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Users Decry New Icon Look In Windows 10
jones_supa writes A lot of people got upset about the flat looks of Modern UI presented in Windows 8. Recent builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview have now started replacing the shell icons, and to some people they are just too much to bear. Basically, Microsoft opted to change the icons in search of a fresh and modern look, but there are plenty of people out there who claim that all these new icons are actually very ugly and the company would better stick to the previous design. To find out what people think about these icons, Softpedia asked its readers to tell their opinion and the messages received in the last couple of days pretty much speak for themselves. There are only few testers who think that these icons look good, but the majority wants Microsoft to change them before the final version of the operating system comes out.
I was withholding my opinion until I heard the expert opinions of random Softpedia readers, but now it seems pretty clear that Windows 10 is a bust.
Yeah, they're doubling down on the "modern" look, which essentially translates to "flat and ugly" to me. I sort of knew that going in when I saw the Windows 8 styling hadn't changed. Microsoft's Windows 10 is shaping up to be pretty nice in terms of usability. I've been testing it out, and it's fixed most of the most horrible aspects of Windows 8, by which I mean they've pretty much chopped them out and replaced them with UI systems that actually work on a desktop. It's shaping up to be what Windows 8 should (or could) have been. But damn... it's still as ugly as sin.
I guess they're still trying to prove that they can ignore overwhelming customer feedback in a way that's uniquely suited to mega corporations. Seriously, I can't wait until this design trend ends, and people look back like we now do at 70's fashion trends and say, "Dear God, what were we thinking? We really thought that was cool?"
Also:
Keep in mind that this is still a Technical Preview build and the icons we see here might not make it to the final version of Windows 10
Hahahaha, oh man... that's just adorable. Seriously, they're not going to change them because a few people are bitching about them at this point.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
If this means nothing can ever get changed...
Change just for the sake of it is stupid. Are the new icons in any way better (they let people do their job faster, for example) ?
You can always turn off the effects for VMs and remote connections. For local use, effects like transparency and whatnot do not introduce any kind of penalty. Even the slowest GPUs (all the way to GMA950) have been able to do it without any perceivable slowdown. Windows is very well optimized in this regard.
The biggest problem with the new icons is not lack of beauty but that the overly stylistic design has made them more difficult to visually parse.
The purpose of icons is to make recognition of objects on the screen easier. The use of three dimensions, contrasting edges, shading and shadows are significant visual aids - and those are the things that these new icons lack the most. It takes more than Photoshop skills to earn the title of UX Designer.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I guess operating systems acquiring HiDPI support is one of the reasons going for the flat look. Vector graphics are easy to scale. But maybe some genius will eventually come up with a system that both scales well and looks cool. Some might also say that good appearance isn't the be-all and end-all, but we had quite nice thing going on with Aero, so why go backwards in evolution. The window zoom animations look really good in Windows 10 though.
"after releasing Windows 7"
So the bugs in Win 7 UI were actually created by Microsoft people?
1. In Win 7, open Windows Explorer
2. Get a list of files up.
3. Delete a file
4. Whoa, the file is STILL THERE in the list
5. Delete it again
6. Whoa, ERROR MESSAGE "file not found" - if so, why is it listed?
That's a fundamental breach of the user paradigm. No previous Windows has ever done anything so mindlessly wrong.
This shit is why I decided to stay with XP till the end, and then moved to Linux Mint Cinnamon. Which was an excellent move - it runs lighter and faster on my hardware than XP ever did, and looks and feels a lot more like the UI that I already knew than Win 7, Win 8, Win 8.1 does.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
The same one the Mac OS got hit with in the most recent release.
Best Slashdot Co
The sooner idiot 'designers' stop using this stupid phrase to try to justify their inability to design properly, the better...
'Flat' UI design is BAD design, plain and simple. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I'd be completely happy with keeping the Windows 7 UI, and just having each Windows release upgrade the guts underneath. And I bet so would 95% of corporations.
I don't understand why Microsoft feels to compelled to tinker with the UI at this point. (Yes I've heard some reasons, I just don't see why they're compelling to Microsoft.)
If this means nothing can ever get changed...
Change just for the sake of it is stupid. Are the new icons in any way better (they let people do their job faster, for example) ?
Change just for the sake of it is marketing. It's the same thing as mutating the taillights (and in the 1950's, fins) of a car just so that everyone will know that you couldn't afford to go out and replace the perfectly good car you already had.
I'll throw some screenshots here so people can compare easily.
- Windows 3.1
- Windows 95
- Windows 7
- Windows 10 new icons from the article
- Windows 10 new Recycle Bin and Control Panel icons
why did you vote for Obama? Twice??
Well after the first time we hated the idea of a change
Apple did the same thing with OSX 10.10 / Yosemite. The 'new' icons are flat and just plain nasty. I assume everyone wants to 'streamline the user experience' across phones, tablets, watches, and real computers, but I think pandering to the lowest common denominator is just a bad idea.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.