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Comment by fader | Hacker News Reader

Putting the start menu button in the middle of the panel rather than at a corner seems to forget Fitts' Law. Is this a push to make people use hotkeys more or just bad design?

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It's bad design in the sense that they took a part of the operating system that's been in the same place for a quarter century and moved it for seemingly no reason while leaving a bunch of other neglected issues to be dealt with later.

I guess fixing the damned control panel and various settings apps isn't sexy enough.

Frankly this whole update stinks of "oh we hired a bunch of new MBAs and they have to make their mark otherwise they're out of a job".

I think it's ironic how often HN discusses various software development methodologies, release early-and-often, etc. But Microsoft slowly iterating on the Settings panel over time is seen as a bad thing.

If they're iterating on this at all it's at a glacial pace. The settings and control panel workflow has been broken since Windows 8.

They are iterating; the Settings panel gets more settings on every release. The first version on Windows 10 was incredibly sparse.

It's also fair to say that there is a novice/expert divide -- Microsoft wants the settings panel to be as simple as settings on a mobile phone. That's great. However, occasionally I need to revert and diagnose the Wifi driver on my cheap Chinese mini laptop and I need a more powerful UI than most average people are never going to need.

At this point, I can't think of a setting that my parents would need that isn't there.

The problem isn't that settings are missing, the problem is that there are related settings in multiple, entirely disconnected locations that interact in subtle ways.

I have 4 UIs on my windows machine where I can set things related to inactivity/power down states. That's unreasonable, and nobody was confused in windows XP when those were all in one place (with an "advanced Settings" fold).

But you really only need the settings app. If you are a power user and want to mess with the individual details you hit "Additional power settings" and get the old UI. But so what?

My point was Microsoft is doing exactly the right thing here -- iterating on an existing design and keeping old software around for those who need it. Everybody seems to want Microsoft to throw out everything and instantly redesign several decades worth of software and that is ridiculous. That's not the way anyone should develop software.

> nobody was confused in windows XP

I'm sure they were -- the new settings app is significantly less complicated.

> and moved it for seemingly no reason

There is one good reason: some screens are getting really wide.

Right, which is more reason to move to vertical taskbars instead of filling far too many pixels with useless space. The specification note that 11 won't support vertical taskbars is infuriating as someone with an ultrawide. I don't need 1000s of pixels of unusable taskbar white space. Centering it is smart if I did want to waste all that space, but oof I do not want to waste that much space.

I just can't understand how there can be so much argument about the position of a task bar. Why can't Windows just allow people to do what they like with it? I know plenty of people who have their taskbar vertically, surely it can't be hard to have a taskbar that can go vertically, horizontally, to the edges out centred.

I will carry on using my dual bar layout on MATE because I didn't want to change to gnome 3 or unity.

Moving somewhat further off-topic, as a fan of vertical taskbars I also disliked Unity's take on it. In my own testing (going way back to Windows XP era), I found I much preferred right-hand side taskbar. As a left-to-right language user, when applications are full screened there are usually far more important application controls on the left hand side than the right. The obvious one being File menus on the immediate left edge, but that's not the only example. Unity tried to fix the File menu issue by doing the "merged global menu" thing similar to macOS, but it still didn't account for most of the rest of application stuff on the left hand edge.

But I also realizes that not everyone agrees with my "right-hand" taskbar preference. I agree that allowing customization is probably the best bet. It's odd to me that when one of the messages in the Windows 11 announcement was that they wanted it to be more personalizable that according to their notes they are removing an important personalization in taskbar placement. (Which has been supported to varying degrees of success all the way back to Windows 95 at this point.)

I swear by vertical taskbar usage. My right-most monitor has plenty of horizontal space, so my taskbar is about 250px wide, and I can read close to the full names of everything, plus I have plenty of room to see every single open window, WITHOUT combining multiple active windows of the same program. It's lovely.

I swear nobody at Microsoft (and fewer people than I'd hoped on HN) actually talk to non-technical people that use their products.

If they'd just added the option to move it I'd have no qualms but they decided to make it default and I'd be willing to put money down that the overwhelming majority of Windows users do not have super widescreen displays.

> I swear nobody at Microsoft (and fewer people than I'd hoped on HN) actually talk to non-technical people that use their products.

> If they'd just added the option to move it I'd have no qualms [...]

I keep mentally blaming this on designers who want to be Steve Jobs (edit:)and Henry Ford and do daring leaps in design.

Edit: I've seen quotes like "if I asked people what they wanted they would say a faster horse" a few times. There's a time for that but most of the time it is time for boring (not really, I love much of it if I'm allowed to) work on getting things right: make it work in all major browsers, make sure tabs work, make sure it works fast etc.

why do you guys think you can't move the start button? of course you can. you can put it right back in the lower left corner on Win 11 if you want....

I swear people just GO OFF with half the story and assume they have the full story.

I cracked up at the video where he says "the start is centered... it puts YOU at the center" like no, you're clearly just trying to copy MacOS.

I could see it being easier to hit for tablets when it's not in the corner, but I find the corner a good spot for things like that on a regular desktop.. Granted, I always use the windows key on my keyboard but the other corner button, the one that minimizing everything, I use all the time. Very easy to mindlessly drag your cursor to the corner IMO.

Some of the other design features I really enjoy, but I would love a unified and sensible control panel before anything else.

My hunch is that it's a controversial change made for no purpose other than to deliberately get people talking about W11.

It's easy to 'fix' via preferences so serves no other purpose.

While it is a totally legit point, the macOS dock hasn't been corner aligned since OS X 10.0 too and it seems people got used to it. Probably not a big deal after all most of the time.

I would argue that the difference is that there isn't a one most important button in the dock like the Start button. Even if the dock was corner aligned it would only make it easier to select either the Finder or Trash icon depending on which corner it was in.

I feel like a more apt comparison would be moving the Apple Icon from the top left of the screen to the middle. That's a close enough analogue to what the start button did.

The Dock isn't the equivalent to the Start Menu, the closest Mac equivalent is the Apple menu. That dates back to I think the very beginning of the Macintosh, and particularly in the classic era (Mac OS 1 through 9) shared a lot more in common with the Start menu. When Apple was just first barely dipping a toe in the waters of multitasking applications with the 1987 MultiFinder, the Apple menu let you switch between running applications. Also was where desk accessories went, though there were limits (which 3rd parties quickly created offerings working around :)). System 7 expanded it a lot, with a dedicated way to put aliases of docs/software in the menu. Mac OS X and the dock actually kind of split out some of that functionality for better or worse.

But through it all the Apple has stayed glued in the top left corner of the screen, the furthest left thing on the menu bar. The one time they briefly contemplated eliminating it/moving it to the center was IIRC in the Mac OS X public beta (which I think I still have lying around here somewhere, would be a hoot to try to get it running again under QEMU maybe?). But there was harsh feedback from a lot of us in the PB on that one and it was restored from 10.0, so there was never a public release of a "Mac OS" without it. And even though it's visually offset a bit from the edge of the menu and when you click the highlight box also seems offset from the side, that doesn't actually affect the clickable area one bit. You can jam your mouse to the upper corner pixel blind and it'll still open right up. They've stuck with Fitt's Law on that one at least even amongst all their other GUI "innovations" in the last few decades.

Nice history lesson, but for all intents and purposes the Dock _is_ equivalent to the Start Menu, as both are the main ways to start or switch applications for most users.

The Apple menu has nothing to do with running applications in modern macOS versions.

The start menu is a single button, whereas the dock is a large number of icons. Corner aligning the dock would do no good, as any icon other than the one in the corner wouldn't be corner aligned either.

Regardless of how you see the function parity between the two, the corner alignment argument just doesn't hold here.

Doc is equivalent to the apps locked to your taskbar.. not the start button.

OP is arguing that the Apple menu is used to start and switch applications, not the Dock. What?

How is the Apple menu equivalent to Start in modern macOS? Do you click the Apple menu to start your apps? Or even switch to them?

I wasn't talking about the apple menu, though it is more similar in function to the start menu than the doc is... However, start does a whole bunch of things, so it's not really the same. Nobody switches apps using the start menu (that's what the taskbar is for), but people will search for apps (and files) that aren't on their taskbar already. I don't think people do that with the apple menu, I don't even know if you can do either of those things there on modern MacOS (they were talking about older versions in the above comment). I believe people open the launchpad for apps not on their doc. It's been a while since I have used MacOS, so please correct me if I am wrong.

> the Dock _is_ equivalent to the Start Menu

This is what I was referencing in my previous comment. This is not accurate. They are not even similar. The doc, however, is very similar to the taskbar. The doc and taskbar are used almost exactly the same way by users. I'd say they are effectively equivalent. That's all my first comment was trying to say.

The start button is used for many of the things the apple menu can do, but also for searching for things, from apps to files. I am not sure you can easily compare it to one thing on MacOS, as it seems like those functions are put into multiple different places, many of which are discrete apps _on_ the doc... which may have been what you meant. The above user was saying the Apple menu _was_ the same as the start button is now, but acknowledged that those functions have been broken apart since that time.

edit: updated comment

They can just do what they did in Windows 95 (possibly not in the very first version) where the start button doesn't actually extend all the way into the corner, but clicking the corner pixel teleports the cursor a few pixels inwards, so that the click hits the button.

The same fix would work in Windows 11, although it would involve teleporting the cursor halfway across the screen.

The entire idea of a start menu just seems crazy to me at this point especially when it's being used to advertise garbage. Why would I mouse around when I can hotkey?

That might be the logic they used. Maybe it is easier to press it in the new location when using tablet mode and they figure people can use a hotkey for the start button on desktop.

But having worked with plenty of users at work, it's very rare they use the windows key rather than dragging their mouse to the corner... if I tell them about the windows key, they act super surprised.

UI Designers don't give a rip about Fitt's Law or any of these self-proclaimed design "laws". Unless it's a useful authority to appeal to for beating opposing UI Designers.

That's exactly the problem, UI redesigns are almost never based objective arguments. Instead they are driven by fads and the personal preferences of whoever wins the internal argument, with users caught in the middle.

Software going through massive redesigns every couple versions should be seen as a huge negative. If the last redesign was so bad it needed to be replaced so soon, why should I trust the new one to be any better? Instead these changes often get trumpeted.

With huge monitors becoming the norm, having important click targets aligned to corners makes little sense.

It doesn’t? Because I think it’s easier to throw the cursor at the absolute corner of the screen and click rather than have to carefully select a button somewhere along the X axis. Just a thought, I’m a macOS user myself.

I use both windows and mac and I agree. It's why I hate that the menu bar on mac can't be moved (it clashes with the window buttons), and why I don't ever use the dock (I cmd+space for spotlight instead). Hopefully this is customizable

I agree it is easier to throw your cursor at the corner than to precisely target near the corner, but I would rather have the important click targets nearer to wear my cursor already is. I have a 34 inch ultrawide monitor and my cursor is more often near the center where my active focus is. When I want to switch apps, it's easier to move the cursor down rather than diagonal to the lower left corner.

Moving to the corner requires a swipe, pickup, and swipe. Moving the mouse to the bottom can be done in a single swipe.

Or just press the windows key on the keyboard. It’s amazing how many people on windows use the mouse as the only ui input. After years of working with a mac and linux, I get cramps in my hand when working with mouse for too long.

> Moving to the corner requires a swipe, pickup, and swipe

I've got an ultrawide and it doesn't require that at all; moving the start menu to the center to compensate for bad mouse speed settings is like reducing display resolution to compensate for bad text/icon size settings.

Moving the mouse to the bottom centre means I have to find the cursor.

My eyes aren't good enough for that all the time, and sometimes, the cursor is hidden, so it doesn't even matter.

Getting to a corner has a predictable way to get there

Fitt's Law says that is exactly backwards. It is when your monitors are largest that you need the largest click targets. It's when things were 640x480 that small targets were easiest to hit.

Bigger, yes. But the issue here is where to position the target area. The less you have to move your cursor to reach frequently accessed targets, the better (as someone who doesn't use mouse accel this extra distance is very noticeable).

But the corners are far away. Testing just now, it took two swipes to get my mouse where the start button would be. It took one to get to the dock.

Resolution has nothing to do with physical size, because modern higher resolution screens typically have higher dpi

Fitt's Law is resolution-independent.

The only people using ultrawide monitors (techy people) are the same ones that use the windows hotkey and search, press enter. No mouse movement needed. The UI scale can be changed as well if we are talking about size and not aspect ratio.

Edit: Alt+Tab too.

I agree that the start menu isn't an issue, but switching between apps can be. I'm personally not a fan of alt-tab because it requires more thought which breaks flow compared to clicking on an icon which is generally in a fixed position.

There’s a setting for left aligned, but Fitts Law is overrated for the Start menu. None of the apps on your taskbar have ever benefited from it, and you probably click those all the time, much more than the Start button.

Taskbar buttons absolutely benefit from Fitt's Law.

Fitt's Law says that the time required to interact with an element depends on both the distance to that element and the width/height of that element.

Putting an element on an edge (where the cursor cannot go beyond that edge) essentially makes it infinitely large in one dimension. Putting it in a corner makes it infinitely large in two dimensions.

Taskbar buttons in Windows (or menu items in macOS) do benefit from Fitt's Law, just not as much as items in the corners.

I think it’s simpler than that.

I suspect most people using a mouse also have their keyboard and so they just hit the Windows key instead.

The centered start menu is extremely useful for touch users on the other hand.

It seems there's still an option on taskbar settings to move it onto left but new position seems to be default [1] - at least in the "leaked" build.

[1] - https://winaero.com/how-to-disable-centered-taskbar-in-windo...

Is there anything stopping a click in the lower left corner from bringing up the start menu, even with nothing visible there? The other corners do magic surprise things in Windows (like charms bar, app switching) with no UI visible as a precedent.

What's really bad about the new taskbar is that grouping and icon-only buttons seem to be forced, with no options to choose from. I like being able to read the full window titles and being able to reach any window of any application in a single click, if not space constrained.

KDE, even considering it implies Linux (with all the good and the bad of it), has never looked so attractive, as Windows' desktop environment degrades due to chasing fads.

Just bad design. There's a setting to set it hard left, but it's not the default, and the vast majority of users will have to contend with important things moving around and being harder to hit. (There's a lot in the UI that seems to be borrowing from phones used vertically. Which would make sense if the target devices were phones being used vertically.)

It’s yet another effort by Microsoft to make Windows relevant to touch form factors at the expense of productivity, desktop, and keyboard/mouse/touchpad.

It’s astonishing how little (close to zero) human factors research is done, much less sought out or taken into consideration by PM or engineering on the software side of Microsoft.

Windows 8 had a ton (!) of smart human factors research done, but people gut reacted to all the individually beneficially changes horribly when released all at once (rather than taking some time to try adapting). I almost wonder if Microsoft learned the exact wrong answer from that and decided to ignore their own research more as they stripped out the beneficial improvements from 8 into 10.

I don't doubt they did research but I don't think they were individually beneficial changes. Nielsen Norman critiqued Windows 8 UX changes and found them fundamentally lacking [1]. If this is the outcome of their internal research, maybe they need better research.

[1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usa...

No it didn’t. I worked at Microsoft for 14 years. I know exactly how Windows 8 UX design was designed and built.

There was almost zero HF research, and the brunt of UX research done was trying to justify and fix fundamental issues with an already decided design direction, not to inform a valuable direction in the first place.

The zune HD might have benefitted from those, but windows 8 had very little to none of the good things from the zune hd

That's a weird take on this change. Centering the Start button is less touch friendly. When you're holding a tablet, your fingers are near the sides. The center takes the most effort to get to.

I think I might know what this is, and I haven't seen this anywhere else - a person's hands might cover up both corners when using a laptop. Mine certainly do from certain angles. This might be a usability for laptops (and selling laptops) where the Start icons is now visible for more users.

it's to make room for "widgets panel" since the right side is already taken by god's know what other atrocities are, including notification center

Ultrawide (21:9) and super ultrawide (32:9) are becoming more common. If you put the menu in the middle, it's more consistent no matter the aspect ratio.

It's only consistent as long as the number of icons/applications on the task bar never changes. Every time an additional program is started, the button will slide further towards the left.

With the older left-aligned positioning, users can just flick their mouse to the left corner to open the start menu, or the right corner to minimize all windows. Buttons are in the same spot every time.

> seems to forget Fitts' Law. Is this a push to make people use hotkeys

I feel this is a general problem with Fitts' law: Anything that's used often enough to deserve to be in a corner should really only be accessed by hotkey.

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