Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 236
jones_supa writes: Back in February, users decried the new icon look in Windows 10. In response to that feedback, Microsoft has implemented a new icon pack in build 10125, which was leaked early but expected to arrive soon for Technical Preview testers. Screenshots show what the final version of the OS could look like when it goes live this summer. The new icons go all-in on a flat approach, following the same design cues as the rest of the operating system, but the "pixel art" style has been abandoned. Once again, Softpedia asked for user experiences, and this time the comments have been mostly positive.
They look like they could be (Score:2, Funny)
Screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Those "screenshots" are only 600x375. They're more on the side of being huge thumbnails than actual screenshots.
Unless of course you're still using a 640x480 display, in which case you're seeing an article from the future. Hello from the future! Buy these things called "Bitcoins", they'll be worth hundreds of dollars some day!
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If 640x480 is the standard resolution of the time, you might want to warn them about 9/11 too. There'd still be time to avoid it.
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Sending warnings back in time doesn't work because top leaders just ignore the warnings [businessinsider.com]. This sort of Novikov effect [wikipedia.org] is how the timeline remains consistent despite chronomeddlers.
And 640x480 was still the standard resolution for set-top boxes until around 2007 when HDTV sales took off.
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And 640x480 was still the standard resolution for set-top boxes until around 2007
Define "set top box", since both you and I know, that both the PS2 and the original Xbox were capable of putting out a 1080i signal.
The PS3 was released in 2006, it's a set top box, when using HDMI by default it outputs the highest resolution your display supports up to 1080p.
Now admittedly, if you're you, and you're babysitting kids in the early to mid 2000's with a SNES/PSone/ or perhaps a PS2 attached to an SDTV, you might not realize the HD revolution is passed you by. Sony was selling nice little 15
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The new icons remind me of BeOS. It's that whole isometric, pixel-art looking thing I suppose.
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Those "screenshots" are only 600x375. They're more on the side of being huge thumbnails than actual screenshots.
Unless of course you're still using a 640x480 display, in which case you're seeing an article from the future. Hello from the future! Buy these things called "Bitcoins", they'll be worth hundreds of dollars some day!
Heh. Given how the icons are looking more like icons did in the days of Windows 3.1, maybe having a low-res screen is next. The Hipsters will love it!
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Hello the Future of May 2015, This is January 2014. I bought a $880 bitcoin just like you said! How's it doing, will be I be rich then?
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Better hold them for a little longer... I only said "hundreds of dollars" so you kind of overshot there, mister optimist. Didn't you notice them going from 1200 to 880? Who buys on a down trend?
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Those "screenshots" are only 600x375. They're more on the side of being huge thumbnails than actual screenshots.
I like the fact that an article that talks about the recycling bin icon actually hides the recycling bin icon under some stupid overlay when you open the oversized thumbnail.
They were better before (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They were better before (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not include both?
Re:They were better before (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the concept of "choice" is anathema to UI designers circa 2015.
Re:They were better before (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They were better before (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not ugly! It's modern and elegant!
You know, unlike all those other UI designs that were modern and elegant. They're all old and busted now. UI design has more to do with fashion trends than any sort of objective basis in usability.
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Gather 'round children, and let me spin a yarn of the old days when human-computer interface guidelines existed, and were created using actual science instead of fashion trends...
Re:They were better before (Score:5, Insightful)
The other motto is "hide everything, because we don't understand the difference between 'actually making something simple to use' and merely hiding complexity."
Dear Mozilla (and everyone else), fuck you. [imgur.com] This shit is RETARDED. "Look everyone! We got rid of all those confusing menus! Now there's just one button! ... Which spawns a bunch of menus.
Oh, and the regular menus also all still exist.
Oh, and we have TWO buttons like that, because we are in full-on shithead mode. Why hide everything behind one button, when you can force user to FIRST choose from one of TWO buttons! Mwa ha ha ha ha! One looks like a fox, the other looks like a hamburger. NEITHER has ANYTHING to do with what lies underneath! Hey, "New Private Window" is pretty important... put it in BOTH! But only put "new tab" in one. But make "new tab" a menu, and put "new window" underneath it. Got all that? Good. I need another drink. It's almost 10am!
Seriously -- I couldn't make this shit up. There's a special spot in hell waiting for you douchebags. You are collectively wasting YEARS of people's lives with this monkey shit.
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Because the concept of "choice" is anathema to UI designers circa 2015.
"Choice" --- as the geek defines it --- has never been a big part of Microsoft's success in its core markets. The same can be said, of course, for Apple.
Looking better (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if people get too hung up on system icons however - same thing happened with OSX Yosemite. I can change icons in a few seconds rather than beyatch about it.
Now if I just don't have to go to the web to find out how to do things I've done for years, in their other Os's, we might be talking here.
Also, I hope they've put POPmail back into the system mail program. It's not like half the world uses it or anything.
Re:Looking better (Score:4, Insightful)
...I wonder if people get too hung up on system icons...
The icons are the first things the user sees when the desktop loads. The icons are what is shown when the notebook or PC sits on display in a store.
.
The icons are the visual "come hither" for the operating system. An OS with unappealing icons has to work harder to appeal to customers.
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It's not "beyatching", it's feedback, and Microsoft is ASKING for feedback regarding Windows 10. As a beta user and long time customer, it's perfectly reasonable to let them know I think their icons look horrible. I've given feedback for more substantial improvements, but I make sure to let them know about any aesthetic issues I see as well.
Is it really a major deal? No, not really. Part of it, though, at least for me, is the notion that all the way up the chain of command at Microsoft, there isn't one
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No, not really. Part of it, though, at least for me, is the notion that all the way up the chain of command at Microsoft, there isn't one person who looked at those icons and said "My God, those are hideous! Someone fix those damned icons!". It just feels sort of pathetic,
Its groupthink in action. It's the same exact thing that allowed KFC to thing that this was an appropriate commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Whereas normal people would call that assault, The sociaopatchs that produced it, and whatever assholes at KFC that approved it never thought for a second it was wildely inappropriate.
The craziest thing is, both processes, the awful icons and the filmed assault probably went through dozens of people to be approved. Whereas a couple people in a office
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Oh, grow up. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that commercial, you're just a sheltered little prude.
And you are an anonymous Coward.
Checkmate atheists!
Re:Looking better (Score:5, Insightful)
Good lord, do people actually use the 'built in' email provided with Windows?
Of course they do. Most people in the world will have never heard of Sylpheed, let alone know what it is for. It is pretty arrogant to think that people don't use the built-in email simply because you don't.
Arc of deception (Score:2)
Most people in the world will have never heard of Sylpheed
And even if they have heard of it, they think it's a shoot-em-up for Sega CD [wikipedia.org] and Xbox 360 [wikipedia.org].
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No, it's an old shooter for DOS which predates the console versions and that mail client by decades.
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What's so great about Sylpheed that I should care?
Sylpheed's primary advantage over all other e-mail clients is its inability to send HTML formatted mail. [sourceforge.net]
Isn't that awesome?!?
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Sylpheed's primary advantage over all other e-mail clients is its inability to send HTML formatted mail.
Not "all other". Claws-Mail, the more well known and more popular fork of Sylpheed has the same feature....and more.
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The fork of sylpheed known as Claws-Mail is more well known. Since the Sylpheed community is Japanese-centric, I recommend Claws-Mail over Sylpheed to anyone who isn't Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.claws-mail.org/feat... [claws-mail.org]
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system mail?
I've been carrying Sylpheed along with me from Windows 2000, through my NetBSD desktop days, and into the future.
Good lord, do people actually use the 'built in' email provided with Windows?
Yes, a lot of people do things I don't do either.
Problem is, When you are setting up a computer for other people, they have a tendency to like things like they like them. That's why I ended up with pissed off people because they couldn't put all the programs they liked on the desktop - on the desktop (desktop apps vs metro apps).
I don't do that either. But when a potential customer can't find a good reason to change everything they do - for absolutely no improvement, they won't.
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Good lord man, Sylpheed? Do you pine for the days of teco on a tty as you snap your suspenders and smooth your beard? Do you have a fetish for slightly quirky japanese-developed-and-centered open source software? Hasn't everyone who isn't Japanese switched to the Claws-Mail fork of Sylpheed by now?
flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the sudden (the last year or two) appeal with the super flat GUIs all over the place ?
Change for the sake of
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is, it seems companies are letting designers do the job of the UI experts.
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Well about the only thing all the "UI experts" in Redmond have managed to do in 15-odd years is the Windows snap functionality (or whatever it's called - win key + arrows).
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
No, we'll end up with beautiful icons that are hard to use.
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
The horror!
We may end up with intuitive and user-friendly software, oh no!
Like Windows 8?
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, let me know when that happens... you idiot.
'Flat' design means 'designers' are attempting to design user interfaces, when they clearly have NO CLUE on how to design a user interface, let alone improve the current one we have. Windows 7 was perfection, but some idiot at Microsoft is actually paying people to RUIN their own company - hello? Jensen Harris anyone? 'The Ribbon'? Metro? Microsoft lost hundreds of millions of dollars because they couldn't admit they were wrong, and they couldn't leave things as they were - because some assholes' jobs depended on changing everything.
What is 'intuitive and user friendly' about buttons that no longer look like buttons, so the user has to GUESS what is and isn't a button, by mousing over every bit of text in the program?
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Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:4, Informative)
The same thing happened to OS X and iOS. What once was clear and easy to understand is now pretty and mostly useless.
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:4, Interesting)
The same thing happened to OS X and iOS. What once was clear and easy to understand is now pretty and mostly useless.
Strange how so many people around the world choose to use these "mostly useless" products. I'm not saying it's all for the better, but the "OMG I can't use this app it has a ribbon" people really should find some kind of job frozen in time where nothing will ever change. Funny enough, this place is crawling with all sorts of new languages yet very few go like "OMG I must learn a whole new syntax and standard library", then it's like change and multiple skills is no problem at all. Whatever they throw at me I'm sure I'll find a way to work with it...
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
Change just for the sake of change is stupid, especially if the change is a step backwards in functionality.
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The ribbon is a step forwards. Instead of scanning through menus with hundreds of lines of text arranged in some order that is combination of what some programmer thought made sense and the chronological order the features were added in, you get a nice visual representation of what each item does and can scan through them quickly.
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Strange how so many people around the world choose to use these "mostly useless" products.
But many people chose not to use these new products with their new-fang-dangled UI designed by some young whippersnapper fresh out of UI design school.
People avoided upgrading to Windows 8 because of the design and stuck with Windows 7 or even Windows XP, and the only way Apple could get the large percentage of Snow Leopard holdouts was to drop security updates. They kept using an older version of OSX because they kne
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The changes in OS X and iOS are not even close to the clusterfuck that is Modern apps and abandonment of human-interface guidelines at Microsoft.
The only red-hot mistake in the Apple camp is the attempt to throw out Save/Save As... for Keep/Discard file management that nobody can get their heads around. Fortunately, Apple isn't trying to push that very hard. The rest of it is just aesthetics... the appearance hasn't change THAT much (be honest) and the functionality stays pretty much the same.
At Microsoft,
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, if people are actually doing proper user interface design, that might be true.
But having seen Metro on a Windows 8.1 box ... that's not what is happening.
Graphic designers focusing on pretty, but with no understanding of functional are producing shitty interfaces which, while they might be fine for a tablet or a handheld, are complete garbage for a desktop machine with no touch screen and operated with a keyboard and mouse.
So, I don't care which shade of pastel and crayons the useless interface is. I want to turn off the useless interface entirely, because it provides nothing in the way of utility.
Windows 8.1 is fast and stable, and has nice features. But it's only usable as a desktop once you install something like Classic Shell and turn off the crap that these "designers" have put in.
They're spending all the time tweaking the wrong things.
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So, I don't care which shade of pastel and crayons the useless interface is. I want to turn off the useless interface entirely, because it provides nothing in the way of utility.
Windows 8.1 is fast and stable, and has nice features. But it's only usable as a desktop once you install something like Classic Shell and turn off the crap that these "designers" have put in.
They're spending all the time tweaking the wrong things.
I think it's hilarious when Windows 95 icons are more intuitive than an OS that'll literally be twenty years later from the same company. That was with icons that only had the basic sixteen ANSI colors available to them at-launch. It required an update to enable 256-color icons. If anything, limiting designers to those sixteen colors and requiring a common faux-3d paradigm ensured that all of the icons had a design consistency about them that made it difficult for others to copy, so one could usually tel
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LOL, that's because Windows '95 was still using visual metaphors they'd 'borrowed' from Apple -- and since Microsoft won a court case which said you can't own look and feel, there's no denying they borrowed from Apple.
The problem seems to be now that they're borrowing elements of a tablet interface, and trying to innovate ... they seem to be painting themselves into a corne
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Actually they "borrowed" it from Xerox, the same place that Apple did.
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You know, if people are actually doing proper user interface design, that might be true.
But having seen Metro on a Windows 8.1 box ... that's not what is happening.
To be fair, I don't know that any of the problems are with the Metro (now called Modern) design language itself. Most UI complaints in Windows 8.1 fall into two categories:
1) usability problems such as auto-hiding UI elements, removing buttons in favor of gestures, moving right-click menus to the screen edge, and so on
2) dislike for the flat, clean, chrome-minimized theme
Metro/Modern only deals with #2, and for the most part that is user preference. Meaning, if #1 were fixed, then Metro can work right for
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain the presence of Metro on Windows Server 2012.
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:4, Insightful)
I would love to hear a rational explanation for that one.
I just installed Server 2012 for a client, and it was my first view of it. Also, I don't use Windows 8, so am not used to the Metro crap either.
Trying to find the usual server configuration tools is ridiculous now. It's not that they are completely hidden like it Win8 (move mouse to random corner, something useful may appear), but trying to use them without having to escape from the metro tile field first is a nightmare.
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You missed the Powershell train. Microsoft spent so much time trying to come up with a command line based admin tool when everyone griped at how bad vbs was for it that by the time it was done people had worked around it using vbs and had no need for Powershell.
Microsoft's solution was to force the admins to use it either by hiding the usual admin tools or making them so slow that if you wanted to get anything done you would learn Powershell.
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, nice either or.
In between clueless people who want to access the intertubes and programmers is pretty much everything else computers are ever used for.
And business software users do not gain a damned thing from Metro. They gain a clunk interface which is useless to them.
So, while Metro has its place for some people ... it is completely unsuited for the tasks of what many many people do with computers.
So Microsoft (and idiots like you) can keep pretending that Metro is a suitable interface for everything. Or Microsoft (and idiots like you) can actually realize that "one size fits some" isn't going to cut it.
You sound like a whiny graphic designer who still doesn't understand that a GUI which doesn't suit the task is fucking useless.
Yes, for many home users Metro will probably do everything they need. For for people with more demanding tasks, and most people in business ... Metro is utterly useless as a UI.
I can assure you, Metro is not all of "simple, clean, aesthetically pleasing, intuitive, and functional" ... it's anything but, in fact unless you're doing fairly trivial tasks on a tablet.
With a keyboard and mouse, on a large screen with no touch ... Metro is a completely fucking useless UI.
So you can boo hoo about how the graphic designers will save the day. But if all they have is eye candy which impedes function compare to existing UIs ... all they're doing its making pretty garbage.
But people who use computers for grown up things will simply not benefit from Metro. Because it's the completely wrong interface paradigm for many things, and Microsoft (and idiots like you) whining it's the wave of the future doesn't make it a good universal UI.
This isn't about the interface for normal people and programmers ... this is about the entirety of human computer interface design, and is much more sophisticated than your clueless reductionism.
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This, a thousand times this.
The first thing I do with metro on a desktop is replace it with one of the many start menu alternatives. Metro is an interface I dont want on a phone, let alone a workstation. However I cant do this on servers as no IT organisation will permit it.
I press the windows icon to have somethi
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I totally agree like sixty million percent times.
It's like houses. Who needs architects? If the door's in the wrong place and it's too narrow who cares, so long as the colour looks nice with the curtains.
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Wait, wait, wait.
Does the carpet match the drapes? That's all I care about.
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I'm sure graphic designers have a load to complain about how you're incompetent too, while we're at it. Show me a bad metro UI by a graphic designer and I can show you an awful UI by a programmer.
Show me one fool operating out of their domain with poor results and I'll show you another doing the same. Neither should be working UI design.
GUIs are the way of the future and the metro style is here to stay.
Microsoft's competitors certainly hope this is the case.
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Trust me, when I make a button using "flat elements" is because I have no time to make a more elaborate button th
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
We may end up with intuitive and user-friendly software, oh no!
But the problem is that you don't get an intuitive and user-friendly system. You might get a clean system without clutter, but then have to figure out and dragging from the top of the screen to the bottom is the way to close a program. Or that clicking in the space that used to have a design element (but is now just blank) was the way to bring up the start screen. Or that things that look like they are just decoration are actually active buttons, but you only know this (and what function they perform) by blindly clicking, dragging, swiping over every part of the screen.
Even when you do this, you still have to face the final insult when you find that the function you are looking for was removed from the software because it was deemed too advanced for modern users - even though Windows has been able to perform that function for decades up until now.
Modern user interfaces have absolutely nothing to do with intuitiveness. I looked at some really old software recently and found it so pleasant because I could tell exactly what functions were available and how to perform them simply because they used textual buttons and menus. It was so much better than being faced with a bunch of similar-looking graphics with no mouse-over pop-ups to explain what they were for.
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:4, Insightful)
Even an interface that requires mouse-over pop-ups to understand is a fail in my book.
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:5, Insightful)
Change for the sake of change. Programmers can't grasp the fact that maybe there is an ultimate end design. A hammer made today still looks like a hammer from a century ago. There is a reason for that.
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A hammer made today still looks like a hammer from a century ago.
No, it doesn't.
Hammers come in all kinds of different colors with all kinds of designs.
Also, a UI for an inherently complex and extremely powerful and versatile thing such as an OS is not a fucking hammer. That's like comparing an industrial complex to a dog house.
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You have maybe three kinds of hammers. Standard claw hammer for nailing, A sledgehammer with two blunt faces, and a ball peen hammer to concentrate the force. A quick check on Wikipedia shows a claw hammer design from the 16th century that looks exactly like a hammer made today. What does color have to do with it?
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What does color have to do with it?
Really?
What does the pixel configuration of the recycle bin icon have to do with its functionality?
That's right, very, very little. Even if it were just a yellow square, it'd still have 'Recycle Bin' under it and the fundamental functionality would not be different. Just like a yellow polka dot hammer.
Also: http://stanford25blog.stanford... [stanford.edu] (reflex hammers)
And Google 'design hammer'. There are definitely hammers out there that look as stupid as all the flat UI crap we're dealing with today.
The big differenc
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A hammer made today still looks like a hammer from a century ago.
No, it doesn't.
Hammers come in all kinds of different colors with all kinds of designs.
I bet you believe in UX too.
Why does it matter what colour a hammer is? What function does the colour have?
A hammer is the same basic shape it has been in for millennia. A flat sided lump of metal attached to a handle. Even the claw hammer is over 500 years old and looks very similar to a modern claw hammer.
The biggest innovation in hammers in the last 100 odd years was switching from wooden handles and leather wraps to plastics and polymers. Even then, this is a slow evolution rather than a radica
Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the sudden (the last year or two) appeal with the super flat GUIs all over the place ?
It's the move to fully scalable UIs. Cool graphics have not yet arrived at that scene. Making everything flat and simple is the easy way out.
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What if he works for a company other than IBM?
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I completely agree.
On my ipad I have three icons next to each other that look almost exactly the same. On my Android phone I have something similar and the Dolphin browser on my phone has loads of little blobs that bear no relation to anything and the only way to find out what they do is to press them.
With OSX I have chosen not to upgrade to the latest just in case I end up not knowing what anything does. Strangely, Apple are still producing Logic X with things that look exactly like their physical counte
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UI trends are following marketing all around the world. It has nothing to do with UX experts. The designs are all about not wanting to be the person walking to work in a bright blue suit in the 90s after everyone has moved on.
The entire world is changing to a flat look, not just advertising and company logos, but also physical things (tables, chairs and even whole houses have modern styles which emphasises flat colours and straight edges). The UIs are simply catching up with what the rest of the world is do
Fiddling while Rome burns? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, instead of trying focus on what kind of user experience we're going to have (which sounds like they think the tablet interface is what people actually want for everything) ... and focusing on making all of that good and usable ... why does it sound like throwing out new sets of icons means someone has lost the plot and is focused on the eye candy, and ignoring the fact that for a desktop machine Metro is a completely garbage interface?
I like my Windows 8.1 machine. But it was really only useful once I basically removed all of the stuff that Microsoft thinks they innovated or that was valuable.
Metro on a 23" non-touch screen monitor is a pathetic interface for Windows. If Microsoft is going to think everybody is running everything on a touch screen interface, instead of a mouse and keyboard ... they're doing a shitty job of knowing what people actually use computers for.
But, hey, we've been working diligently on the icons. 'Cuz, that's what people really want.
Re:Fiddling while Rome burns? (Score:4, Funny)
I believe the metaphor you're looking for is "re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic".
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That plus painting the bike shed.
Re:Fiddling while Rome burns? (Score:4, Interesting)
For the record, I also don't like Metro on a desktop PC.
That said ... Metro was optimized for touch and keyboard (but definitely not mouse). Type to search is usually faster than drilling through the Start menu with a mouse if you go more than a menu or two deep. Old-school shortcuts like alt-tab to switch windows and alt-F4 to close the current window are still there. If anyone cares, here's a list -- http://windows.microsoft.com/e... [microsoft.com] . We're going back 30 years or so, but I believe that some of those shortcuts go all the way back to WordStar (ctrl-c to copy, for instance).
FWIW, I don't think it's Metro that MS bungled, but rather how the plain old desktop, Metro, and settings were intermingled, especially in 8.0. Metro is fine for what it is: a UI designed for single / double-tasking media consumption. The default full-screen view is slick for Netflix and YouTube, while the default Mail and Calendar apps are good enough for my mom, but horrible for work needs. My biggest gripe is that the default apps for image viewing, the calculator, user settings and so on were all Metro apps -- even when launched from the desktop. One of the absolute stupidest things I've ever seen on a PC was day 2 or 3 with 8.0. I was writing an email in Outlook and wanted to double check some math. I fired up the calculator and was presented with a 22" fullscreen 4 function calculator that completely obscured the numbers I wanted to check.
Throw in how some OS settings were only available in Metro ... and, yeah.
But my issues with Metro were, by and large, focused on how I kept on being punted into it even when I most definitely did not want to be.
As for the icons? I think MS is simply going for consistency across the different flavours of device (phone, tablet, desktop). As 8.1 stands right now, it has two sets of icons, one for desktop, one for Metro. With 10's move towards windowed Metro apps, it doesn't really make much sense to maintain multiple sets of icons -- that lack of consistency, in and of itself, I believe, is poor UI design.
Crazy idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not simply let the user choose what they want ? Personally, I don't really care what they look like, but once I'm used to a set of icons, I would prefer to keep it.
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Why not simply let the user choose what they want ?
Because the user would choose Windows 7, and Microsoft can't allow THAT!
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Why not simply let the user choose what they want ? Personally, I don't really care what they look like, but once I'm used to a set of icons, I would prefer to keep it.
Because ... because ... er, we don't have enough disk space or something? Yeah, that's it ...
What do you want? It's not like these are computers and you can configure them or anything!
Yuck (Score:4, Informative)
No difference (Score:3)
It still looks like flat Windows 8 icons. What am I supposed to be seeing? Looks about as good as FVWM did in the 90s.
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We need a law for this; mention a crusty 20 year old technology that still gets the job done and a avid user will manifest.
eg, vi, emacs,
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???
You think vi and emacs are only 20 years old?
Noob. :^)
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Q.E.D.
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Oh I have nothing against FVWM. My point was 20 years later Microsoft is pushing a UI design that looks extremely dated.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Microsoft spent 20 years teaching people how to use their UI then just throws that all out for no reason at all.
There is a reason: apps for the new paradigm (Metro?) have to go through their app store and they get a cut for each app sold there. As always, it all comes down to money.
If "meh" is positive, then yes (Score:2)
Comments have overwhelmingly been to the tune of "erh... yeah. ok. Whatever". But I guess MS counts anything but outright resistance to the point of making a shitstorm a "positive reaction" these days.
Why not test? I just don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
People used to do real tests with real people, in controlled situations, measuring response time, counting errors, videotaping what they were actually doing, finding out where people are getting stuck and using that feedback to redesign and try again.
This was common all the way back to the 1970s. People like Ben Schneiderman were doing formal research and writing textbooks in the 1980s.
Why do I no longer hear about any of this being done? Why is it all about the visual tastes of individual designers?
There's nothing wrong with beauty--the original edition of Inside Mac, 1983, said in so many words "objects are designed to look beautiful on the screen." But beauty and style are not the same as usability.
All of the insane "mystery meat" UI of today, in which you cannot find an affordance unless you already know where to click to make it visible, cannot possible be usable, even if some people enjoy developing the necessary skill set.
Without real testing, you always get the same things: the personal taste of the manager in charge, who is sure that what is natural for him is natural for everybody; or, the personal taste of the developer, who is sure that what is natural for him is natural for everybody.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The takeaway is that they did test and tests were negative but they went on for business reasons.
They want you to get used to the metro UI so that you'll get used to it and you'll buy a Windows Phone phone. Also so that you buy metro apps through their store and they get a 30% cut, so that you use their services and they get your data and money , etc.
TL;DR: T
Re: (Score:2)
They failed anyway.
New floppy disk icon for the modern age. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing says "modern" like that new floppy drive icon.
Progress!
Re:Windows 10 is for cows! (Score:5, Funny)
Moo-moo, moo?
Signed,
the Cow King.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is this a big deal anyway? Couldn't you personalize the icons any. I'm sure that Windows always had the ability to add custom UI anyway, so what does it matter what the defaults look like.
Certainly can. I use personalized icons all the time. Different colors for different purposes, sometimes a letter as an icon. Just pretty much whatever I want.
The icons however, for many(most) people are just the part of the system they interface with, so inordinate attention is paid to them when they are fugly.
The part I am curious about is the stuff under the interface. Windows 8 was such a dog's breakfast that I just stopped supporting it. Weird stuff like no popmail for the integrated program, t
Re:What's that saying???? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong end!
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong end!
But should you happen to prefer that end, you could annouce it proudly in a comment, get modded +5 Informative and then make it a Slashdot signature memorable enough that it is brought up in otherwise unreleated comment threads like this one.
Re: (Score:2)
unless you fell for all the hype and purchased a shitty little touch enabled laptop... fuck touching the screen and getting fingerprints on it.
But are there 10" laptops that aren't touch-enabled, like the netbooks of 2008-2012? Or should I just buy an ASUS Transformer Book (a 10" tablet with a snap-on keyboard) and live with getting fingerprints all over it?