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Comment by FranOntanaya | Hacker News Reader

That's like a permanent "tutorial mode" though, why do we treat users as if they would never learn.

Not necessarily. If you've got a whole row of icons across the top/bottom of your screen representing running or available programs, for example, the quick animation showing where the window you just minimized went to saves you hunting right across your screen if you want to restore that window again.

The better solution is for the icon representing the active window to be highlighted. Then you can look at the icons before you minimize if you want to be reminded. You shouldn't need to do this often, because the positions of the icons should be consistent and easy to remember.

Ironically enough, Microsoft seems to be making the icon highlighting (taskbar buttons, really) fainter with each new Windows version, to the point where the only indication in Windows 10 is a small brightness increase..

7/8's default theme aren't that much better; can you tell which of these are active?

http://www.groovypost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Windows...

http://i.stack.imgur.com/rFOQm.png

XP/Vista, much clearer "pushed in" effect for the active button:

http://mytechquest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Iconi...

Windows 9x/ME/2K/Classic - very clear pushed-in effect for the active button:

http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/613x178x...

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