Re: Oversimplified User Interfaces
Running this forum has taught me all abou those that like and those that don't like change ;) :D.
One of my primary points was to state that simplifying interfaces is a good thing, but over simplifying can be very bad.
With WIndows Vista and IE 7, it seems that there was an assumption made that everyone would be familiar with WIndows and IE respectively. As such, simplifying the icons to the point of low-to-no meaning wouldn't be a problem because they are based on the prior icons that had been used.
As an example using Windows, if I put you in front of the screen and ask you where to find a program, even if you were new, you'd likely click on the button with the word 'start' on it. In Vista, there is no button with the word start on it. There is a nice Windows logo in the bottom left corner in a circle. While anyone who has used Windows will understand that the picture is the place to start, a newbie would not.
Even more to the point of oversimplification - menus are off by default. It is expected that you'll use toolbars rather than menus, so menus are off. In some cases that is fine, but in others, it makes a difference. For example, the View button in Windows Explorer doesn't give all the options that the View menu item does....
My reference to the X buttons is just another illustration of the oversimplfiication. The X button next to the Address bar means something different from the X button on the top right corner. If you are going to oversimplfiy, then change the stop button to a more appropriate graphic.
Brad!
Re: Oversimplified User Interfaces
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Originally Posted by Hobson
No menu, no accelerators, no nothing. Window is pretty skinned, colorful, buttons look cool, and are not labelled. There is no other way to know what these buttons do until one clicks or (lucky ones) rolls mouse over.
I feel exactly the same thing.
I have a brain... I know well French, and understand quite well English, so, please, UI developers, put PLAIN TEXT in your menus/toolbars!
I don't understand icons as long as I've not moved the mouse over it and waited three seconds that a text label pop up.
I've experienced that toolbars without text labels are simply absolutely useless, and use precious screen space!
Why?
Because the first times you use the application, you can't guess what an icon do if you've not yet clicked on it or read the text label popping up.
And, when you're an advanced user... Yes, you could think that recognizing icons is faster than recognizing texts of menus, and that it could save time.
But, that's wrong, because as soon as I've used an application a bit (say, more than ten minutes) I exclusively use keyboard shortcuts... It's far faster than clicking on a toolbar icon, even if the button is big and colored.
Worst... Usually icons in toolbars don't display keyboard shortcuts, while menus do.
So, when I use an application the first time, I go through the various menus, and read human-understandable text (Pictograms are for illeterates and are far less accurate and clear than the human language) and learn keyboard shortcuts.
Then, if possible, I deactivate this ugly colorful toolbar!
Of course, if there are no menus and no keyboard shortcuts, I'm not happy.
And, if there are no text labels on buttons, I have to guess the meaning of icons... Sometimes it's not hard... Sometimes it's quite impossible and I've to click on them to test their feature.
Toolbars are not fundamentally wrong... Toolbars are a good mean to put all the essential features in a small space, while menus are full of options.
But, a useful toolbar, would be a toolbar containing plain text (please, not using 50% of the screen space), perhaps icons... But not pure icons without text.
And, yes, a toolbar should always be removeable, since advanced users can use shortcut keys and the toolbar becomes useless.
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I am findig interface like this completly unserviceable, annoying and hard to use. The other thing is that these interfaces mostly use some pretty skinning and themes and God-knows-what-other-eye-****ers implemented in vey unefficient way. Windows are of non-rectangular shape, close/maximize/minimize buttons are modified, dialogs cannot be minimized, and often stay always-on-top. Repainting window after it gets covered/minimized/clicked/anything takes ages. Everything blinks, flickers, plays sounds, beeps, makes me mad, oh please somebody make it stop...
That's a funny (not so funny) thing with computers.
Ten years back, when most UI were gray and rectangular, I laughed when looking at movies where incredible interfaces with big buttons and animations were used on computers. I thought that such counter-productive interface was only good for fictions & video games, not for real use.
I was obviously wrong.
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I promise, some day I will check every 'About...' box in every application which pisses me off and any programmer mentioned as responsible for GUI will have very moralizing email to read. Oh even thinking about this GUI hell makes me mad :mad:
Good luck. :) :D
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If I only could to modify my WinXP installation CD, I would make Windows classic Look'n'Feel default, no welcome/goodbye sound, no menu effects, always visible accelerators, and so many, many more :cry:
Oh, yes, menu effects... I had forgotten them. That's an abomination. It gives a feeling of sloooooowness of the entire system. Oh, yes, I deactivate all these things.
A strange thing. The default look of WinXP with big blues bars... When I first saw it, I thought it was the most ugly theme I had ever seen.... But, with time, I find it less ugly... I got used to it (though I don't use it at all... I'm still using Windows 98 with a Windows 95 look).
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Just my two cents. I havent seen MSIE 7 yet, and I doubt if I will anytime soon. I am satisfied with my Opera, with simple look, no skinning, tons of shortcut keys, mouse gestures, tabs, and so on. So, no word about MSIE in this post (BTW did they already fix that <input type= > bug?).
Opera is my favorite browser (I use it whenever I can).
However, I use shortcut keys (I think you understand I love shortcuts), tabs and even mouse gestures sometimes. :)
And even a skin... But a very simple & clean (far simplier than the default one)... Black and white without any decoration.
I've also deactivated the "close" buttons on tabs, because they're not necessary (middle button click is better), and can accidentally be pressed.
My second favorite browser is mozilla under Linux... Because it's the most stable browser I know (it never crashed on my computer).
