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Comment by grishka | Hacker News Reader

The fact that it doesn't take advantage of the multi-window nature of desktop systems. Everything happens in one single large window — like on an iPad.

In particular, my issue with modern IM app UIs is that the chat switcher is merged with the chat list. You can't have multiple chats that you're currently active in open at once and switch quickly between them. If you switch away from a chat, you have to find it again in the list to return to it, possibly requiring a lot of scrolling and multiple clicks for what could've been one click or even a keyboard shortcut.

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Ctrl + K on the official app lets you switch quickly between the last active channels.

Ctrl + / lets you see all the short cuts.

I’m still sad that Gajim (XMPP client) switched to this horrible design from their old one. There’s now no XMPP/Jabber client left on Windows that’s not optimized for MUC, only some like PSI/Miranda that lack support for some important XEPs.

Exception: Telegram Desktop, which has “Open in new window” in each chat’s context menu.

>The fact that it doesn't take advantage of the multi-window nature of desktop systems.

That's because nobody uses more than one window. Remember, Discord was for gamers, not the tech zealot with a taskbar full of windows. Speaking from experience, I've had extremely low success trying to get normal people to understand windows. So a one-window-contains-all design is great for normal people. This design is also shared by Skype, LINE, and other mainstream chat software. Modern email clients also follow this design paradigm.

And if you still doubt me, remember: The two most popular operating systems in the world, iOS and Android, do not have windows.

Windows are a failed analogy as files-and-folders, normal people do not understand them and software for normal people rightfully don't use them.

> Windows are a failed analogy as files-and-folders, normal people do not understand them and software for normal people rightfully don't use them

Weird claim regarding files and folders. In my experience, my pretty tech illiterate relatives have a pretty strong grasp for them. Younger people do not, because they only use mobile computers that don't make frequent use of that abstraction.

Why are they a failed analogy? What are normal people doing instead of using them?

>What are normal people doing instead of using them?

They do things very simply.

Most people can not multi task, which means they only ever work with one window at a time. They get immediately confused with multiple windows. Likewise files and folders, most people can't grasp what they can't physically see so the very concept of files and folders inside a computer is pig latin and they just dump everything on their desktop which they can physically see.

A lot of tech nerd sensibilities are based upon very specific assumptions that just don't apply to most people, normal people. Anyone who wants to say anything about human interface design needs to first go out into the real world and see how real, normal people actually use computers.

Do you really think others are "just" not "go[ing] out into the real world and see how real, normal people actually use computer"?

I think we can afford to admit that this is a bit reductive and misrepresentative of the efforts required.

Considering how out of touch techies generally are, I don't think it's an unreasonable stereotype/argument to make.

It's easy to see here too, not the least the infamous DropBox comment.

> Likewise files and folders, most people can't grasp what they can't physically see so the very concept of files and folders inside a computer is pig latin and they just dump everything on their desktop which they can physically see.

What do they dump on their desktop? Surely it is files and folders!

> And if you still doubt me, remember: The two most popular operating systems in the world, iOS and Android, do not have windows.

You have to keep mobile and desktop OSes separate. Mobile OSes are for use on-the-go and mainly focus on content consumption and getting most out of a pocketable touchscreen. Desktop OSes, in contrast, are for productivity. People understand browser tabs, how would a tabbed chat window be so fundamentally different?

> Modern email clients also follow this design paradigm.

Email clients are different. You don't usually jump between messages/threads back and forth like you do all the time in IM clients when you're actively chatting in several conversations at once. You open them one by one, read them, and go do something else after no unread emails are left.

> You open them one by one, read them, and go do something else after no unread emails are left.

On the contrary, I often have multiple emails open at once, since it's pretty common for me to need to reference information from other emails in the one I'm currently writing - usually to reference past conversations or lookup addresses that didn't make it into my contacts.

>People understand browser tabs

My anecdata suggests they don't. I have tried teaching normal people how tabs work, but I might as well be speaking pig latin.

They don't on phones because there they are hidden away and you have to know about them. I've seen relatives' phones with hundreds of tabs open simply because they had no idea mobile browsers do that by default.

But on desktop, tabs are plainly visible all the time and it's very easy to discover how they work.

Is there a pinworm outbreak in your neck of the woods? All of these concepts (MDI / Tabs) easily fly with anyone we deal with on a daily basis.

All I can tell you is that when normal people don't understand windows, you definitely are not going to get them to understand windows in windows (which is what tabs effectively are).

I hate all these simplified designs we see in computers now just like most of the other weird people here, but those designs are not for a lack of good reasons.

Skype and every desktop email client I've ever used both let you open per-chat/per-email windows, even if it's not the default.

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