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Comment by shiroiuma | Hacker News Reader

The usability was very good. The appearance was goofy and Fisher-Price-like. The two things are mostly orthogonal.

You could switch the theme (at least in SP2) to look basically like 2000, which is what I always did. You could actually do that in 7 too.

I wouldn't say orthogonal. Making something inviting, approachable and feel like a safe place to experiment/explore for a novice is a critical and overlooked part of usability. The childlike choices of "bright primary colours" and "no sharp edges" is one way to attempt that.

It's what the general public needs that us nerds can least relate to.

It might have been good for brand-new users and children, but not all computer users are like that. It would have been much better if they had had selectable themes.

The best-looking Windows UI, IMO, was Vista.

> It might have been good for brand-new users and children, but not all computer users are like that.

Well, are you sure which of those groups you belong to? At least as far as Windows is concerned? Because:

> It would have been much better if they had had selectable themes.

It did. One click in the right place in the Control Panel and it looked like W95/NT4/W2K. (So did Windows 7, and therefore I must assume Vista, too. [Skipped that one myself.])

But, hey, brand-new users and children couldn't be expected to find that, right?

I was a Linux user back then (and still am). I didn't spend enough time with XP to bother learning intricacies like that.

Plus, W2K was ugly too, just in a different way.

> I was a Linux user back then (and still am). I didn't spend enough time with XP to bother learning intricacies like that.

Then why spend time commenting -- ERRONEOUSLY -- on them now?

> Plus, W2K was ugly too, just in a different way.

Über den Geschmack streiten sich selbst die Götter vergebens.

Anyway, point stands:

> > It would have been much better if they had had selectable themes.

> It did.

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