How UI degrades over time.
Top (Windows 95): great contrast, obvious shapes. Instantly readable.
Middle (Windows 11): shapes are still self-explanatory, but contrast is gone.
Bottom (Windows 11 Insiders): what am I even looking at? The only shape I can understand here is the Run button. Barely visible, though.
Then, on the left, there’s another something that says Run and has an icon. What is it? A window title? Another button? Why does it have to say Run twice?
... 1/3
... Shell:startup looks like a header but from what I understand is actually your previous command. Also, why is it aligned so poorly? Text to icon, bottom padding?
Finally, the text input. Do you see it? I don’t. But it’s there. The only hint is a barely visible white (???) cursor before the placeholder. How do we know it’s a placeholder? We don’t.
The original Windows 95 interface is _functional_. It has a function and it ... 2/3
... executes it very well. It works for you, without trying to be clever or sophisticated. Also, it follows system conventions, which also helps you, the user.
I’m not sure whom the bottom interface helps. It’s a puzzle, an art object, but it doesn’t work for you. It’s not here to make your life easier.
Bottom image source: https://x.com/phantomofearth/status/1996660509027062148
@grumpy_website I liked XP the best. It had some eye candy but was still functional. And you could turn it back to the 9x look anytime.
I liked 7 too, but Windows haven't been able to feature a consistent UI since Vista was released.
@grumpy_website
Usability/UX is hard. And Microsoft... well, I think every third or fourth decision they make is good, the rest is bad.
I mean... Start menu button in the middle? Why was there more than one person who thought that was a good idea?
And yes, I know. You copied it from macOS after Apple copied it from CDE.
Are you going to copy Liquid Gl... too?
If you want unreadable text, I can show you some places in Entra where the idea that a dark mode would ever be available was clearly too abstract for the developer working on it.
@wakame @grumpy_website There is a rather strong reason why a "Start" button ought not to be in the lower left corner of the screen (or in any fixed position).
The reason is that there are USB attack devices - usually disguised as very common, seen everywhere, flash thumb drives.
In the attack the thumb drive identifies itself as not only storage but also as a keyboard and mouse. Many operating systems would silently accept that claim. So the attack device would swing the fake mouse pointer to the lower left and generate a fake click, then the attack device would use its fake keyboard to open a command window and take type stuff into that window to take over the machine.
@Amoshias @wakame @grumpy_website The USB attack via a flash drive claiming Human Interface Device abilities is quite common and is often the means to inject seriously dangerous code into boxes.
This is one reason why many companies (and military organizations) fill USB ports on computers with hot-glue to prevent their use.
I've also noticed that the latest round of operating systems now ask whether to allow additional USB devices plugged-in after boot-up time.
Take a look at devices like this "Rubber Ducky" (there's others, like the HackyPi on Amazon.)
@karlauerbach @Amoshias @grumpy_website
True. But in this case, it would be easier to emulate the keyboard and simply send the shortcuts for opening Run etc. to Windows.
Deactivating the USB ports via software is also possible and can often be configured with fancy enterprise antivirus (I mean "Endpoint Security").
The "classic" method for USB attacks is still "leaving sticks lying around in the parking lot". Personally, I like the "getting a USB mouse as a business gift" via regular mail.
(This mouse then also registers as a keyboard and does Rubber Ducky stuff.)
@karlauerbach @wakame @grumpy_website ??????
That's one of the most outlandish ideas I've heard, and it completely ignores a basic tenet of computer security: if an attacker has physical access to the machine, you're already fucked to begin with. There's literally no planning around this kind of scenario, except for blocking USB devices like most high-security-minded places should already do anyway.
@karlauerbach @wakame @grumpy_website Otherwise, what's the solution? ASLR for the Start Menu? Yeah, let's randomize its position after every click, so that the user has to play Windows Start osu! every time they want to launch an app.
And even then, you're forgetting that you don't need the mouse emulation at all. Just keyboard emulation will do: "hit" Win+R, "type out" the executable path (magically knowing which drive letter you'll be assigned) and then "hit" Enter. Bob's your uncle.
@IvanDSM @wakame @grumpy_website Yeah, physical access can go a long way.
Long ago - probably around 1978 - I was at a DoD site doing some stuff with early Unix ARPAnet networking with TCP. I was in Reston VA and the nominal controllers of the machine were in Champaign/Urbana at the Univ of Illinois.
I needed root privileges to do my job. The actual owners of the machine had no problem with that, but the Univ of Illinois people refused.
But I was standing next to that PDP-11. So I did a few "syncs", powered it down, and booted it back up in single-user mode (back that that meant an automatic root shell with no login.)
The Univ of Illinois folks were ticked off (that's a euphemism).
I suspect that things are a bit harder now - but I haven't had to do this for several years so my break-in skills are a bit rusty.
@karlauerbach Ahahaha that'd a great story! And hey, if it works, what's wrong with it, right? :)
Surprisingly there's still some pretty silly ways to go around privilege limitations. Until recently, one way to escalate and run something as administrator on Windows was to open the Character Map application, click a menu option to load a custom character and then put the path to the desired executable on the folder path textbox of the file picker and hit Enter. Boom, running as Admin.
@grumpy_website honestly this UI looks very thoughtless.
so much space, it has a title for some reason? what are those top buttons for? why the logo at the bottom left corner? why have the word "Run" twice?
It genuinely looks AI generated.
@nelson @grumpy_website The newest version looks like the current trend of doing Web design as static pictures in drawing software: the placeholder works there, there is a logo, it's clear what it represents (but not what to do with it). Either directly or via an image generator trained on these.
(I won't know what the input does after I type and no longer see the placeholder.)
Unlike that, the oldest one is "have this text with standard components for these actions and this icon".
Windows 7 was actually kinda good IMO, but that might be the nostalgia talking.
@pixx @grumpy_website
Windows 7 good in comparison to Vista (should have been a free upgrade), or Windows 8. I can't believe how ghastly Windows 10 is even with 3rd party "start" and "explorer" add-ins. I've only seen pictures & descriptions of 11, though some of my HW would support it, but that is all running Linux.
The hardly (never?) used gamer PC on my son and the last surviving E460 (bad keyboards) from Nov 2016 both have win 10 and I have it, XP and Win7 on VMs (hardly used) no support.
I preferred Win7 over 2000 or XP, FWIW. 98 was... actually probably the most I've ever enjoyed windows, though it was too slow back then - albeit, less slow than win11 on equivalent hardware today ;(
I've actually used win98 in VMs semirecently largely out of nostalgia. It's genuinely better than what they're pushing today.
I'd unironically be willing to pay for a working copy of Windows 98 with up-to-date security patches.
My very strong opinion: UI "upgrades" are something to sell to the consumer. Promote that notion that there's something New! And Improved! that they should shell out money for.
Secondarily, if you're going to keep designers on the payroll, you have to justify their salaries somehow.
Very early on (I'd say, like 2nd gen), it stopped being about benefit to the user. >
It's telling to me that most established enterprise software (libraries, publisc service, &c) still defaults back to the old Windows 95 aesthetic. I mean, I'm sure they don't have budget to squander on designers. But that the "look" is not a bidget priority says something in its own right.)
@ar1
Just one correction: people "who grew up with printed newspapers and paper forms to fill out where the lines were drawn so you could write script on them" applies to all generations up to and including millenials.
Pre-boomers must have been born somewhen in the 1940s at the latest. They are in their 80s or older now.
Boom is post war baby boom, is '45 onward until someone decides it ended, because it's shorthand, a crude construct
"We can group all these people like this."
@kevinrns
Yep, it's even weirder with other generations labels.
Yes.
It's a picture, you can make out shapes and shadows, but its very low resolution. And its in three colours.
@ar1
Yes, ok, I agree with everything you stated, I just don't get how you arrived at the conclusion pre-boomers were the ones among us who grew up with newspapers and paper forms. If you are older than 20, you should remember the world largely analog until at least mid 2000s. ;)
@nikitonsky @njr No? I agree it doesn't really go into depth but it would seem to me to be saying that it's an architectural association between rational and general with muted sensuality. A philosophy that businesses are following and have followed and biases much of what we do and see.
Could be more detailed I guess, but they do provide quite a long line of source materials to look up. Attention of audiences is limited. They could improve their blogging with actual links.
@grumpy_website > Why does it have to say Run twice?
So you take it seriously as the warning that it is.
It started up in Windows when I clicked the spot
Da doo Run Run Run
Da doo Run Run
I couldn't see the cursor in the typing box
Da doo run run run
Da doo run run
Ooh, it looked so jive
In Windows ninety-five
Now that eleven's here
Doodad wrong wrong wrong
Doodad wrong wrong
Da doo run run by the Crystals
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