Sleek / Metro minimal design? What large Windows you have.
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Ok, so the trend in Windows / WinForms design has been toward minimalism, right? They've flattened out the colors and made icons two-dimensional, removed borders from windows and all the rest, right. But why, why, why? Do they use these gigantic windows to display one line of text? :laugh: Visual Studio 2017 Example Example dialog from Visual Studio 2017[^] Android Studio is guilty too... Android studio window from one of my articles here at CP[^] Neither of those windows can be resized either. I believe the designers are thinking, "well, one day I may decide to put more text and stuff on that window..." They are subscribing to the Indecisive Design Theory :-D
raddevus
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Paraphrasing from a Microsoft UX document I read about 'Metro' and task dialogs:
Microsoft wrote something like this:
Message boxes are replaced by task dialogs, which are supposed to be a uniform and fairly large size. One of the criticisms of the standard message box was that it was too small, and tended to get lost against a background of multiple application windows. The intent is that the larger and constant size of the task dialog acts as a cue that you need to make a decision or perform an action when the dialog appears.
FWIW, I hate flat monochrome UI's too. I don't mind the flatness as much, as people were getting out of hand with overly-wide drop shadows on everything and 3D-reach-out-and-grab-your-crotch icons on stuff. I despise monochrome UI's. I'm thoroughly middle-aged, and my visual acuity is pretty poor. It's rough for me to recognize icons that differ only by a few pixels. I also have a hard time figuring out the too-subtle figures of the icons themselves, as they assume a visual language acquired during a childhood filled with video games and the world wide web. Those of us who experienced these developments as adults don't have the same fluency (you lose a lot of language-learning skills as you exit childhood). Part of the problem is that the principal development teams are run and populated by 20-somethings and 30-somethings. No one performs usability testing based on age, since the attitude is they wish the dinosaurs would just fucking die off anyway.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
The flip side is having a 4k monitor and having a tiny dialog box pop up and you can't find it.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
The flip side is having a 4k monitor and having a tiny dialog box pop up and you can't find it.
Well-played. Really, a very good point. The odd thing is that I'm doing UWP research /dev right now and the system forces devs to be totally conscious of every display capability and DPI known. It's odd that they don't handle it better.
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Paraphrasing from a Microsoft UX document I read about 'Metro' and task dialogs:
Microsoft wrote something like this:
Message boxes are replaced by task dialogs, which are supposed to be a uniform and fairly large size. One of the criticisms of the standard message box was that it was too small, and tended to get lost against a background of multiple application windows. The intent is that the larger and constant size of the task dialog acts as a cue that you need to make a decision or perform an action when the dialog appears.
FWIW, I hate flat monochrome UI's too. I don't mind the flatness as much, as people were getting out of hand with overly-wide drop shadows on everything and 3D-reach-out-and-grab-your-crotch icons on stuff. I despise monochrome UI's. I'm thoroughly middle-aged, and my visual acuity is pretty poor. It's rough for me to recognize icons that differ only by a few pixels. I also have a hard time figuring out the too-subtle figures of the icons themselves, as they assume a visual language acquired during a childhood filled with video games and the world wide web. Those of us who experienced these developments as adults don't have the same fluency (you lose a lot of language-learning skills as you exit childhood). Part of the problem is that the principal development teams are run and populated by 20-somethings and 30-somethings. No one performs usability testing based on age, since the attitude is they wish the dinosaurs would just fucking die off anyway.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Paraphrasing from a Microsoft UX document I read about 'Metro' and task dialogs:
Microsoft wrote something like this:
Message boxes are replaced by task dialogs, which are supposed to be a uniform and fairly large size. One of the criticisms of the standard message box was that it was too small, and tended to get lost against a background of multiple application windows. The intent is that the larger and constant size of the task dialog acts as a cue that you need to make a decision or perform an action when the dialog appears.
FWIW, I hate flat monochrome UI's too. I don't mind the flatness as much, as people were getting out of hand with overly-wide drop shadows on everything and 3D-reach-out-and-grab-your-crotch icons on stuff. I despise monochrome UI's. I'm thoroughly middle-aged, and my visual acuity is pretty poor. It's rough for me to recognize icons that differ only by a few pixels. I also have a hard time figuring out the too-subtle figures of the icons themselves, as they assume a visual language acquired during a childhood filled with video games and the world wide web. Those of us who experienced these developments as adults don't have the same fluency (you lose a lot of language-learning skills as you exit childhood). Part of the problem is that the principal development teams are run and populated by 20-somethings and 30-somethings. No one performs usability testing based on age, since the attitude is they wish the dinosaurs would just fucking die off anyway.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
I also have a hard time figuring out the too-subtle figures of the icons themselves, as they assume a visual language acquired during a childhood filled with video games and the world wide web
Then there's the opposite. Many kids today have never seen a floppy disk, yet they managed to figure out that's the Save icon.
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Ok, so the trend in Windows / WinForms design has been toward minimalism, right? They've flattened out the colors and made icons two-dimensional, removed borders from windows and all the rest, right. But why, why, why? Do they use these gigantic windows to display one line of text? :laugh: Visual Studio 2017 Example Example dialog from Visual Studio 2017[^] Android Studio is guilty too... Android studio window from one of my articles here at CP[^] Neither of those windows can be resized either. I believe the designers are thinking, "well, one day I may decide to put more text and stuff on that window..." They are subscribing to the Indecisive Design Theory :-D
raddevus
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
My biggest peeve with latest designs is the missing Apply/OK buttons in windows 10. Once you change something there used to be an OK button that gives you an immediate confirmation that what you have done is actually applied. These days you make some changes and there is no buttons to confirm and it makes me confuse did it work or not and then most of the time I go back to same screen just to be sure. Some designer ( Self proclaimed artist ! ) is getting paid a million bucks somewhere to come up with such a stupid design.
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf * Maths is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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My biggest peeve with latest designs is the missing Apply/OK buttons in windows 10. Once you change something there used to be an OK button that gives you an immediate confirmation that what you have done is actually applied. These days you make some changes and there is no buttons to confirm and it makes me confuse did it work or not and then most of the time I go back to same screen just to be sure. Some designer ( Self proclaimed artist ! ) is getting paid a million bucks somewhere to come up with such a stupid design.
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf * Maths is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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Just to derail things, am I the only one who despises this trend toward flattening everything?
For me, less graphical details = much better. The words are still the same and it's less distracting.
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
I also have a hard time figuring out the too-subtle figures of the icons themselves, as they assume a visual language acquired during a childhood filled with video games and the world wide web
Then there's the opposite. Many kids today have never seen a floppy disk, yet they managed to figure out that's the Save icon.
dandy72 wrote:
they managed to figure out that's the Save icon
I don't think they really did. A lot of applications (especially mobile) today save what you're doing with no intervention. I think for those apps that still have a 'Save' operation to a 'file' the kids learned that icon indicated the save operation, without understanding that the icon used to represent common media.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I think we all do.... I also suspect the rationale behind it is because such designs work better on mobile phones (less clutter), and Microsoft have a bee in their bonnet about have the same OS for desktops and mobiles ("One OS to rule them all...") IMO, they should accept that they missed the mobile boat and give up on it - and concentrate their efforts on the desktop environment and its users.
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For me, less graphical details = much better. The words are still the same and it's less distracting.
I agree, we should all just use command line interfaces :)
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Just to derail things, am I the only one who despises this trend toward flattening everything?
Nope, just about every developer I know really dislikes the flat UI that Microsoft is using. They also dislike the Windows 10 'Start Menu', all of them have replace it with Classic Shell or an equivalent. Now, this is all on their desktop machines, they basically had no problem with it when they had (work supplied) Windows phones (all now have Android phones).
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I think we all do.... I also suspect the rationale behind it is because such designs work better on mobile phones (less clutter), and Microsoft have a bee in their bonnet about have the same OS for desktops and mobiles ("One OS to rule them all...") IMO, they should accept that they missed the mobile boat and give up on it - and concentrate their efforts on the desktop environment and its users.
Makes sense. Seems to me that the two environments are so different that one shoe does not fit all. That and I spend enough time making sure my monitors are clean that I'd be seriously annoyed to see a bunch of fingerprints on them. No, I do not have touch screens on anything buy my phone and ipad. :)
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Paraphrasing from a Microsoft UX document I read about 'Metro' and task dialogs:
Microsoft wrote something like this:
Message boxes are replaced by task dialogs, which are supposed to be a uniform and fairly large size. One of the criticisms of the standard message box was that it was too small, and tended to get lost against a background of multiple application windows. The intent is that the larger and constant size of the task dialog acts as a cue that you need to make a decision or perform an action when the dialog appears.
FWIW, I hate flat monochrome UI's too. I don't mind the flatness as much, as people were getting out of hand with overly-wide drop shadows on everything and 3D-reach-out-and-grab-your-crotch icons on stuff. I despise monochrome UI's. I'm thoroughly middle-aged, and my visual acuity is pretty poor. It's rough for me to recognize icons that differ only by a few pixels. I also have a hard time figuring out the too-subtle figures of the icons themselves, as they assume a visual language acquired during a childhood filled with video games and the world wide web. Those of us who experienced these developments as adults don't have the same fluency (you lose a lot of language-learning skills as you exit childhood). Part of the problem is that the principal development teams are run and populated by 20-somethings and 30-somethings. No one performs usability testing based on age, since the attitude is they wish the dinosaurs would just fucking die off anyway.
Software Zen:
delete this;I always think something, but actually it was a little embarrassing to say it until recently, because it sounds like a bad joke of teens or their dream. Therefore - in advance and to my defense - is to mention that my SF-Con is a very long time ago, and I (hopefully) with my 40+ already arrived in life. Especially after the appearance of Windows 10 and its UI appearance, I increasingly recognize a special trend and change with a certain similarity of the UI to the good old ST TNG. :) Looking back at the past 20 years and the current direction, first the good old fold-out phone, then iPhones, pads, and other mobile devices. In addition, then a little loose connection with Linux, and the growing storm clouds, whereby a certain weakening of the desktops in the direction of mainframes is tried. So also in now relatively flat and now universally expectant UI, which should now get more and more tabs. Maybe someday our dear windows will disappear completely. :)
Something about which we often break our head: "In the name of the Compiler, the Stack, and the Bug-Free Code. Amen." (source unknown)
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Just to derail things, am I the only one who despises this trend toward flattening everything?
It isn't just mobile. Why does Outlook give you the choice of these desktop themes on a 1900x1200 color monitor? Dark Gray Light Gray White Really, I spend money for a color monitor and you offer me monochrome?
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dandy72 wrote:
they managed to figure out that's the Save icon
I don't think they really did. A lot of applications (especially mobile) today save what you're doing with no intervention. I think for those apps that still have a 'Save' operation to a 'file' the kids learned that icon indicated the save operation, without understanding that the icon used to represent common media.
Software Zen:
delete this;Instead of a floppy disk, I once wrote an app that used the standard Windows hard drive icon, overlaid with an arrow pointing down to the drive to represent Save...and another icon with an arrow pointing up instead, away from the drive, for Load. And so my graphics designer career came to an end. It seemed like a good idea at the time. :-)
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Instead of a floppy disk, I once wrote an app that used the standard Windows hard drive icon, overlaid with an arrow pointing down to the drive to represent Save...and another icon with an arrow pointing up instead, away from the drive, for Load. And so my graphics designer career came to an end. It seemed like a good idea at the time. :-)
My most recent app used an icon made of a thumb drive image overlaid on a floppy disk. It actually looks pretty nice, and users have commented that it makes sense.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
My most recent app used an icon made of a thumb drive image overlaid on a floppy disk. It actually looks pretty nice, and users have commented that it makes sense.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I agree, we should all just use command line interfaces :)
I'd rather bit-bang my cpu instructions.
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I keep saying - It took us decades (and I've bought at least one of each) to go from mono to CGA to EGA then VGA and [whole alphabet]GA to HD to UHD. And now that we have ultra-high resolution displays that can display millions of colors, people are designing UIs that would look at home on 4-color CGA monitors. Who are they trying to accommodate???
As opposed to what? Skeuomorphic designs? Visually noisy pseudo-3d elevations? Amiga Demos hardware color scrolling? I, for one, accept our clean UI overlords. Just don't try and make text act like a button (looking at you Apple and Microsoft).
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Joe Woodbury wrote:
The flip side is having a 4k monitor and having a tiny dialog box pop up and you can't find it.
Well-played. Really, a very good point. The odd thing is that I'm doing UWP research /dev right now and the system forces devs to be totally conscious of every display capability and DPI known. It's odd that they don't handle it better.
What do you mean? If you're not hacking what you shouldn't, 100% of the SDK controls are DPI-aware.
