Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10
jones_supa writes: Back in February, users decried the new icon look in Windows 10. In response to that feedback, Microsoft has implemented a new icon pack in build 10125, which was leaked early but expected to arrive soon for Technical Preview testers. Screenshots show what the final version of the OS could look like when it goes live this summer. The new icons go all-in on a flat approach, following the same design cues as the rest of the operating system, but the "pixel art" style has been abandoned. Once again, Softpedia asked for user experiences, and this time the comments have been mostly positive.
Sorry, but they were. I'd rather simple and clean.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Why not simply let the user choose what they want ? Personally, I don't really care what they look like, but once I'm used to a set of icons, I would prefer to keep it.
No, we'll end up with beautiful icons that are hard to use.
The horror!
We may end up with intuitive and user-friendly software, oh no!
Like Windows 8?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Sure, let me know when that happens... you idiot.
'Flat' design means 'designers' are attempting to design user interfaces, when they clearly have NO CLUE on how to design a user interface, let alone improve the current one we have. Windows 7 was perfection, but some idiot at Microsoft is actually paying people to RUIN their own company - hello? Jensen Harris anyone? 'The Ribbon'? Metro? Microsoft lost hundreds of millions of dollars because they couldn't admit they were wrong, and they couldn't leave things as they were - because some assholes' jobs depended on changing everything.
What is 'intuitive and user friendly' about buttons that no longer look like buttons, so the user has to GUESS what is and isn't a button, by mousing over every bit of text in the program?
Change for the sake of change. Programmers can't grasp the fact that maybe there is an ultimate end design. A hammer made today still looks like a hammer from a century ago. There is a reason for that.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
You know, if people are actually doing proper user interface design, that might be true.
But having seen Metro on a Windows 8.1 box ... that's not what is happening.
Graphic designers focusing on pretty, but with no understanding of functional are producing shitty interfaces which, while they might be fine for a tablet or a handheld, are complete garbage for a desktop machine with no touch screen and operated with a keyboard and mouse.
So, I don't care which shade of pastel and crayons the useless interface is. I want to turn off the useless interface entirely, because it provides nothing in the way of utility.
Windows 8.1 is fast and stable, and has nice features. But it's only usable as a desktop once you install something like Classic Shell and turn off the crap that these "designers" have put in.
They're spending all the time tweaking the wrong things.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What's the sudden (the last year or two) appeal with the super flat GUIs all over the place ?
It's the move to fully scalable UIs. Cool graphics have not yet arrived at that scene. Making everything flat and simple is the easy way out.
We may end up with intuitive and user-friendly software, oh no!
But the problem is that you don't get an intuitive and user-friendly system. You might get a clean system without clutter, but then have to figure out and dragging from the top of the screen to the bottom is the way to close a program. Or that clicking in the space that used to have a design element (but is now just blank) was the way to bring up the start screen. Or that things that look like they are just decoration are actually active buttons, but you only know this (and what function they perform) by blindly clicking, dragging, swiping over every part of the screen.
Even when you do this, you still have to face the final insult when you find that the function you are looking for was removed from the software because it was deemed too advanced for modern users - even though Windows has been able to perform that function for decades up until now.
Modern user interfaces have absolutely nothing to do with intuitiveness. I looked at some really old software recently and found it so pleasant because I could tell exactly what functions were available and how to perform them simply because they used textual buttons and menus. It was so much better than being faced with a bunch of similar-looking graphics with no mouse-over pop-ups to explain what they were for.
You know what would make the most people happy?
Just make a new version of Windows7. Why would I want to re-learn how to do everything...again?
Going from Win95->Win98->Win2K->XP->Win7 was easy. People stuck with windows because they knew how to use it. Companies stuck with it because re-training was easy. It kept people from jumping ship to OSX/Linux/ChromeOS.
Going from Windows 7 to Linux Mint is easier then going from Windows 7 to 8.
Microsoft spent 20 years teaching people how to use their UI then just throws that all out for no reason at all.
I have to return some videotapes...
Even an interface that requires mouse-over pop-ups to understand is a fail in my book.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Good lord, do people actually use the 'built in' email provided with Windows?
Of course they do. Most people in the world will have never heard of Sylpheed, let alone know what it is for. It is pretty arrogant to think that people don't use the built-in email simply because you don't.
...I wonder if people get too hung up on system icons...
The icons are the first things the user sees when the desktop loads. The icons are what is shown when the notebook or PC sits on display in a store.
.
The icons are the visual "come hither" for the operating system. An OS with unappealing icons has to work harder to appeal to customers.
People used to do real tests with real people, in controlled situations, measuring response time, counting errors, videotaping what they were actually doing, finding out where people are getting stuck and using that feedback to redesign and try again.
This was common all the way back to the 1970s. People like Ben Schneiderman were doing formal research and writing textbooks in the 1980s.
Why do I no longer hear about any of this being done? Why is it all about the visual tastes of individual designers?
There's nothing wrong with beauty--the original edition of Inside Mac, 1983, said in so many words "objects are designed to look beautiful on the screen." But beauty and style are not the same as usability.
All of the insane "mystery meat" UI of today, in which you cannot find an affordance unless you already know where to click to make it visible, cannot possible be usable, even if some people enjoy developing the necessary skill set.
Without real testing, you always get the same things: the personal taste of the manager in charge, who is sure that what is natural for him is natural for everybody; or, the personal taste of the developer, who is sure that what is natural for him is natural for everybody.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Please explain the presence of Metro on Windows Server 2012.
Wow, nice either or.
In between clueless people who want to access the intertubes and programmers is pretty much everything else computers are ever used for.
And business software users do not gain a damned thing from Metro. They gain a clunk interface which is useless to them.
So, while Metro has its place for some people ... it is completely unsuited for the tasks of what many many people do with computers.
So Microsoft (and idiots like you) can keep pretending that Metro is a suitable interface for everything. Or Microsoft (and idiots like you) can actually realize that "one size fits some" isn't going to cut it.
You sound like a whiny graphic designer who still doesn't understand that a GUI which doesn't suit the task is fucking useless.
Yes, for many home users Metro will probably do everything they need. For for people with more demanding tasks, and most people in business ... Metro is utterly useless as a UI.
I can assure you, Metro is not all of "simple, clean, aesthetically pleasing, intuitive, and functional" ... it's anything but, in fact unless you're doing fairly trivial tasks on a tablet.
With a keyboard and mouse, on a large screen with no touch ... Metro is a completely fucking useless UI.
So you can boo hoo about how the graphic designers will save the day. But if all they have is eye candy which impedes function compare to existing UIs ... all they're doing its making pretty garbage.
But people who use computers for grown up things will simply not benefit from Metro. Because it's the completely wrong interface paradigm for many things, and Microsoft (and idiots like you) whining it's the wave of the future doesn't make it a good universal UI.
This isn't about the interface for normal people and programmers ... this is about the entirety of human computer interface design, and is much more sophisticated than your clueless reductionism.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Nothing says "modern" like that new floppy drive icon.
Progress!
I would love to hear a rational explanation for that one.
I just installed Server 2012 for a client, and it was my first view of it. Also, I don't use Windows 8, so am not used to the Metro crap either.
Trying to find the usual server configuration tools is ridiculous now. It's not that they are completely hidden like it Win8 (move mouse to random corner, something useful may appear), but trying to use them without having to escape from the metro tile field first is a nightmare.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Change just for the sake of change is stupid, especially if the change is a step backwards in functionality.
The changes in OS X and iOS are not even close to the clusterfuck that is Modern apps and abandonment of human-interface guidelines at Microsoft.
The only red-hot mistake in the Apple camp is the attempt to throw out Save/Save As... for Keep/Discard file management that nobody can get their heads around. Fortunately, Apple isn't trying to push that very hard. The rest of it is just aesthetics... the appearance hasn't change THAT much (be honest) and the functionality stays pretty much the same.
At Microsoft, you've got THREE different interfaces: traditional pull-down menus (most 3d-party software), Ribbon with File as a menu (stock apps like Wordpad), and full Ribbon (Office apps exclusively) where File isn't a menu or a tab - it takes over the whole window making your document disappear.
Oh, wait, then there's Modern apps, so that's FOUR, FOUR different UI interfaces.
and yes, iOS apps may work under Windows 10, so that's FIVE, FIVE different UI interfaces.
Not even Linux is as insane as this... in spite of innumerable UI toolkits from Xlib to Motif to GTK to KDE, Linux has never sent users on some weird hunt for the charms or how do I quit and get out of this?