The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it
- Reference: 1662366553
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/09/05/opinion_column_modern_os_desktop/
- Source link:
Yet ex-Rex of UX Jensen Harris, who also confesses to being [1]the murderer of the Windows startup sound , is, if anything, [2]far too sparing in his regal condemnations . In the 20 years since the Start menu first appeared, it has changed many times, but arguably to little user benefit. It isn't hard to find videos of youngsters barely older than the button reacting with growing pleasure as they click around the Windows 95 desktop.
That's because the desktop metaphor was basically done. By the time it came out, Windows 95 was the beneficiary of 20 years of evolution in graphical user interfaces, first introduced in the Xerox Alto of 1973. That supplemented – but did not replace – the text terminal, which would be familiar to teletype operators of the 1920s. Teletypes themselves were inheritors of the QWERTY keyboard of 1873. Some 150 years later, as you compose your emails or write your jeremiad against Windows, that's basically what you're using. Stability in UX is not a bad thing.
[3]
Happier times...
Constantly messing around with UX is a bad thing, however. All you need is for it to find resources, start software, control your computer, and arrange things to your liking. Windows 95 did that perfectly well, as did Apple's System 7. By rights the GUI should have settled down then, like every UI before it.
So what went wrong?
[4]
Innovation! Differentiation! The operation of the market! Excuses, not reasons. Nobody is served by having to relearn which corner of a window has the control buttons every time they change platform. Nobody is delighted by having to play hunt-the-menu. None cry out in delight when a computer silently stashes a downloaded app who knows where instead of just putting it on the desktop where it can be moved wherever the user wishes. From version to version, from OS to OS, and in the case of Linux seemingly from moment to moment, these things shift and shimmer.
[5]The International Space Station will deorbit in glory. How's your legacy tech doing?
[6]Big Tech is building the metaverse of its own dreams. You don't want to go there
[7]Nuclear power is the climate superhero too nervous to wear its cape
[8]The sins of OneDrive as Microsoft's cloud storage service turns 15
As for innovation, put it in the apps. Put it in the services. Put it under the hood. A single stable desktop would be as detrimental to innovation as USB-C. Apple has special ownership of that nonsense: USB-C has demonstrated that a single connector liberates good ideas, not stifles them. The desktop should be the cognitive USB-C, not a throwback to the days when every device had its own incompatible charger and data connectors.
The reason for the unholy UX mess with no signs of converging is, of course, marketing, and the reason they get away with it is because of one of the greatest con jobs in IT. We have been taught, and never question, the near-abolition of customer support by the OS makers. Unless you pay extra, you cannot pick up the phone or email Apple, Microsoft, and especially not Linux, to ask basic questions. You cannot say to Apple, "Which bit of the Finder actually finds things?" You cannot complain to Microsoft that File Manager thinks "Share with Skype" is the second most important file operation, right after Open. You cannot pick up a phone to Ubuntu and scream "Stop! Stop! In God's name, stop!"
[9]
The OS companies have insulated themselves from user pain, the sort that soaks up customer service resources and actually costs them money. Go to the forums, thou sluggard, and try to work out which version the answers you find are actually about. They have created their own walled poison gardens where they can mess around according to the will of whatever internal faction is carrying the day, sentencing billions to useless frustration, cognitive load, lost work, and lost lives. It is frankly criminal.
So keep your frills and fantasies, if you must, but include an alternative. Just one, and it should be the same one across the industry, like the keyboard almost is. Pick the best bits of Windows 95 and System 7. Different styles are fine, extensibility is fine – providing it's standard and portable. Hand it out, then leave it the hell alone. Guess what we'll all be using in a year's time?
[10]
No, OS people, you will no longer be able to parade your latest unwanted schemes and fancies at us. You'll have to make them worth our while finding and adopting them. Then we can all concentrate on getting the damn work done. Isn't that the idea? ®
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWUBjM2LNJU&ab_channel=JensenHarris
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/microsoft_windows_start_menu/
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2015/08/24/win95start.png
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YxXIvCFVzkctuCeyAhc0TQAAAMY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/iss_legacy_tech/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/22/metaverse_opinion_vr/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/15/nuclear_power_climate_change/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/10/onedrive_at_15/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxXIvCFVzkctuCeyAhc0TQAAAMY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxXIvCFVzkctuCeyAhc0TQAAAMY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: It does suck
I agree that Windows 7 was the peak of Windows usability. 10 was sort of okay and sort of not. I haven't used Windows regularly since 7.
IMO the current Ubuntu / GNOME desktop gets it right. I'm keyboard-centric so the 'super key + start typing' thing works really well for me; it's the Windows 7 scheme without the folder-structure to fall back on.
The only drawback I could understand is that it doesn't work very well for touch. The Android-like page after page of unsorted app icons is not exactly usability plus.
I think the author has missed one of the key reasons that OS makers keep on messing with desktops - they're still searching around for a desktop metaphor that feels equally natural when you're sat at a screen, keyboard and mouse as it does on a tablet or phone. Moan as much as you like that tablet UIs have no place on the desktop, but personally I have a laptop that folds around into a tablet and turns into a touch screen. Which UI metaphor should it use?
windows 11 makes me cry
I still don't understand why Windows 11 won't let me display application names on the taskbar. I still don't understand why Windows 11 insists on grouping all application instances together on the taskbar.
No longer can I leave a browser window open on CricInfo and use the taskbar display of its title to track the cricket score.
No longer can I tell which friend just messaged me on (instant messaging system of choice) because I always have them in different windows.
No longer can I tell at a glance anything that's running because they're all displayed as silly icons.
Yes, I'm a grumpy old man.
Re: windows 11 makes me cry
Couldn't agree more. I often work with multiple spreadsheets open. In Win 10 and earlier, I can see the filenames in the taskbar next to the Excel icon and a single click brings up the sheet I want. In Windows 11, it's a case of hovering over an icon until a popup appears and only then can I see the names, move the cursor again and select the one I want.
Doesn't sound like much, but when you're switching back and forth between sheets dozens of times a day, this extra work and extra delay all adds up into a disappointing user experience.
The OS is supposed to allow people to carry out their work/access their programs as quickly and efficiently as possible. Windows 11 clearly fails at this, it's as simple as that.
Re: windows 11 makes me cry
As a grumpy old man in training, this truly sounds like a fucking nightmare.
System 7 - the horror, the horror.
I used to use, and program for, System 7. You'd be lucky if it stayed up for a whole day - it just crashed on me for no apparent reason even when just using it for word processing. SunOS3.5, on the other hand, stayed solid for months despite my imposing all sorts of horrible 'optimisations' on it using bits of 68K assembler I barely understood, embedded in C. Moral of the story - simple UI good, stable OS better.
Re: System 7 - the horror, the horror.
I had high hopes for CDE as a platform back in the day. It may look "ugly" to some but it does the job. Hell, even OLVWM is functional...
Re: System 7 - the horror, the horror.
System 7 wasn't all that stable. Especially the different versions of System 7.5. Things got better with System 7.6 and the different versions of System 8. Mac OS 8.6 to me was the peak of the original Mac OS. It was stable and worked well. OS 9 wasn't bad either. I agree that operating systems are changing too much. Also too much vendor tie in whether it be Apple or Microsoft. All want you to stay inside their "walled garden: and buy products from their stores (Apple or Microsoft). I'd rather choose my own software.
Skeuomorphism
It was the loss of skeuomorphism in (Windows) UI design in general that was the beginning of the end, IMNSHO. Now everything looks flat and bland and unintuitive, UI elements are difficult to discern from everything else, as a result there's far too much empty space between them and interacting with the system is generally just a frustrating experience.
Add in the specific case of Windows from Win8 onwards, the window manager is a total buggy mess that constantly glitches out when it's trying to draw things, which makes the whole experience even worse .
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE WIN95-WIN2K DESIGN LANGUAGE?
Unfortunately no...
" The OS is supposed to allow people to carry out their work/access their programs as quickly and efficiently as possible "
The sad reality is that the OS is supposed to maximise the revenue stream of the vendor (hence the move to 'subscription'). A secondary purpose seems to be a PR exercise with other vendors as its target public - one-upmanship within the vendor community. Whether or not an OS serves the user is immaterial once you have a monopoly or you're a member of an effective cartel.
Peak Usability
While I agree that the Win7 menu was the peak; I still feel that WinXP was the peak for actual OS user experience overall.
There were things I could do under the hood in XP that were a LOT more difficult to do in Win7, and virtually impossible/impossible in WIn10.
My first experience of WIn10 was so bad, I went back to Win7 for another 4 years, and my second experience required the use of a Win7 OS PC to fix an issue with the Win10 machine's SSD, because the Win10 OS wouldnt let me fix the error, no matter how many permissions I gave myself.
If Win11 continues the removal of user control, you might as well call it " WinNanny "
What an wonderful article.
Someone actually lambasting the shite we have to use these days. When I tell people I do IT, they move along to talk to someone else. That's how fucking bad this has got. Once upon a time people would queue up to ask me, "how do you do such and such on my ****** (name of device). Now they know before hand that after 30 years in the industry, my response will be, "how am I supposed to know that ?" or "what makes you think that I know how to fix it ?".
Every criticism I read in the article is absolutely true, it's a sodding pain every time, relearning what RIGHT CLICK doesn't do any more.
I used to think that computers would help to level the playing field for someone with a disability, now their disability is made worse by their choice of computer hardware amd accompanying software.
One good thing has come out of all this "messing about" though, it's called MX Linux. It's free, it leaves the other OSes that I have tried - in the ditch.
The only point of concern being that the STOP/START button is now at the top left corner of my screen - at the far end of a vertical task bar.
Vertical task bar ? OK, no real issue.
But why move the START/STOP button ? Because they can........
ALF
Are you sure the top left isn't just the default? I would be surprised if you can't move the elements around as you like.
I am using Mate in a slightly non standard config, well at least it was when I configured it. Since settings are in a file in my home directory I just get what I want OS release after OS release, new PC after new PC, as I just carry the settings files over. My config might have become standard over time, or not. I haven't seen standard for many years.
You can move everything around on it, MX defaults to the XFCE desktop which is very customisable.
Not the only game in town
The Windows 95 desktop model, fine, familiar and ubiquitous as it may be, is not, and never has been, the only game in town.
Personally, for example, I don't actually want a "desktop". It doesn't work for the way I work. I don't want icons on a metaphorical desk, because they're always obscured by windows - lot's of windows (I multitask ferociously). What I do want is multiple workspaces, a responsive window manager which stays out of the way, and a menu/taskbar/keyboard shortcuts to manipulate windows and access applications. I get that on Linux with an old-school, lightweight, minimalist window manager (Fluxbox in my case, Blackbox before that) which I have used happily for over two decades).
Then there is the NEXTStep/Window Maker/Mac OS model - doesn't work particularly for me, but clearly does for many.
Re: Not the only game in town
"What I do want is multiple workspaces, a responsive window manager which stays out of the way, and a menu/taskbar/keyboard shortcuts to manipulate windows and access applications. I get that on Linux with an old-school, lightweight, minimalist window manager (Fluxbox in my case, Blackbox before that) which I have used happily for over two decades).
Then there is the NEXTStep/Window Maker/Mac OS model - doesn't work particularly for me, but clearly does for many."
I use WindowMaker with multiple workspaces for exactly the reasons you gave; what doesn't work for you about it?
It does suck
I installed Windows 11 on my daily runner because, working in EUC as we like to call it these days, it's always handy to see what will be coming down the line in corporate refreshes.
And yes, it's better than 8. But then what the fuck wasn't/isn't better than that?
Windows 7 had it nailed, I think, personally. It looked good. It was purely functional. Everything was where you expected it to be and it wasn't trying to search the internet every time you typed into the search bar. No drip feed of data back to MS, no Cortana etc etc - basically Windows 95/2000 but a bit prettier.
Windows 11 just confuses. The start button moves as you open things. Ok, that's not too much of a problem but it just feels a bit odd.
Start a command prompt with Windows key+R and type cmd and you get, as you'd expect, a command interpreter. Shift-left click on the taskbar icon and instead of spawning another command shell you get a PowerShell window.
Settings are still all over the place.
It seems to be a resource hog compared to previous versions. Just sitting with a few browser tabs open and a copy of a small Excel sheet open and the fans on my laptop soon go mad.
I hate the behaviour where if I hit the Windows key and start typing - previous versions of Windows used to start populating the search bar and would (usually) find the application I wanted. Not this version - it just tries to go to the application with the first letter I typed. I have to take extra steps to click in the search box.
I hate the reduced functionality - I've got it back with third party apps but right-click the taskbar and I want Task Manager there.
Every version of Windows since 7 has been a step - well several steps - backwards in terms of usability.
And if it frustrates and confuses long-term professionals, how does it make ordinary users feel?