new look eliminates the black bar across the top, merging all of its functionality into the bar below it, which more than resolves your one real complaint. Note that you may still not have gotten the update that eliminates the bar. If not, it'll come in the next few days.

I also have to say that I think there is one big problem with the new look, and it has to do with the elimination of that black bar and the mechanism used to replace it. Now you cursor over the Google logo and a menu pops up that allows you to navigate between mail, calendar, contacts, and all of the other Google services. That wouldn't be too terrible, but the layout of the options in that popup is pretty weird. I have to go to "More" to get to calendar, even though the calendar is something I use a dozen times a day. But YouTube and News are on the first page of options, even though I rarely use those, except when they come up in search results.

IMO, the menu order ought to be personalizable, and perhaps be personalized automatically. Even better, for power users we should just have keyboard shortcuts that allow us to quickly hop from any Google service to any other. I do have confidence that this issue will get sorted out.

Re:Anyone seen the new Google Calendar / Gmail?

[frist]

This is exactly right. Office 2010 does this crap where they got rid of panes/lines. Those lines are there for a reason. Now I lose my title bar in another window behind it because the app behind it (e.g. Lotus Notes) has the same grey content as the stupid title bar with no lines in 2010. WTF is wrong with these people. I wish these so-called GUI designers would go work for a car company and try to redesign car controls...

After a while, we get things right, and then changing them is just change for change's sake and is not making things better. I've been with this GUI thing since X-Windows first came out. Lots of great stuff has happened over the years. Lately it's all going to shit.

Re:Anyone seen the new Google Calendar / Gmail?

[Waccoon]

From the image you posted:

"very easy to see this line wit... (*obscured*)"

It's nice to see someone with sensible design experience can live up to his critique!

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[TeknoHog]

I think the main point about computers is the abstractions they can handle. Or, in other words, they can handle much more complexity than what can be immediately visible. If you bring real-world limitations to computers, then what's the point of using computers? Perhaps tablets and "smart"phones are the answer, because most people don't seem to need a real computer with all its abstractions.

I haven't used recent versions of Windows or OS X, but I think the basic problem is there in early versions, for example the desktop metaphor. The typical Windows screen I recall seeing is a mess of partially overlapping windows, because there is only that one desktop, despite all the abstract storage you could have on a computer. Virtual desktops are a nice improvement, but few people seem to use them outside Linux.

The desktop metaphor also fails its basic principles in spectacular ways. In the real world, you move papers around by grabbing them at any point you like, but in Windows, you need to grab them at the top bar. Unix/X does this much more naturally, even if it doesn't claim to emulate a "desktop" in any way.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[TaoPhoenix]

Heh Vista.

I was part of the crew that recommended against Vista, and we just bought time and kept working. Per my other notes, I just set about customizing my machine and two days later mostly all was well. The core of Win7 seems okay vs XP.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still use the quicklaunch i'n win7, it is the only thing i changed. The rest i like.

Paul Miller is old

[Culture20]

I personally like clicking on a vague icon and not knowing what will happen. It's thrilling.

Re:Paul Miller is old

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Who doesn't like the "Orb of Confusion"? It does everything. Or confuses you sufficiently that you don't really care anymore.

Re:Paul Miller is old

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally like clicking on a vague icon and not knowing what will happen. It's thrilling.

Not sure if this is directed at the old style toolbars he is defending (which is exactly like that), or against the ribbon (which not only give more context/info about what the function does, but have live document preview, unobstructed by any drop down menues, of what the function will do to your document)

Re:Paul Miller is old

[CCarrot]

I personally like clicking on a vague icon and not knowing what will happen. It's thrilling.

Yeah. It's kinda like finding out what fun things your new car can do by poking all the buttons and flipping all the switches..."c'mon, I paid for an ejector seat, now which button is it?"

Not, however, advisable to try while actually using the car for its intended purpose. (Er, that would be driving, for the gutter-minded amongst us...although I suppose that other might be an even worse time to find the ejector seat button...)

Re:Paul Miller is old

[Culture20]

the ribbon (which not only give more context/info about what the function does, but have live document preview, unobstructed by any drop down menues, of what the function will do to your document)

All the ribbons I've seen are completely non-intuitive graphical menus that are haphazardly organized into what some middle manager decided was logical groupings. And I've never seen it do a document preview.

Re:Paul Miller is old

[Anonymous Coward]

the ribbon (which not only give more context/info about what the function does, but have live document preview, unobstructed by any drop down menues, of what the function will do to your document)

All the ribbons I've seen are completely non-intuitive graphical menus that are haphazardly organized into what some middle manager decided was logical groupings. And I've never seen it do a document preview.

Word 2010, default ribbon tab (Home), hover over the different Styles in the ribbon - instant document preview. For some options you need to click first to open up the selector (fx colour&font choice etc.), but then have instant document preview before choosing. But many of these will drop partly over document, so argument by anon above is not entirely correct. I also find the icons, text and groupings in the ribbon quite self-explanatory, more so than smaller and more cramped traditional toolbars. If you look at the Office 2010 ribbons I'm not sure how you could not (it is basically both showing and telling you what it does), but I hear you and guess that is just personal preference. I'm a really heavy duty Office user, and it took a long time getting used to the ribbon, but now I find it better, wouldn't go back. IMHO.

and TeX is like Ebola for graphic design

[decora]

imagine if you poured all of your text into a machine and it came out looking like a 3rd graders imitation of 19th century typesetting? oh, thats TeX!

also, you can do math formulas, or "maths formulas" if you are an ex-colonial empire member. they come out looking like the indecipherable bullshit at the top of any wikipedia math (maths) article.

so you can only yank an entire line?

[decora]

how do you mark just a single word for copy paste, or a couple of lines, but half of the third line?

how about a 'help file'

what about insert from external file?

justification?

how about pgup, pg down? move to end of line? move to begin of line? move to end of file, begin of file?

Re:didn't immediately understand the new UI

[Gumbercules!!]

Fair call. A good reason to get your PC back to the way you're most efficient with it. However it doesn't negate the fact that you barely touched the new UI before writing it off as flawed and then commenting about its shortcomings.

If you haven't really tried the new UI, a fair comment would be "I haven't really played with it yet but I am happy with what I know". Assuming anyone who did in fact bear with it longer than you and now even likes it is actually being paid to say this is probably taking things a little, far, yes?

Re:"A lot of the annoyances"

[TaoPhoenix]

Yes, you have echoed my feelings on the matter well.

UI features are for me to pick and choose among. Users have "Line Item Veto". We shouldn't have to just take the lumps handed to us by Lowest Common Denominator marketers.

My end result wasn't XP - I borrowed some new things XP didn't do. But I certainly turned off a lot of the Aero candy. I found that leaving three out of the 15 some settings gets you 60% of the shiny (so, better than Classic sure!) while turning the other 12 off stops short of the decreasing returns you started to describe.

Oh yes. Last point on the Ribbon. Gang, we need to think beyond these binary yes/no choice. I installed an *entire second set* of menus into Office 2010. So now I have the Ribbon AND the Classic menus. (And guess what? The old code is there! So yes, I don't like the new Print Page - so my plugin taps the existing older code.) I think the art of the AddOn is becoming a lost one soon.

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[joh]

Apple's downward spiral into overt 1:1 metaphors. The physical bookshelf, the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page), the false-paginated address book

Only part of the population can think abstractly. The exact percentage differs somewhat depending on what standard you use, but about 40 to 60% of the population is able to think using purely abstract models in well developed countries, without a good education far less. The rest may be very smart if they're dealing with physical objects or people, but the less it works like the "real world" the more lost they get.

And even those who *can* think using abstract models often just don't know that they can profit from things like an application having a unique design and style. Yes, things like fake pages and leather looks are just cosmetics, but they can make an app or a window look familiar and instantly recognizable among others.

Try it: use Expose in OS X and have only apps with "clean" UIs open -- they all look the same when zoomed out. The false-paginated address book still looks like an address book even at thumbnail size and you can find it without even trying.

Not everything that looks silly actually is silly.

Re:all those little buttons and switches and dials

[TaoPhoenix]

Actually this second part is a fair analogy.

"Where did they move Cruise Control to? Why is that back window wiper on a different control than the front wiper? Why can't I set the clock until I turn the CD player on? My compass is mis-aligned now, how do I get that to work again?"

Nothing mechanically wrong, just user features. That's a lot like what happened when File/Page Setup and Edit/Replace All moved to some ribbon. I finally found the way to turn off document protection last week.

Re:Graphic User Interface?

[lightbox32]

Command prompts? Switches and blinking lights are the real deal.

Re:courtesy

[jedidiah]

Good or bad for what exactly?

Getting under foot when I am no longer a complete novice?

The problem with "UI experts" is that they quite often ignore their own principles when it suits them. The current nonsense is a beautiful example of that.

Re:courtesy

[jedidiah]

Some parts like "useful dock applets" might actually be not so important to the sorts of total rubes that everyone seems to be pandering too lately. I can get why the average Mac user doesn't do much with the system menu. So having it "multitask" and be useful for something else might be pretty low on Apple's list of priorities.

That's why my Mac collects dust and I use something else.

That's also why it's stupid that developers want to make similar interfaces in Linux more "Mac like".

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware you can still use a QuickLaunch Toolbar in Windows 7, right?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/add-the-quick-launch-bar-to-the-taskbar-in-windows-7/

Re:Windows 7 theme

[jedidiah]

The old version of XP allowed you to do that quite simply by dragging the desktop icon to the main panel. You could make the main panel larger and have one row of "dock icons" and your usual program list.

This is a much clearer way to present the information. It also gives you a nice visible cue that you have 20 windows of an app open better than the current UI in Win7.

Of course they got rid of it.

The perfect solution

[Murdoch5]

I'm sick of hearing people rip apart UI design and functionality. This is one of many post on slashdot about how the modern UI is impossible to use and counter productive and etc.. etc.. etc... If these UI's bother you so much then sit down and WRITE YOUR OWN! There is a saying "if your not part of the solution your part of the problem", well in this case I would tweak it to read, "If your not part of solution don't bitch about it".

get off my lawn!

[nickferber]

back in my days we used to punch cards and it was worked fine for us! kids these days!

Windows (the metaphor, not the OS)

[fa2k]

Most OSes still support rectangular windows as the basic metaphor, but the big players are moving away from them: Apple with the full screen apps, Windows 8 with the tablet-like interface where the desktop is just another app, and to some degree Ubuntu, where the word processor starts in full screen mode by default, and it's not obvious how to make it a normal window. Web browsers have tabs, which duplicates the functions of a window manager, with a different interface. It is generally a pain to use multiple windows and multiple tabs simultaneously (in Windows 7, the tabs show up in the taskbar, but using Windows with more than 5 windows gets annoying anyway). Some text editors even do this: it's nice that I can split the screen in 2 in Eclipse as a kind of in-app window management, but what if I want to view some reference material + one of the Eclipse editors? Not gonna happen.

Is the window losing support as a metaphor? Are we moving away from window managers, making applications become "one-stop", full-screen experiences, which include everything the developer thought that the user would need?

(I'm not afraid of this, because I think that KDE will still do window management right until something comes out that is objectively better, also for demanding users. In the worst case, I could just stay on KDE4 anyway.)

Thanks for reminding me why I hate Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Nanny computers, for people who need them.

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[jedidiah]

> Try it: use Expose in OS X

All that really demonstrates is that it's a good reason for having a different "view" of the data when it's being accessed in that manner. What the app "looks like from a distance" is a rather silly design goal when you are imposing that on how the app actually works.

Re:Graphic User Interface?

[jedidiah]

A good shell is a handy way to get around features that aren't complete or well automated in GUI products. It can allow you "features" that would cost you $50,000 in a highly proprietary product otherwise.

Some ideas have just never made it into GUIs and probably never will.

Although the real point here is that a good GUI makes you want to reach for an alternate LESS rather than MORE.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[LazyBoot]

Additionally, in XP if I have multiple windows of an app open and there is room on the taskbar, they show as separate instances. In Win 7, they show as a single instance and I have to pick them out when I hover the mouse over them.

It's really simple to get that functionality back in windows 7 though. Also makes it easier too see if a program is running or just a "shortcut".

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

They're quite distinguishable, to me.

I note my Chrome, GEdit and CMD quicklaunchers are closed. My Firefox and Steam ones are open.

For me, at least, the ones that aren't running blend seamlessly with the taskbar, while the running apps have a white "fuzz" or "frost" to them.

I do wish they had made the "Show Desktop" button a little more noticeable, but I rarely ever go to desktop anyway.

Re: Grouping, right click on the taskbar and select "Properties". From the "Taskbar Buttons" list, select 'Never Combine'.

What a troll.

[chocobanana]

The guy from the article apparently is too attached to the past - he calls his bicycle a skateboard... and the article's first page of comments about the microwave bit say it all about how good and relevant his opinion is.

The Ribbon is being kicked around too much, but maybe it is because it actually deserves it. I find its principle of a task-oriented UI good but poorly executed, because those ribbons are a mess of icons.

I am not a fan of the *visual style* of iCal and do agree that skeuomorphic design (1:1 metpahors...) is being abused in detriment of good User Interface Experiences - it's giving more room to gloriously beautifying pixels than the content. On the other hand, I used Windows Phone 7 for a few months and while I agree that it is a fresh experience, it does get tiring after a while because it is too far off from what we are used to. It leads to relying too much on content as the means to define the visual experience. This makes it a problem because most content just sucks in terms of design or is too simplistic to make it immersive.

What is needed is a careful balance between UI design that relates to our experiences, both in UIs and the physical world, and content, so that this does not get overshadowed by the UI.

I think the author is just uninformed and being selfish in the way he writes. Going back to a 20th century UI because I'm too stubborn to accept UI evolution? No thanks.

Maybe I should start calling my laptop a typewriter...

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Classic ... my favorite quote has to be "assuming I don't know how to use a menu." Clearly he can't use the apple menu to find "System Preferences...".

I have to agree with stewbacca, the ribbon just plain old sucks.

That downward spiral quote can also be found here: http://ribot.posterous.com/the-condescending-ui-the-verge

Offensive? Really?

[Aquitaine]

I get the author's objection. It's a fair criticism. The melodrama is a but much. 'Offensive'? You may be a little thin-skinned if the bookshelf UI offends you.

They article should be about the Whiney Luddite

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me wrong I hate the ribbon too and some of Apple's nonsense makes me irritable but at the same time my 60 year old mother can use her iPad and Mac without calling me every 10 seconds. The UIs are condescending to those in the know but much less confusing to the average consumer who only uses 10% of the functionality and wants to hunt and peck toward that functionality. He just comes off sounding like the guy who sits on his couch drinking beer muttering "they don't make them like they used to".

I feel your pain man but this is what's called progress. You want some thing different then you should build it.

Re:They article should be about the Whiney Luddite

[narcc]

I feel your pain man but this is what's called progress.

Change doesn't automatically mean progress. Change can be bad, and often is.

The all-touch UI, for example, was bad. Touch is great for many things, and a horrible nightmare for others. Still, it seems like everyone is ditching perfectly good interfaces to force everything into touch-only. Abandoning what works well for what can be made to work if you try hard enough isn't progress.

Youtube

[TechieRefugee]

The perfect example of this is Youtube. I remember when it was just a simple 3X4 block of videos for your subscriptions. Now, it's a huge, hulking tower of information I don't really need to know. Shiny buttons are fine and all that, but I agree somewhat with what they were saying. For the new people: yeah, you can use your shiny newfangled UI, but don't alienate those of us who have been using this system for god knows how long and know the ins and outs of it. It's like somebody before said: have a basic and advanced option, kinda like how XP has Classic and Standard options.

Get off my lawn!

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be able to do everything through vi and shell escapes just fine. Now there's all this gaudy malarky with the mousing and the graphic interfaces. Give me back an honest interface where all I need is a VT100 and 1200 baud.

Re:Users agree with him

[epyT-R]

many people also hate how apple focuses on asthetics over functionality and efficiency. I didn't like ribbon at first and I still hate it now.. it's harder to navigate all those arbitrarily placed options where as the menus provided at least some hierarchy. people don't like change, yes, but the truth is, ribbon is, at best, no better than what came before, and most of the time it's worse, even for casual users. It's stupid to drag users from one ok-ish interface that suffers from a little bit of legacy but still has a relatively consistent layout, to a completely new one that has little rhyme or reason to its organization. I noticed this on all ribbon software, whether I've used its previous incarnation or not. I think ribbon is still a horrible idea for all users, newb or pro.

Re:courtesy

[stewbacca]

The current nonsense just proves that there is such a thing as objective good and bad. It just happens to be most bad at the moment.

Principles of good design are timeless. The bible of this stuff, The Design of Everyday Things, is an old ass book, but all of the principles within still hold true today.

Nanny Gates

[mace1934]

Now children, your desktop has too many unused icons. Let me clear them away for you.

Re:Nanny Gates

[ceoyoyo]

Yeah, the real annoyance is the OS constantly bugging you to do things. Want to clear away your excess icons? Wanna write a letter? Wanna be my friend?

A bookshelf metaphor and an inefficient app toolbar pale in comparison.

let the market decide

[khipu]

In principle, it would be good if the market could decide. On Windows and Macintosh, people are stuck with the crap that Microsoft and Apple are shipping, no choice, no alternative.

Re:want to correct that

[tragedy]

Yikes. A tie rod actually breaking is pretty serious. If that happens at speed, you could be killed. For something that could kill me, I'd really like to know why it happened, why it wasn't caught before it happened when the car was inspected, and how to prevent it in future.

Muscle memory, and mental pathways

[Anonymous Coward]

People object to new user interfaces because they spend years, even decades developing muscle memory and mental pathways. This feature is here on the screen, and I just go to it. I don't consciously think. So some moron UI designer comes in and scrambles everything. None of your muscle memory works. None of your mind's spacial relationships with what's on the screen work. That's why people hate these new user interfaces like Windows and its constantly moving Control Panel and Gnome 3. It's like a UI designer rearranging the furniture in a blind man's house to make his home more ergonomic and efficient. No thanks.

Say what you want to about Emacs, but you can boot up the old ITS operating system in an emulator and use Emacs. My muscle memory and mental pathways have been the same since 1991 when I started using it. I am lightning fast with it, and can run rings around people fumbling with bloatware like Eclipse. I do not consciously think about what I am doing when I edit buffers or use dired, because it's all "pushed down" into muscle memory.

None of the change in the past year to things like Gnome 3 have been for the better, or improved anyone's productivity.

Even with OSX, I just don't get what people like about it - what's so great about moving the minimize-maximize-close buttons to the left of a window so you have to drrrrraaaaaaag the mouse (or worse the touchpad) all the way across the widescreen screen to use them? Anyhow, I solved the problem with Aquamacs and bypassing the clumsy UI in OSX.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[InsightIn140Bytes]

There are plenty of alternative shells for Windows. Quite frankly I've never found any that feels better than the default ones, but they're still out there.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Skulthur]

Yeah you're right, I actually looked into that somewhat recently and totally forgot. Like you said, they didn't seems to be better than the (customized) default one so I didn't even try. Still, looks at linux, how much shells/UIs is there for it but none that seems to fit the (my) bill correctly. I'm not sure if I have much hope.

Re:want to correct that

[mrsquid0]

Most people learn as much as they need to about something that they use, but no more. Most drivers have no real understanding of how their cars work, because they do not need to. Most homeowners cannot do more than basic home repairs without screwing them up, because they find it easier to hire someone instead of learning how to do it themselves. Most people invest in things like mutual funds because they are not interested in getting involved in the nitty-gritty of individual investment instruments. The same is true for computers. Most people never need to use them for anything more than simple tasks, so they never learn to use them at a level beyond what is needed to do those tasks. They do not need to, so they put their effort into learning things that they actually need to do on a more frequent basis.

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[Anonymous Coward]

The faux leather top of the iCal application has no bearing on "how the app actually works". It serves only to distinguish it from other open windows. Having a different "view" of the data in Expose accomplishes nothing. In fact, it's worse. Expose relies on the user being able to instantly distinguish different applications by sight. Having the appearance of different application windows instantly change when in Expose would defeat the whole purpose of the UI feature.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I disagree. The dock and quick launch bar both are great features. I don't keep more than I need in my dock and I can tell if it's running by the dot underneath. It takes discipline to determine what should be running and what shouldn't but that's not a regular vs power user issue.

Bad approach to 'simple'...

[Junta]

There are tons of examples of UIs that model the good *and* the bad of non-computer interfaces that were in use before many of the target users were even born. Arbirtary pagination that makes no sense in terms of where the content is broken up, or even requiring user to flip through irrelevant pages on their way to the desired page because that's the way it kinda works in paper media. This sort of phenomenon seems to be a deserving target of his displeasure.

As to the rest, I think the barrier to 'power user' is a bit lower than you expect. I know plenty of people not particularly inclined toward tech (not in a job inherently about technology, not playing games or otherwise doing much with a computer at home) and I have heard them express displeasure. The problem is 'do what they need to do and move on with their life'. If it is a task that they have to do 10 times a day and an over-simplified interface makes them spend 10 times the amount of time each time so they don't have to spend 5 minutes learning something, they've lost and they recognize that the simple path doesn't make sense after a few dozen times through it.

That Torn Page

[Wingsy]

"...the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page)"

I looked and looked for the torn page the author was talking about. And finally saw it. Wow. He's bitching about THAT???

I think I know where his frustrations are coming from. The metaphor & graphics was so good he was probably clawing at the screen trying to turn the page with his hand.

Re:That Torn Page

[sackbut]

My complaint is when you change calendars from month to week to day the torn page stays the same! I know I can tear better than that. The rip should at least change size...

Re:That Torn Page

[ceoyoyo]

Yeah, I couldn't find it either until I looked really closely. Poor guy. He obviously has some sort of mental disorder. OCD or something. Actually, I read an article complaining about the calendar a while ago. The author actually complained that he wanted to tear off the little bits like he would on a real calendar, but couldn't.

The problems of the Ribbon

[master_p]

The people like me who complain on the Ribbon are not old geezers that cannot adjust themselves to the new way of doing things. There are legitimate reasons for complaining.

The Ribbon is actually worse than menus and toolbars because it forces the user to do more clicks than menus and toolbars. For example, if you make a piece of text bold, then you add a table, you have to click the 'home' tab in order to be able to change the font again. With toolbars, everything was on the screen all the time, you didn't have to click tabs.

Furthermore, the tabs of the Ribbon make it difficult to memorize where everything is. With toolbars, you could arrange them in such a way that you always had the same picture in front of you, which means you could memorize the interface much easier.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[TuringTest]

With toolbars, everything was hidden because Office 2003 did have that "intelligent menus" that kept removing all commands but the least used. In many occasions the Ribbon reduces required clicks since contextual tabs (for tables and images) are shown by default while the corresponding object is selected.

If you do have a frequently used command you can add it to the quick toolbar which works exactly like the old toolbars and is not hidden, ever. For text formatting, you have a contextual menu that appears on selection with the font editing commands, so 'bold' is always accessible too. Or, you can use the mouse wheel to change the tabs, so the home tab is always a quick swipe away.

The Ribbon is surprisingly well designed for its intended goal, which is exposing a lot of functions without cluttering the interface - much better than the Office 2003 toolbars anyway.

When I switched to 2007 I had problems finding some functions I knew how to perform in the old interface, but that lasted about two or three weeks. As a heavy Office user in my work I already have memorized the commands I need. Having them organized in tabs didn't hinder learning - I didn't need to have them always on screen, just always in the same relative position inside the tab in order to build muscle memory.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[ceoyoyo]

What bugs me is that they left SOME of the toolbars, but killed other ones. Some of the ribbon functionality is available in a toolbar, but some isn't.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[master_p]

I agree, personalized menus were stupid and it is the first thing that is turned off by most users. However, after that one simple move, the UI was a lot more static than the Ribbon.

The contextual changes of the Ribbon does not make the number of clicks smaller when compared to toolbars, simply because toolbars did not have contextual changes. With toolbars, everything you needed was there, independently of what you clicked in the document, unlike toolbars.

The quick toolbar of the Ribbon is not large enough to hold all the commands of the old toolbars, so it cannot be used as a toolbar replacement.

The contextual menu for formatting does no contain all the commands the toolbar had and does not make the Ribbon more usable than it is. In fact, the formatting menu was conceived exactly because the Ribbon makes you do more clicks than the previous system.

The mouse wheel is not precise enough to quickly change to the required tab. It is quite often to aim for one tab and get the previous or next, because the wheel was not rolled enough or was rolled too much.

The Ribbon is very bad from a UI perspective. It does not help you find the commands easier than the previous system, it is less descriptive than menus, and memorizing commands is a lot more difficult than menus and toolbars simply because of its cryptic nature, i.e. most things are hidden behind tabs.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[Yunzil]

The Ribbon is actually worse than menus and toolbars because it forces the user to do more clicks than menus and toolbars. For example, if you make a piece of text bold, then you add a table, you have to click the 'home' tab in order to be able to change the font again. With toolbars, everything was on the screen all the time, you didn't have to click tabs.

Or you could hit Ctrl+B. You know, like a power user would.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[TuringTest]

I don't find "being hidden behind tabs" worse than "being hidden behind folding menus". Quite the opposite in fact; the fixed nature of each tab makes it easier for me to remember the relative positions of all commands in two dimensions, rather than the one-dimensional layout.

Notice that the main goal of the Ribbon is not one of maximum efficiency with the mouse, though it's debatable that the smaller targets in the traditional toolbar were more efficient - they require just one click but by Fitt's Law they're harder to target. The number of clicks is not the only measure to efficiency.

Anyway, the reason why the Ribbon was created was to expose a bigger amount of the available commands. With that goal in mind, the Ribbon is very good from a UI perspective. So, I suppose its quality depends on the goals you try to attain from it - if you're a multi-million megacorp trying to show the many features your product has that were unfindable in the previous layout, the Ribbon is an unmitigated success.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[master_p]

Menus are also fixed, just like tabs. But there are also toolbars, which are not hidden, unlike menus or Ribbon tabs.

The number of clicks is important because they slow down the process of writing a document. I speak from personal experience. I have timed several document sequences of my own, and I always find using the Ribbon makes the sequences longer to execute. Not only I have to do more clicks, I have to move the mouse more.

Well, if the goal of the Ribbon was to expose a bigger amount of available commands, then toolbars was a better solution, because toolbars allow for bigger visibility of commands than the Ribbon.

I do not think there were any unfindable functionalities in Office. And even if there were some, I don't see how the Ribbon helps, since functions are hidden behind tabs. If they wanted the users to find commands, then they should have invested in organizing toolbars in a better way.

Re:The problems of the Ribbon

[TuringTest]

Be very, very careful never to trust times measured from inside the same brain that generated them. You're likely falling into the fallacy of the self-perception assesment: first, the brain is perceiving brain-intensive tasks as having different lenght than boring tasks even if they last the same. Second, you're not taking into account the time your brain needs to process the interface in order to decide which action you're going to take.

You need a model like GOMS that takes into account the brain ramp-up time if you want to measure the real performance of the interface for the task. Using only a watch after you've already decided how you will perform the task, is discarding the real advantages of an overall clean design over a crammed one, i.e. it's cheating.

I do not think there were any unfindable functionalities in Office.

Microsoft reasearch on hundreds of thousands of users disagreed with that.

If the goal of the Ribbon was to expose a bigger amount of available commands, then toolbars was a better solution, because toolbars allow for bigger visibility of commands than the Ribbon.

Are you trolling me? Toolbars have less space available than the Ribbon (which has several tabs to place commands), so they can't have a bigger amount of available commands. Sure they're not available at the same time, but that's not the huge advantage that you seem to think it is - having too many options, smaller targets and a layout without big landmarks is a sure way to make the brain slower.

I don't see how the Ribbon helps, since functions are hidden behind tabs. If they wanted the users to find commands, then they should have invested in organizing toolbars in a better way.

There are much less tabs than menu options, and commands in the tabs can be visually organized with hierarchical sizes and layout. A logical spatial organization has been empirically proven to enhance both scanning and memorizing.

The whole point is that they did what you suggest. The Ribbon is the best way they found, based on their research on a huge number of users. You're think that you're able to create a design to beat that?

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[Junta]

Problem being is any arbitrary representation by a computer is no more 'abstract' from the reality being tracked in cases like a desk calendar. Scrawling dates on an arbitrarily marked piece of paper to represent particular points in time is just as abstract representation of time as typing words into a computer.

Bookshelf representation is 'cute' and all, but I've never seen someone use *that* as the navigation method instead of searching a word they know is in the title. It's not like a list of titles or authors or anything overwhelm people because it's just 'too abstract', people just thought it looks neat. The same applies to all these constructs, highly impractical, not particularly less daunting than more straightforward alternatives, just a UI to have a certain aesthetic.

Meat Ribbon

[alienzed]

sounds great!

I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

I always feel slightly odd.

I like the Ribbon just fine.

I like the Windows 7 default theme.

I like Unity.

Re:want to correct that

[Cederic]

It doesn't bother you that you're a co-dependent little bitch?

I'd rather be bloody good at a few things than fairly crap at many.

Reality is that no individual can know everything, do everything, survive without input from others while maintaining the quality of life that I enjoy. So social interaction and reliance is inherent in that quality of life - or are you going to tell me you mined the silicon and built the computer you're using from scratch? Because frankly, I don't fucking believe you did, you co-dependent little bitch.

I'm totally resistant to change.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been mucking with computers for a while now. And the one thing that bugs the everloving bleep out of me is the constant change to where the tools are.
With windows 95 I can talk a person through the control panel blindfolded. But each version has changed just enough that you need to hunt down where the tcp/ip settings are.. I should be able to confidently talk someone through the windowsMe or windows 2000 settings, but they're all jumbled up with the win98, windows xp, windows vista, windows nt4 exception list that is rattling on in my head. None of them have a control panel that they didn't have a little fun with.

I'm not saying that changes shouldn't happen, but there is no mindfulness of the existing knowledge base. I can't pick purely on microsoft, as linux distros have made quite a few breaking changes (does anyone remember the pump command- it got removed, and any searches for the replacement were met with a blank stare from the apropos command)..

Writer ego needs to be turned way down.

[Animats]

The author gets to the third sentence of the third paragraph before there's a sentence that doesn't contain "I" or "me". This is not an article from someone who is a user interface expert, or has analyzed help desk call data or videos of people trying user interfaces. It's just some loudmouth.

Currently, there are two frontiers in user interface design - the small touchscreen, and 3D applications. Phones are tough - the screen is dinky, fingers are blunt pointers, and users don't even have a manual. Given those limitations, the phone people have done surprisingly well.

Animation and engineering design applications face the problem of manipulating something with thousands to millions of manipulable properties. It took a long time to get that up to a tolerable level. The classic approach is seen in Blender - three or four views and a list of control keys that takes 19 pages to print. The modern approach is seen in Autodesk Inventor - one 3D view with very good mouse-driven manipulation tools. Neither UI is intuitive, although with Inventor the help system is good enough that you can muddle your way through.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I would find the Win7 elimination of QuickLaunch/taskbar easier to live with if we could at least move the taskbar to the left or right side of the screen, which is where my taskbar(s) used to be.

I used to have about 80 applications (used daily) on those taskbars, now I get about 40 with Win7 taskbar.

Yes, there are 3rd-party apps available to give you this functionality. But it should be in the OS shell!

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[GrumpySteen]

> Only part of the population can think abstractly.

You do realize that language is an abstraction, right? The word "horse" doesn't actually resemble a horse in any way, shape or form yet virtually everyone who speaks English understands what it is. The sounds of the word "horse" don't resemble any sound a horse would make, either, yet even an illiterate who can't read the word will know what the word means. Abstract thinking and symbology are inherent to our nature as human beings.

The problem is not, and never has been, that people can't think abstractly. Anyone without severe mental retardation can think in abstract terms because abstraction is the basis of human intelligence.

The problem is that a lot of people don't like learning anything and refuse to once they get out of school where they were forced to learn. A computer interface that is similar to what they were already forced to learn doesn't require learning anything new, so they prefer it, but that doesn't make it better anymore than the fact that kids prefer candy to vegetables makes candy the better food.

There is a lot of room for advancement in user interfaces, but advances don't come from dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately, advancement isn't what companies are interested in. They're interested in sales and the lowest common denominator is likely to be the most profitable approach.

But consider this... the lowest common denominator approach is also what's given us Ke$ha, Jersey Shore and the Twilight series. Do we really want computer operating systems to take follow the same downward spiral?

Why Linux still has less than 1% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hopelessly fragmented with hundreds of WMs, DEs, Distros and whenever one becomes even slightly popular they mess up the user interface in the next version. GNOME3, Unity, KDE4, even Gnome 2.6. It's called new coke syndrome. Don't change something thats good.

Firefox is losing market share like crazy due to horrible user interface changes and extention breaking they done this year. The only reason why Firefox is still around is because of corpoates and Chinese users keeping to old versions of IE and pirates who block adverts.

"Switched back to the Windows 95 style"

[PenquinCoder]

Soo... all these people bitching to the GNOME 2.x diehards saying : 'Why do you want to use a DE shitty as Win 95 era GUI' .... Could it be, as stated by those and even Windows users, that Win 95 GUI system was just fine for being productive and useful?? Look at all the new BS DE in any major OS, they're all going to shit.

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

You can easily use keybindings, just try hitting the alt key and they pop up. Actually, when i think about it, this was always how it worked...

Old Problem, Translates to Games

[Rizimar]

I sort of agree with the article. Basically, people try to design the use of something to the point where they forget that it's for simplicity, not simple minds.

Some of the examples seem pretty nitpicky (menus fade in and out when they used to just blink into existence, windows have shadows, etc). Some of these things were implemented decades ago (I remember Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 having shadows under their windows despite the interface being in 80x25 text mode), but if they could have been, I'm sure they would have been. For the most part, they don't make computing feel subtly condescending. Rather, they're making it easier for people to visually comprehend what is happening on their computer; objects in the real world cast shadows, so interface windows cast shadows, too. Books gradually open when you separate the pages to read the contents and don't just pop open in a blink, so an interface will display something gradually to communicate what's happening to reduce confusion.

And at least computer interfaces aren't overly condescending like a lot of early command line applications felt like when I used them; I can't think of any specifics right now, but I have memories of not being able to run various programs because I was missing some invisible, required parameter and there wasn't any help command or useful document that came with. The program would just close, sometimes without any message, as if it was an upset guest, offended because I wasn't already completely familiar with it so it just huffs and walks out the door.

But this condescending tone that the article refers to is something that I've seen translate into a lot of games lately, mostly made in Flash by independent developers. You start a game and the first few sections or even levels are big rooms that tell you things like "Use the arrow keys to move!" "Did you know that you can actually jump in this platforming game?" "Kill enemies that try to kill you!" I get that sometimes developers will use this to pad out a game and make it look like there's more playable content than what's provided, but it doesn't help the gameplay experience at all.

proctocephalogy

[Great Big Bird]

I believe this is a case proctocephalogy.

Parent is right

[bussdriver]

I disagree Apple's 1:1 metaphors are "bad" in that for somebody who has no clue it can be useful; however, this is 2011! Everybody worth bothering with has some computer experience; and the kiddies are more likely to figure out a calendar app than have even seen a real paper organizer! "Radio Buttons" are a learned widget on their own today, the kids haven't even seen the radios that have those buttons!

GUI design today is way way behind. Most the work is back in the 80s-90s trying to get people using computers. Wrong target demographic for today! These GUI changes should involve ways to let old users remain comfortable-- like loading keyboard shortcuts from previous versions (or how about NOT changing them around?) In many cases, software like OFFICE software hasn't done much in decades and really should be cheap and quite uniform and unchanged. It only needs updates to port it, the main feature set hasn't changed for decades. Many businesses wise enough to stay where it works are still running decade+ old software (maybe even emulating.)

Sure, most of this is the planned obsolescence for the computer industry which keeps people employed simply for the sake of employment. Don't just maintain the software, add new bugs (aka features.) Once its reasonably perfected, it should possibly go open source and for contract maintenance work... Patents eventually go public domain and copyrite used to (until Disney can't get "buy" extensions.) Perhaps software should have more protections at the price of going open after X years?

Open isn't the fix-- look at Gnome and how that upset people; not enough developers to fork it but it sounds like there are enough users if they could the majority would fork it.

Consistent Menus in the 1990's?? LOL!

[drx]

The menus really weren't that consistent in the olden days. I challenge you to fire up a VM with for example Windows 98 and Office 97. While it might look familiar to you, the menus of most applications mostly were a mess. Just a different mess from today. Word, powerpoint and Excel often had the same options in different places.

Event the much praised and fondly remembered Mac environment looked not much less eclectic once than it does today. In fact, apart from the "file", "view", "whatever" menus, each application was very different from any other. The graphical style varied from vendor to vendor, or even within a product line. On the Mac it just wasn't so apparent because there weren't that many application to begin with.

At that point in history, people were happy to have standardized widgets like the checkbox and radiobuttons and that "Ok" and "Cancel" would most of the time be in the same place. To what was before, aka textmode, it looked like a dream.

When we see the progress made in UIs today, the steps are of course much smaller. We do not remember a better quality when we think positively about the earlier UIs, but we remember a bigger, more radical change in quality for the better.

Re:Consistent Menus in the 1990's?? LOL!

[gbjbaanb]

Naturally, bringing up Office means any UI arguments are automatically invalidated :) Office did things differently to everyone else for some reason, and everyone accepted and grumbled about it. But all the other apps were of a consistent standard. This was cited as part of Windows' lower TCO, and there was a book on how to make your application conform to the Windows UI style guidelines.

I think today's UI styles are back in the cowboy era of web design where you can do anything anywhere you like, and so designers do exactly that to differentiate themselves. I also think that they'll start to conform again when people have got used to the new stuff, or get so annoyed with geocities-style interfaces.

Re:Consistent Menus in the 1990's?? LOL!

[drx]

Good point about Office :)

I know there existed books about how to make the GUI correctly, which doesn't mean all applications, or even large parts, followed them. Anyway these guidelines were hardly covering all the different tasks the GUI would be used for. Again, what was considered "standards compliant" back then would look like a heap of trash today. Really, start up a VM with Win95 and gaze at the weirdness. Then start up Win98 and be amazed by clouds and other kitsch elements taking up screen space that was usually only 1024x768 pixels. If you are more into serious stuff, check out the IRIX desktop from Silicon Graphics from that era. It is full of useless kitsch, the most prominent example probably being the "zoom wheel" that could scale one file icon so it occupies the complete screen without showing more information (very visionary if you think about it).

And I think today is not much different. :)

The real problem though is that current interfaces are not Geocities enough. Geocities was the exact expression of what people wanted the Internet to be like. Everybody made their own navigation and copied ideas from others. HTML was simple enough to learn for heaps of kids and grannies to build their own world. But before there was a chance that the masses develop their own language to express their demands for interfaces and reflect about them, this culture was demeaned by professional designers and developers.

So, probably it is a good idea that Gnome 3 uses Javascript for extensions. It is the lingua franca of the Internet. Many kids have written a line or two of Javascript and might develop some crappy extensions at first. But they need to do it to help building an interface culture that is not dictated by corporate politics or the desire of overpowering the users.

Re:courtesy

[MightyYar]

That's also why it's stupid that developers want to make similar interfaces in Linux more "Mac like".

Not if those developers share the Mac team's goals.

There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[DragonHawk]

From a classic Usenet "Computing Dictionary":

Easy to learn: Hard to use.

Easy to use: Hard to learn.

Easy to learn and use: Won't do what you want it to.

I'd call it a joke, but it's really rather apt. In most cases, there are trade-offs involved in UI designs. Make something flexible and powerful -- letting people do more -- and you necessarily make it more complicated, and harder to use. The more obvious and straight-forward you make a UI, the less you can pack into it.

Designing things that fit multiple user experience levels, and which transition cleanly, is hard.

This is one of the things I think the classic pull-down menu + toolbar paradigm does well. Sort things into categories, so like items are grouped. The accelerator keys for each menu item are highlighted, so as an intermediate step, you can remember (V)iew, (Z)oom, Whole (P)age. And shortcut keys are also displayed, so very frequently used commands give one the opportunity to remember something like [CTRL]+[0]. With icons next to the menu commands, you have an alternative shortcut for the mouse visually or mouse inclined.

Sadly, some people campaign actively against this kind of design, which facilities both novice and expert users. One complaint I read is that a Product Manager at Microsoft didn't like the underlined letters, saying novice users don't understand why letters are randomly underlined. While true, it also didn't really hurt them any. Meanwhile, removing the underlined letters prevents people who wish to do better from inquiring and improving themselves.

An advantage to GUIs is it lets those so inclined explore functionality. Hiding things removes that advantage. That's a loss.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Gr8Apes]

I can honestly say that I personally despise the Ribbon menu. Everything is moved, and nothing is obvious. It feels like every other MS menu change: a reason to have a new training class and certification test for "learning" what you already new, just in a new layout that makes little sense in comparison to the "old" one. Regarding ribbon, there's crap on the main "menu" that I never use, and stuff I do is buried. Fortunately, for me, MS Office products are an ever lower frequency used item, to the point I pretty much can ignore the entire toolset of late. I only need it occasionally when an alternative doesn't work, but even then it's painful.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[phlinn]

I also dislike the ribbon. Being able to just eyeball scan a menu was much, much faster when doing something that I don't frequently use. It also avoided the necessity of inventing icons for all tasks. Icons are simply not intuitive for me. The save icon looks like a floppy disk, which low and behold, people mostly don't use anymore so it only works for people because that's what they've always used. The word 'save' will make sense for all time. At least most of the icons in the additional ribbons are labeled, but the whole process is slower than opening a menu and looking was.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[willaien]

Biggest thing I hate about the ribbon UI is... no text. I have to hover over a dozen similar looking non-intuitive icons to find out what it even does.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, you don't use the following "crap" functions on the main menu in Word?

-Copy, Paste, Cut
-Change Font, Size, Bold, Italic, Color, Highlight
-Numbered List, Bulleted List, Left Align, Right Align, Center Align
-Find, Replace, Select

Aside from selecting paragraph styles, this is the entire contents of the main menu in Word. Your point is valid to a degree, but I don't see how the old menu system was superior, given that it had the exact same menu items in it by default.

You may continue using Word 2003 if you wish, but in Office 2010 if you really feel that special that you need to put the "buried" stuff you do front in center, you can customize the ribbon just the way you need it, princess.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Politburo]

A classic +5, insightful post..

"I never use the product, but I can tell you that I hate the ribbon"

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[LordLimecat]

Im not aware of any MS Office certifications (though I guess they could exist?), but the ribbon makes a ton of sense when you stop trying to figure out "which menu was that function under, and what tab does that correspond to", and simply ask "what am I trying to do".

Rather than having to dig around to figure out where mail merge is now, I can just ask "what am I trying to do", and hey, theres mailings. Ribbon makes a lot more sense once you throw out your understanding of the complicated heirarchy of menus, and just take the Ribbon at face value. These days, when someone asks me "how do I do X" where X is a little-used function of Office, I dont have to dig around, and it takes me all of about 3 minutes to find it.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Gr8Apes]

Au contraire - I used it enough to develop a distinct hatred for the damn ribbon. I still have to use it occasionally, but my distaste for the "new" environment is so severe it makes me look for alternatives, which I prefer using over the ribbon-ized office.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Gr8Apes]

Seriously, you don't use the following "crap" functions on the main menu in Word?

-Copy, Paste, Cut
-Change Font, Size, Bold, Italic, Color, Highlight
-Numbered List, Bulleted List, Left Align, Right Align, Center Align
-Find, Replace, Select

Aside from selecting paragraph styles, this is the entire contents of the main menu in Word. Your point is valid to a degree, but I don't see how the old menu system was superior, given that it had the exact same menu items in it by default.

You may continue using Word 2003 if you wish, but in Office 2010 if you really feel that special that you need to put the "buried" stuff you do front in center, you can customize the ribbon just the way you need it, princess.

Normally, I would respond to an AC, but, you ask some valid questions:
-Copy, Paste, Cut
Ctrl/Cmd-c/v/x

Change Font, Size, Bold, Italic, Color, Highlight
Cmd-+/- (don't recall if windows does the same with the Ctrl key), Ctrl/Cmd b/i
Color and Highlight I generally right click the selection and change.

-Numbered List, Bulleted List, Left Align, Right Align, Center Align
These I use menu items for because I can't recall if any of them even have hotkeys offhand, or right clicks. It's been a while.

-Find, Replace, Select

Ctrl/Cmd-f/h/r, depending upon the application

So, I apparently don't need 90% of what's on the ribbon menu by default. And who decided to put the file save/open ops on the big MS button on the top left? Now THAT's intuitive.

Just FYI though, I've upgraded to Office 2011 from 2010. It doesn't have that blasted ribbon interface. So you can continue to live in your world of denial.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Gr8Apes]

The ribbon makes little sense to me. It seems like random placement of groups of sometimes related functionality.

The Mail Merge utility, which I never use, too me exactly 10s to find in Office 2011, still menu driven. It's under Tools. All of 1 layer of complex hierarchies of menus... I'm not sure I can deal with the complexity.

The ribbon is an epic fail in UI design.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[s73v3r]

The ribbon is an epic fail in UI design.

Most UI/UX experts would disagree with you.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[Gr8Apes]

Many users would agree with me.

Or haven't you noticed the large number that dislike the ribbon? I am not alone in my dislike for the new interface. Perhaps if I spent the several weeks immersed with the ribbon, it would be all clear to me, but soon to be forgotten as I don't live there for my daily tasks. Kind of like learning a third or fourth language. It's easy while you're immersed, but much harder to recall as soon as you leave it for a while.

In the end, whose opinion is more important? The actual users that have to suffer through a UI, or some ivory tower pundit that needs a recent blog entry to keep himself in the current mix? (If my disdain for UI "experts" shows through, that's no accident, just to be perfectly clear.) People can very easily navigate through largely standardized hierarchical textual menus that have existed and been perfectly useful for the past 2 decades.

Sometimes newer is not better. Having obscure icons requires learning and memorizing those things.

Actually, that reminds of the UI expert recommended "new and improved" laundry icons. I still don't know what that damn faded icon means without looking it up. "Warm" "cold" "hot" are all readily apparent to me. Yes, I'm aware that's english centric, but, I live in a largely english speaking country. In Europe, IIRC, they used to actually list a temperature in C, which is even more clear and universal.

Re:There are certain inevitable trade-offs

[LordLimecat]

Or haven't you noticed the large number that dislike the ribbon?

The danger of hanging out on slashdot to the exclusion of the real world is that you begin to believe a vocal minority represents the majority.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[b4dc0d3r]

I don't think you get it. Since Windows 3 and before, Windows has been easy to use without a mouse. Windows 7 requires a mouse in its native install.

I can work twice as fast as most people, because I don't have to identify a target, move the mouse to it, click something, maybe repeat. I used to be faster, but I now have 4 different layouts of the home/end/pgdwn/pgup/insert/delete keys, I can't do it automatically any more.

ALT+TAB is broken in Windows 7, not every Microsoft program uses distinct underlined shortcuts for every menu. Without the ribbon, I could do a few ALT- commands, and if I forgot how one ended the menu was right there telling me what to do next. In Office 2003, it just says "Shortcut" with what you typed so far. If I forgot one, I either have to look it up somewhere or just stop using it as a shortcut. Excel Data sort - ALT-D-S, select a column. I can't add a secondary sort without either using the mouse, or hitting TAB a bunch of times. Explorer is almost impossible to use, because the tab order is all wrong, and it highlights things like the expandable local drives, removable drives, network drives.

I listed specific examples of where it is broken, so you can't say I didn't give it a chance. I have given it a chance, and it does not let me be productive. It hinders me from doing what I want to be able to do. Microsoft had me trained from 1995, and remained consistent. now the mouse is king, and touch surfaces will be the norm.

Yes, I will allow for advancements in the field. But when you make something *worse* and remove things that actually worked, and that have been around for 10 years, that's bad.

We have new options and interfaces, but being able to navigate by keyboard quickly if I need to would have been perfect. But no, just like GNOME, Microsoft is saying that everyone needs to use a mouse because touch is where the OS is moving, and if your productivity takes a hit you are really complaining about change.

Consider the PC vs. Console gamer wars. You can play a game with the limited subset of a controller, and some people prefer that. You can also have direct access to item selection and numerous other things with a 104-key keyboard, often supplemented with mouse or other device like joystick. Having both available is the key to widening your user base. The condescending UI forces the PC users to have a Console interface. If done well, like Fallout with its hotkey item selection, the Console can be just as powerful. Done poorly, and most seem to be, it is a slap in the face.

In a downtime situation, when time counts, I can get what I need quickly with the old paradigm, and that's what my company pays me for. Move the mouse, point double click, double click again because it was busy and thinks I single clicked, this is not effective.

I never switched to Linux because of the inconsistency, and even Apple was "innovative" enough to completely ignore their own guidelines. Windows was the last hope I had to be productive, and now that's down the toilet.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in computing is it expected that you should need to relearn how to do the same basic tasks every 2-3 years because the controls got moved. Imagine that, every time you bought a new car, the steering wheel was in a new place and the brakes and gas pedals were changed. Driving would be a nightmare.

Design for the lowest common denominator

[Anonymous Coward]

If you design a product for idiots, only idiots will want to use the product.
This is absolutely how I feel, when I use Apple products, and many features of recent versions of Windows.
It is not just familiarity - it is the ability to get things done in the minimal number of operations, with the minimal amount of user input. Even if these operations are not the most immediately obvious way of doing something, once learned, the user will be more productive, and will not forever be plagued by navigating through the treacle of crap that was designed to guide stupid people to the right place. If these operations are not designed in such a way that a more experienced may do things quickly, the interface will forever annoy those who have more than the learning capacity of a chimpanzee.
Apple products, and many aspects of Windows 7 user interface are prime examples of the above, and are _extremely_ frustrating to use.

Auto-hide the ribbon

[tepples]

And that's why I set my Office ribbons on auto-hide. That way, the control won't remember any more context than the old menu bar did.

It is not about you.

[westlake]

but for me an office suite is good for writing letters, resumes and occasionally technical manuals. These latter require sections, tables, an index and... that's usually about it.
I often wonder what the other 10 million settings and options in office suites are for, and if anyone uses them. What do people do with a word processing program that requires scripts FFS?

MS Office is successful because it scales well to an enterprise of any size.

If you have a desk available you can set someone down and put them to work on pretty much anything that can be done "in house."

With traffic moving freely from one app to another.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[bonch]

You didn't actually refute anything he said. You just accused him of being a shill and then explained your experience of disabling everything that behaves differently from how it used to, providing an example of the very type of person he was describing.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a new Win 7 machine at work a few months ago, and the first thing I had to do to it was to unhook a lot of the annoyances of the Win 7 theme.

Thus proving the parent argument. You didn't immediately understand the new UI, so you gave up and reverted to the old one. So your actual exposure to the new UI, from your own text above, is either negligible at worst or minimal at best.

To be fair, I likewise dislike pinned apps, versus the old quick launch bar, but this is because I equally never gave them a chance. Having seen others use them, I wonder if I made the right choice.

"didn't understand" ??

What is there not to understand? It's a UI that a 6 year old could use.

It was immediately obvious that checking "Use small icons" and changing the taskbar buttons to "Never combine" was the right choice.

"accomplishing nothing"

[massysett]

Sometimes I like to dink around in Terminal, accomplishing nothing, but at least knowing that I'm engaging the computer on my own terms, with no buffer.

The strange thing is that in OS X you can actually accomplish things in the Terminal. I liked OS X for this reason: the power of old UNIX with prettiness on top when that's a nice thing. I've seen other OS X users who keep Terminal windows open. I guess what he really wants is a non-condescending GUI. Linux is your friend for that sort of thing.

classic theme

[j00r0m4nc3r]

'I recently switched my Windows 7 install over to the Classic Theme'

Congrats! You've done something which most of us have been doing for years...

Just adding to the pile

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the comments(the three i bothered to read) none of them really got to the heart of the matter.

Stupid UI is about stupid people. And by stupid i mean age 35+ people who will never get technology and never will. The kind of people who have to hand their smart phones to their children or grand children whenever they need to make the gps point back home again.

The condescension is justified, we are trying to get them included as buyers because they are still alive and have money.

Eventually they will not be alive and their money will be in the hands of people who know how to make technology work.

The ui of the future will be geared again to people who get it because the people who never will get it will finally be dead.

As a ui designer, thank mother fucking god for that.

I agree with you...

[gillbates]

To the extent that not only should the user not need to know the underlying system, but I should not have to learn a new UI every five years because UI designers are too ignorant (yes, ignorant) or arrogant to learn the history of computing and the UIs that worked before them.

What exactly, did the ribbon provide? It made experienced users waste millions of hours relearning their tools so the could be less productive than before.

Minimize the ribbon!

[Anonymous Coward]

I really disliked the ribbon and the rest of the newfangled interface. Then i realised you can right click to minimize it. Then i figured out you can collapse all the panels in Outlook... now all I've got is content almost no buttons and shit. I know all the shortcuts anyway no buttons required. And you guys are supposed to be powerusers... slow in teh brainz sounds more like it.

Insightful suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Suggesting an OS 8.8/9.2 theme or layer for underlying OSX is a great idea. You would soon learn some menu options no longer function since OSX 10.4-10.6 is a "simplification". By comparison OSX Lion 10.7 would be a stupidification.

How about an "app" that adds a major portion of OS9 functionality and simple awareness to OSX?

And in 2011 when I say OSX I of course include the now superior focus iOS 5.x.

JJ

RTS, not FPS

[Anonymous Coward]

> FPS is probably the single most performance-emphasizing part of general computing

Not so. You can get away with small mistakes in FPS, and it might not affect your overall performance. If you go to knife someone and miss, and then do it again and kill him, your mistake hasn't hurt you much if at all (sure, you might have gotten shot, but if you didn't then you're more or less not harmed at all). In RTS, that doesn't happen. Every match is a race to get through the motions of your build faster; every small mistake adds up. One of these small mistakes is using the menu interface instead of hotkeys. Most FPS gamers could probably get away with using the scrolling menus for weapon selection; no RTS gamer can.

Power users agree with him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Users weren't really given a choice. Personally, I've been using Mac OS X for 10 years now, almost twice the time I used Classic Mac OS, and I would shank my own mother with an ice pick to have its functionality back. It's not just a matter of getting used to it. It's not just a matter of not liking change. It's a matter of simply terrible UI design.

Interfaces that move around under you like Mac OS X's dock and the Office Ribbon prevent you from ever accessing functionality unconsciously, with muscle memory, because you always have to check to know where something is. You don't learn to use the machine as a seamless extension of yourself; you learn instead to ask it every time you want to do something, because it's too busy trying to be "helpful" to actually succeed at it. "Condescending" is a great word for it, because interfaces like these always assume that you're a newbie and never treat you like someone capable of learning. Which prevents learning and becomes self-fulfilling.

I will never forgive Steve Jobs for axing the department at Apple that did honest to goodness scientific research & end user testing on UI design,

Re:Power users agree with him.

[mfnickster]

> It's a matter of simply terrible UI design.

I realized Apple had lost their way with Mac OS X the first time I had a window or dialog pop up in front of me while I was typing.

If you're familiar with Apple's original Human Interface Guidelines, you know this is a HUGE no-no. You NEVER steal the focus from a user when they're in the middle of doing something. Classic Mac OS actually prevented applications from jumping to the foreground - they were limited to blinking an alert in the Application menu to get your attention.

I don't want to have to re-enter a bunch of data just because the antivirus decided to pop up a window offering me an upgrade while I was looking at the data I was entering, not at the screen.

Once I saw that behavior in Mac OS X, I knew that Apple no longer had any significant commitment to user experience.

I like Ribbon

[sandytaru]

It took me a little getting used to, at first, but now I believe that Wordl 2010 is the best Word processing document Microsoft has made yet. I easily created a 150+ page document with a live index and live sub-tables-of-contents for each section, and once the initial setup was done, it now takes me about a minute flat to update the pagination and indices and such. I can't remember it ever being that easy in 2007 or 2003.

The disappearing art of GUI design

[eonlabs]

I agree with this. I also use classic mode on Win 95/Win 7 and switched away from Ubuntu with their latest shift to windows 7 hell.

The one thing I find modern GUIs seem to be forgetting is that half the purpose of the GUI is to let a user interact with a tool. The other half is to provide a path for that user to become a poweruser.

The presence of keyboard shortcuts in the menus in old office programs is a perfect example of this. The ability to gradually add functionality you want in relevant toolbars is another. The ribbon's lack of flexibility and the obsession over introducing limited search capability as a primary means of accessing files is counter to this. There's no feedback.

The programmer designing these UIs will never be able to predict the intended use of all particular users, and by denying a user the ability to change the underlying functionality, they imply their way is not only the best way, and the right way, but declare that it is the only way to use the software. This is where the problem arises.

Re:Ribbon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's our old friend who shills for Microsoft (and I swear sits on the feed waiting for new stories about MS to post positively) keeps making new IDs every time someone finds him out. His last one was CmdrPony. I can't wait for the next one.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just the longer version.

Re: tie rods

[TaoPhoenix]

Apparently those minivans are really tough on the support rods, I had four techs go over my van and they all said it was fine at the time, so just grinding turns on those things every day out of the parking lot apparently does it.

Good Idea!

[reluctantjoiner]

And let's also add a C# backend for power users to create their own commands. We could call it the C-Word "macro" feature.

Some good points were made...

[SanityInAnarchy]

...but it very quickly becomes reactionary. For example:

Like the ubiquitous drop shadow. "Did you know that *this* window is on top of *this* window?" it whispers to me, endlessly.

This is actually useful. Compare to, say, window borders. "Did you know the stuff over *here* is in *this* window, and the stuff over *there* is in *that* window?" People can, and do, get by with window managers which draw smaller borders (one pixel around the edge with a few-pixel-thick bar at the bottom, say), or even none at all.

The point of drop shadows isn't that you're some little baby who might forget, but that it's actually helpful to realize, at a subconscious level, which window is on top of which, and where the boundaries are. It's optimizing for how your brain works, so you can be *faster.* Many of these effects can be turned off, even on OS X, but the drop shadow is one of a few which don't realistically obstruct you (it's dimming a few pixels out of a gigantic display; I have room to spare), and do actually make you faster.

I use a commandline, and I hate wizards as much as this guy does, but this could be such a better article without its get-off-my-lawn stubborn-ness.

OS9? Seriously?

[Skywolfblue]

"I wish there was a similar OS 9 mode for OS X."

Ok I just lost all respect for his taste in UI. I think he must have completely forgotten how bad OS9 really was, or maybe he's never used OS9 at all. OSX is light-years better.

Re:OS9? Seriously?

[Cro Magnon]

Was the OS9 UI worse? I never used OS9, but I'd heard that it had a great UI. But underneath that UI, it sucked worse than Win95, really more comparable to Win3X.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to be "hardcore" to use Linux. I'm not even a developer and I've used Linux since many years. I suggest you give another try (in a LiveCD or VM if installation is too much of a committment) to Linux, and for a newbie I suggest Linux Mint. You get a nice beginner friendly Linux version that works out of the box, but without the Unity/GNOME3 disasters.

...and Stallman too

[syousef]

The GNOME 3 discussion isn't just on slashdot. The change to GNOME shell even drove Linus away from GNOME.

You think that's bad. After using Gnome 3 I heard Richard Stallman say "I feel dirty....I think I'll go take a bath."

Re:...and Stallman too

[Cro Magnon]

The GNOME 3 discussion isn't just on slashdot. The change to GNOME shell even drove Linus away from GNOME.

You think that's bad. After using Gnome 3 I heard Richard Stallman say "I feel dirty....I think I'll go take a bath."

Wow! I didn't think anything could make him do THAT!

Re:...and Stallman too

[drinkypoo]

No, he said "I think I'll go do some math." Bath, pah.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[jbolden]

Imagine that cars were getting millions of times more powerful and gas efficient with each generation. If I owned a car in the 1950s to do the occasional weekend drive, now I can drive out to moons of Saturn for the weekend. Or maybe time travel is bundled in with my 2011 model.

Yeah things might be changing a lot on the controls then too.

Re:Only part of the population can think abstractl

[ceoyoyo]

Then you have to remember two different appearances.

The leather look in OS X doesn't take up any extra space, it's just a texture and colouring applied to the toolbar at the top of the app window. Personally I think it's a bit ugly (they should have made it more brown and less yellow) but it doesn't get in the way when you're using the app, and makes it stand out when you're looking for it. And the look doesn't have to change between near and far representations. Wins all around.

First...

[MastaBaba]

...world problems.

Right click

[J-1000]

The annoyance of the ribbon is partly offset by the new right-click context menu. That thing is awesome.

One word: tables

[miles zarathustra]

the Libre/open office team(s) haven't yet figured out that tables are not spreadsheets. When I hit ctl+X with a row selected, I want to cut the row, not just the data. As a consequence, moving rows around in Libre/OO is simply painful.

Also, their implementation of hidden text is ridiculous. It takes about fifteen steps, versus about two that it takes in Word (select, set as 'hidden')

I say that as a longtime OO user, and advocate evan. I use it on my netbook constantly for writing novels, presentations, what have you. I love the fact that you can open documents in windows and Linux both, and that it does better than M$ Office sometimes, opening M$ documents. (Particularly true of Office 2003, with XML docx... thought OO has a nasty bug that deletes annotations when you save in docx format).

For basic writing and formatting, OO equals or surpasses M$ Office. I just wish they would fix the two above design flaws.

to be technically correct

[miles zarathustra]

It was from the Xerox Altos.

I know ... I was there, and I used them. (Only I didn't have the savvy to cultivate a swarm of irritating devotees the way Jobs did)

Re:to be technically correct

[stewbacca]

Quit saying that. We all know the history.

How many Xerox users did you know in 1984? How much Xerox stuff made it to the home user?

Mainstream adoption of the desktop metaphor is due to the Macintosh and Apple. This is not disputable. Nobody says they invented it.

Why the toytown UI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without I hope seeming condescending, the real reason for these generally less functional departures in UI design is a new generation of UI designers who [a] are embedded in a "presentation beats content" culture and [b] have never bothered to read the results of over 40 years solid experimental research into the human/machine interface.

GIMP would

[Anonymous Coward]

no text

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved pinned apps too, 10 years ago when Window Maker was my primary desktop :)

Re:Windows 7 theme

[dskzero]

I hate "pinned" apps.

Well that's *your* problem. The rest of the world doesn't really seem to have any problem with it. Personally, I think it's really useful.

Re:Windows 7 theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the pinning feature. It means that a program is always the same place on the task bar.

For example, Visual Studio is always the third program on my task bar, to the right of Outlook and Sql Server Management Studio. Even if I don't have the SQL manager open.

That was a thing that annoyed me on XP. I always started things up in the same order, Outlook on the far left. Then, if Outlook crashed and needed to be restarted, it would be right of everything else. I couldn't even move it back (Windows 7 allows this also), to get it back to the left, I would need to restart everything else in the correct order.

Icons, icons, everywhere icons

[bradley13]

The parent isn't funny, it's fricking true. Just today I logged into Gmail and found they had changed my account to the new interface. What the heck, give it a try...

Want to archive a conversation? There's no longer a button labelled "archive" - no, there is now some abstruse icon that some designer thinks I will magically understand to mean "archive". I discover this by hovering the mouse over the various controls until I find it.

Sure, I could learn which icon means "archive", but what's wrong with the word? What is the fascination with icons? Why invent new symbols, when language offers us perfectly functional ones already?

Re:Icons, icons, everywhere icons

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, I could learn which icon means "archive", but what's wrong with the word? What is the fascination with icons? Why invent new symbols, when language offers us perfectly functional ones already?

What, are you crazy? Do you know how many languages there are in the world? You want us programmers to translate all those words in the interface? That's just too much work.

1999 is calling....

[helios17]

requiring 20 manual edits to conf files and 3 commands with 15 switches, all just to install something is not exactly what I'd call "good user interface design" either. Your portal to 2011 will open in 12 minutes, please remove any head gear, make sure all shirt tails are tucked in and you have no foreign objects protruding from your pockets.

Windows XP Mistyped Password

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP is extremely condescending if you mistype your login password. It's response is "Did you forget your password." My response to that is "No I didn't forget my password you fucking condescending piece of shit. I just mistyped it asshole! Fuck you XP!"

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or does this entire article just seem like an older tech writer saying, "I want things back to the way they were with a UI." With the interfaces being designed for younger, and more established audiences, the way we're interacting with computers is changing and evolving. It's not that the UI is getting worse, it's that this writer's approach to a UI is still stuck in the past with designs that probably first got him using computers in the first place. While it's great to be passionate about an OS like BeOS, which has that classic feel, he seems to not be looking at it from the standpoint of someone who is picking up a device for the first time.

These changes to UI are attempting to bring new people into using these interfaces, while still giving those of us who have been around computers for a while a chance to grow and more fully understand the new ways to get around in a new computer space. While, I too, enjoy going back to a past OS and playing around, it doesn't mean it's making things faster, more efficient, or easier to use. It just is playing with a previous way that I was able to interact with a less complex OS.

The only thing this article seems to say to me is a paraphrased phrase regarding the leaving one's own yard, and so I feel this article could use a different name, "Get off my UI!!"

Who wants to code a User Interface?

[Jastiv]

I'm actually looking for a user interface developer for my free software MORPG (multi-player online roleplaying game) www.wograld.org We have a user interface, but it was written in C and is really bad. Everyone who tries to play the game says they don't want to play because the UI is really bad. I was hoping for a Java developer so we can avoid the dependency hunt and potential cross platform issues. Yes, it compiles and runs, but no current project member would actually like to fix the UI code (even though we love doing the game logic and the artwork) so I've been wanting someone for a long time, but I don't know, what should I do to find that developer who really loves writing user interfaces because they love making user interfaces. I've actually already designed it, but the implementing it has not gone so well.

idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

... But people ARE idiots... you have to practically school them on how the power button works... and they LOVE it!!! Its Apple's bread and butter, and the reason why IT departments exist. Continue condescending please!

Re:Windows 7 theme

[avandesande]

Cute. I am sure you hate it when management rams 'process du jour' down your throat every year or two.
Most of us feel the same way about interfaces.

It's not that they are condescending...

[FellowConspirator]

It's that they are poorly thought out. I generally like Apple products, but things like iCal annoy me. It's not that I think that Apple is treating me like a simpleton by making it look like a cheap desktop calendar. I dislike it precisely because it's not a cheap desktop calendar nor it is meant to be; the UI becomes a distraction or obstacle to the fundamental function of the application.

The ribbons in Office don't make the user feel like an idiot, but they do several undesirable things: they make the user relearn (unnecessarily) an application they were already familiar with, they use a silly amount of screen real-estate (I'm working on a document, not a menu bar with a document widget below), they add quite a few manipulations to get the same effect, and they eliminate indicators for accelerators (e.g., what key-combo to hit to trigger a function).

I prefer applications where the thing I'm working on is the dominant feature of the UI, where the path to a feature is as short as possible, where attributes of things I'm operating on are clearly displayed, and the paradigm where interaction with UI elements treats the elements and the data as objects and the interactions as operators on the objects (painting styles onto text, dragging and dropping media elements, etc.).

Which is obviously a huge problem

[sean.peters]

... for the vital "I use six monitors with my computer" market segment. Seriously, dude:

• Oy. Wrong in so many ways. I have six monitors on my Mac Pro. The menu for any one app probably isn't even on the same monitor. It is a HUGE pain in the neck to navigate back to the display that (currently) contains the menu.

  For the 99.9999% of the population that doesn't use six monitors with one PC... not such a pain in the neck. With two or even three monitors, the top of the main screen is never very far away.

• And then there's OS X's inability to send keystrokes to any application other than the one in front. What a huge UI fumble. Got the ability to remotely control an app by sending it keystrokes? Too bad.

  Again, how many people actually need to do this? Evidently it can't be that big a problem even for you, as it hasn't been enough to drive you away from the platform.

• And then there's the whole one button mouse thing, although there are so many ways around that today you don't really get screwed solidly by it unless you buy an Apple mouse / trackpad.

  Dude, 2001 called - they want their argument back. Even Apple-branded mice and trackpads have right-click capabilities built in now, and if you don't want to buy one of those, just plug in your cheesy old MS mouse - it'll work just fine.

I could go on, but why bother? Your complaints are mostly unique to you, and they don't even bother you enough to switch to another platform - so I'm having trouble taking them seriously.

You cannot condescend ENOUGH in UI Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Until I can hand my mother a fully functional computer and have her know what to do, there is no UI Condescending ENOUGH.The ratio of power users to people that barely scratch 5 percent of the potential of their computer is tipped hard toward the 'dummies' Just about every UI besides iOS is fairly cluttered, overly complicated and not friendly to noobs. In 20 years there may be a lot less people that didn't grow up with technology but for now, condescend away. - /disagreement

Re:Windows 7 theme

[ffflala]

I find the advantage of pinned apps is that it's easier to keep one's hands on the keyboard to open them. Anytime I have to remove my hands from the keyboard it slows me down.

Win key > (first letter of app, repeat letter if multiple apps begin w/ the same letter) > enter

Re:correct order.

[TaoPhoenix]

Hi AC,

Taskbar Shuffle (I am on v2.5) lets you shuffle stuff in the order you like.

Re:want to correct that

[Anonymous Coward]

Project harder, maybe someone will finally be fooled into thinking you're not really talking about yourself.

Re:inability to send keystrokes

[Anonymous Coward]

>Won't work under OSX unless the app is already active, in which case, you're not remote controlling it,
> because the app attempting the control has lost the focus.

that's why all applescripts using keystrokes begin with:
          tell "target.app" to activate

but it does get annoying when u r watching video fullscreen & some other app pops up on top;-\ the wife complains about it alla time...

'?' is the best error message

[Gorbag]

The intelligent user will know what is wrong.