this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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I am sick of modern minimalist UI where functionality is not a priority.
I always prefer win32 applications for this reason.
Heck, I even prefer the ultra-skeuomorphic textured-everything approach of Mountain Lion-era OS X over the current ultra-minimalist approach where everything is either a hairline or a big flat monocolored shape.
It actually makes it harder to parse the UI when a button, a text field, a label, and a random part of the window can look exactly the same. I'd rather take a file manager that tries to look like a 1980s hifi stereo.
Or you know, a reasonable middle ground.
In the early '90s Alan Cooper wrote a book called About Face which unfortunately has dropped off the face of the earth as far as its influence on UI design is concerned. One of its many sensible proscriptions was that UI elements that can be interacted with should be visibly distinct from elements that are just there to display information. As a programmer, it drives me insane to have to use any of the modern apps that have completely abandoned this principle - or to have to deal with designers who have literally mocked me for thinking this is important.
Yes, that is the worst aspect of modern UI design. Interactable elements that are distinguished from labels solely by color because accessibility is so 2010. Labels that have that same color for emphasis. Flat black windows with black borders in front of other flat black windows that will get focus if you accidentally click them.
Or what the article is about: Tiny, hidden scroll bars because Fitts's law means nothing and every user has a touchscreen and 20/20 vision.
But but.. but… Apple bad!
That shit started with win2k/winme already. That's when the borders of controls were made thinner, icons were made with less contrast and the first flat buttons that only show their border on hover were being used. So it's quite some time already that this is going downhill.
(tbf, I think the flat buttons were mostly intended for toolbars, but still, style won over function)
Fucking ribbon menus can eat my salty ass. Why does everything take up so much God damn real estate on my screen? I've got work to do!
Take Slack, as an example. Anyone gotten the UI update? Christ on a cock, it's BAD. Hope you use slack full-screen because you're gonna need that to see the actual chat/conversations area. They added another sidebar now. That's 3 sidebars stacked up, and only 1 of them is even useful ( channels ) . Who is out there using so many workspaces, that they need a sidebar? Why does a sidebar need a sidebar sidebar?
Why do all my office and CAD programs take up the entire top 5th of my screen with menus?
Oh, you wanted to actually read that email? Damn sorry we only gave you less than half the screen to do that on, in outlook. But the sidebars are super important you see!
You can hide ribbon menu afaik by double clicking on any tap. I’m sure least MS Office support it.
Yeah but the whole UI is designed to use the ribbon so
I see.
So, is there a better alternative to ribbons?
I am a developer and I am genuinely interested to know if there’s a better way to make frequently used buttons accessible.
I can't speak for games or something like that, but I've been using MS Office since the mid 90s, and they kept the menus well into 2000 and beyond. I never had a problem finding anything. But then at some point after allowing menus if you wanted them, they totally dispensed with them and made the ribbon mandatory across all Office apps.
It's been fifteen goddamn years and I -STILL- can't find shit. Like, I've used mail merge maybe three times in my life, but even today I could find it rapidly in the old menu system: it was grouped next to the labels over to the right somewhere but before Help, take me 10, 15 seconds tops to find it.
Today, it's "ms word [version] mail merge location" in a search or dragging out the customize ribbon tool and simply skimming though All Commands to see if I find it there first. No fucking clue where it's hidden now, because I hardly ever use it, and the menus are not organized in intuitive, regular layouts: some buttons perform a single task, some open a submenu, others open a full window of further options.
Menus are a simple, elegant and time effective way of organizing a complex GUI: intuitive, hidden until you need them, no excess use of real estate, can be flipped through rapidly if you're not familiar with the app, fairly standard for all users, and easy to walk someone through remotely. The ribbon has none of that, IMO.
In an app like Word, put frequently used buttons on the old format bar and put the menus back above them; make the menus fixed but the toolbars customizable to a small degree, and now you have the best of all worlds, IMO.
I think what killed menus are all the people who can't fucking read.
I had no issues with the style before ribbons.
Best way I can put it is by comparing the CAD programs I use. Go look up (PC not Mac) screenshots of Autocad2023 versus Rhino7. I prefer Rhino7, and it's everything to do with how tools are organized, nothing to do with the massive color differences, or command prompt location. Of course, both are highly customizable.
I also really like Photoshop's layout, and Blender in theory, bit not in practice (idk why, maybe just too many things overall everywhere).
I concede the issue here is that I use programs that are very visual based, so when I switch to primarily text programs, the lack of real-estate is very frustrating. I doubt that I am alone in this however, the overall population is admittedly increasingly visual.
I'm 100% with you on all of this! Just give me a classic windows menu at the top. I don't want any ribbons, side bars, hovering bullshit that covers what I'm working on.. Everything should have a keyboard shortcut. Everything should have visibility options.
give me back my computer screen!
Control key shortcuts.
Form follows function! Not the other way around!
You’re correct.
However, in our capitalist world, form follows profit.