| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing-based_interface --- https://blog.thepapermillstore.com/design-principles-white-s... --- https://fluent.microsoft.com/ Especially: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/input/mo... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/input/to... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/input/to... --- > When I care, and have a professionally made UI design on input, default styles & templates are not that relevant for both platforms. I need to create my own ones anyway to implement what the UI designer wants. A good UI designer may not realize that they desire some of the same ideals as the platform defaults, especially with something like the Fluent Design System. It may not be your job to second guess a UI designer you are working with, but there are times where it makes sense to encourage a UI designer to know/understand the defaults of the platform, and especially the reasons for the defaults of the platform. I've been especially glad since the Fluent branding attempt that Microsoft has been doing a much better job documenting it and the reasoning behind it, as you can see in the links above. > Right, but in my experience when I don’t care about UI design, I can use anything, even win forms. In my mind, that is when defaults matter most, when you don't care. If you can get a lot of niceties for free, with no extra work on your part because they are the default, on a platform like UWP, then why not take advantage of that? The software world and especially the enterprise software world is full of programs built by programmers that could care less about UI design and it shows, and it makes users miserable, even when those users are our future selves sometimes. So many papercuts that could have been avoided by choosing a platform with better defaults to begin with. (Friends don't let friends choose WinForms in 2018.) |
> there are times where it makes sense to encourage a UI designer to know/understand the defaults of the platform
Did that sometimes but it was mostly about less obvious stuff, like controls behavior or animations. I was lucky to work with professionals who didn’t try to bring foreign-looking stuff to Windows.
> Friends don't let friends choose WinForms in 2018
For enterprise software I probably wouldn’t. But for e.g. internal tool for a couple of users and with very simple UI (such as a single dialog application with a couple of edit boxes) WinForms still works OK. It’s simpler to use, integrates with older lower-level technologies better (Win32 API, ActiveX, windows shell, terminal services a.k.a remote desktop), and often consumes less resources (Win32 API is decades old and hence designed for ancient PCs).