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Comment by Atheros | Hacker News Reader

Companies like Microsoft do their research. They interview the gen-Z'ers and get consistent feedback about the UIs HackerNews likes: "They're old. They're boring. They're dated. I don't like them. My grandma would use this."

Microsoft feels that it has no choice but to follow fashion trends and I am not sure that they're wrong to do so. Eventually minimalist UIs will go out of fashion and utilitarian evidence-based UIs may come back. But for now, the fashion is what it is and if companies want new users, they must follow the trend.

Regarding the hodge-podge of different UI designs, I think that that is just a function of UI/UX designers not being honest with themselves and others about whether they're doing engineering, psychology or fashion. Fashion must change for the sake of change but engineering and psychology do not. This creates inconsistencies.

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> Companies like Microsoft do their research.

Having worked at many companies over the years I feel like you are giving Microsoft way more credit than it probably deserves.

Politics plays a huge role in decision making, and in my experience, when it comes to UI/UX, politics accounts for 80% or more of choices.

I find it really hard to convince myself that Windows' scatterbrain UX with layers of half done redesign on top of each other is the result of careful planning and research.

I'm sure they do the research, and look at feedback. I just don't think it has any bearing on decision making.

This is true. I was a senior developer at Apple for a decade, and if you think they follow some rigorous UI-vetting process (or even user testing in many cases), you’re wrong. There are probably exceptions, but it’s not a company-wide norm.

I also think the fashion theory is wrong. In fact, it’s backward. Younger users didn’t demand these regressions; they’re simply more used to lazy, shitty design and the absence of the visual cues and standards that made GUIs so intuitive in the first place. So, for example, they are more likely to tap or click on a plain text label to see if it’s a control than those of us who expect controls to be demarcated as such. But once those regressions become the norm, the better designs are indeed recognizable as “older.”

Thus we all suffer a decline in design quality. Windows is now an unmitigated UI shítshow.

Fortunately we’re finally seeing some backlash against “flat” (AKA no) design.

Some flatish themes can be good. Mac System 7, or Zukitre. Because the buttons have contrast and they are marked as such.

Yes. Cheesy skeuomorphism caused a massive overcorrection. It’s time to get back to some subtle bevels and highlights and stop dicking with it.

Yeah. It feels more like they have a long to-do list of settings menus to update and they just can never quite get through it.

"Politics" doesn't explain the change. Politics in corporations was just as bad in the 90s as it is today, if not worse.

Separately, I didn't say anything about "careful planning", I only said "research". And that the research is telling them to make the UIs look flat and non-skeuomorphic.

> scatterbrain UX with layers of half done redesign

No one here claimed that they succeeded ;-)

> They're boring. They're dated.

Boring sound like a good UI quality to me. I don't want UI to be entertaining and full of surprises, I want a job to be done.

But that will not get you a promotion or industry award if you are the designer.

The only flat theme I liked was Zukitre under Linux with the Newaita icons. Contrasted gray with clear buttons and nice icons. The rest sucked a lot. Either too bright, or dark, or contrastless.

II am one of the gen-Z'ers you are talking about.

Each time OS vendors update their UI, they add more white space and make the UI flatter. The old always complain but I just found the new design more comfortable and intuitive to use.

It is a one way trip. I can't get back to old, traditional IDE after trying the more modern VS Code.

VSCode doesn't have a lot of whitespace though, it's still a function-over-form, high information density, getting things done application.

It has much more white space compared to IntelliJ IDEA or Visual Studio.

I am a Millennial and I don't give a crap about fashion and trends. I want something that I like and is good to use. I found some old UI's ugly and clunky. I find the trend of material design just that: a trend. Just like Baroque, Rococo and Renaissance were trends. Which eventually faded, like all trends. Just like Material Design will fade. Some young people are rebels just for the sake of rebelling, and therefore it has to change regardless of whether the change is good or not. Cool, though sad. Those are the ones that most likely will become conservatives later on, as they're just following emotions. Some older people are conservative because "the good ole times when everything was better." I fit in neither, which is kind of lonely but it is what it is.

I love the W11 design, best looking one so far. Usability is not bad. W7's was better in some regards, worse in others. I hated W10 design. Usability was poor. W7 design was nice. Usability was good. Windows XP design was ugly. Usability was nice. Windows 98 was ugly. Usability was ok for the time.

The others in between are not worth mentioning.

You are wrong. My first graphical OS was Windows 98 at home after DOS at school. Windows 95 was built with UX/UI at mind, which lots of research. Current are themes are pure crap on usability. No contrast for buttons or menues. Too bright or too dark themes. No slight widget frames for separation.

The only semi usable flat theme under *nix it's Zukitre GTK2/3 theme with, maybe, the Newaita icons or similar. Everything else lacks lots of contrast.

You can use window managers in Unix.

Themes are used for borders. Every program has its own UI. Even on MS Windows.

Except for Motif/Athena, everything under my GNU/Linux setup uses the "blackwater-dim" GTK2/3/QT5 and the Chicago 95 theme thanks to qt5ct, among the Metal2 IceWM theme closeish to early 00's Java look. Best of worlds. A highly usable window border, keybindings, solid widget themings and virtual desktops.

> You are wrong.

Not acknowledging that other people have other taste that doesn't necessarily match with a person's personal preference is wrong in my opinion.

It's not a matter of taste. Windows 95 was specially built on a large study on usability: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/238386.238611

Unix had brilliant points, too: Virtual desktops and moving/resizing with alt or super_l and clicking the mouse with a left/right mouse click.

Thus, you can use a Unix based WM/DE (IceWM, Mate, XFCE) with the Windows 95 theming (Chicago95) AND the Unix keybindings, having the best of the both worlds since Icewm was created from long ago.

Can't you just acknowledge that the GP just have a significantly different experience from yours? It's disappointing that you seem to just ignore everything that the GP said, with the explicit acknowledgement that it was just their personal opinion, and just rammed another comment without understanding it?

I will just ignore your thick-headed comment from this point, it's clear that you're not arguing in good faith.

Current icons will go out of fashion, then all we have left are single letters that comprise major "applications"... "T" for twitter, "F" for Facebook, "I" for Instagram. You get the idea.

Looks at work Windows laptop icons...stylized O for Outlook...Y for Yammer...T for Teams...E for Excel...etc., etc.

Apparently, Microsoft is way ahead of you.

Apparently.. :mindblown:

The trouble is that the desktop metaphor depends on your programs being analogous to physical tools. A text editor is a notepad, a directory is a manila folder, a contacts app is a Rolodex. What iconic tool represents Twitter, or "app store," or "password manager," or "detect the song that's playing right now"? The metaphor breaks down and your icons become mere abstract shapes. If no other meaning is relevant, an eye-catchingly stylized version of the first letter of the service name at least hints at what this is.

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