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by dismal2 2924 days ago
I don’t understand a lot of the criticisms at modern ui/ux patterns in this post. Ex: complaining about the hidden settings menu in chrome. Most people just want their applications to work and have the most common functions easily accessible. I am sure most users of chrome don’t ever need to delve into settings and are happy with the minimal set of options presented to them and that user testing backs this decision.
3 comments
lomnakkus 2924 days ago
Yes, and browsers are specifically about the content you're viewing whether that be a simple page or a web-app. How often do you really use the application menus of a browser in the first place, and does that justify giving them center stage over and above the tab list at the top?

There may be arguments in favor of global menus, but browsers are not one of them. Personally, I detest global menus like the plague because it really disconnects the list of actions from what I'm going to be acting on, especially if you have e.g. focus follows mouse. (But I'm sure we're just supposed to let go of that too...)

EDIT: ... and since nobody asked: The problem with the Linux desktop is mostly lack of consistency across applications, IMO.

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AnIdiotOnTheNet 2923 days ago
> Most people just want their applications to work

There is a part 6 entry addressing this very thing:

https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-u...

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doggo 2924 days ago
I don't think I understand the author's critique of the Chrome/Firefox menu button either other than the weird choice of iconography. I'm curious as to what he would propose as a solution to the problem.

I do agree with the author on his sentiment on the lack of discoverability with applications nowadays. It might've been better to showcase the `chrome://settings` interface since it's a prime example of less suitable mobile design bleeding into the desktop UX. Funny, I just noticed that they actually use a proper hamburger icon for toggling the hidden settings menu, not the triple dots.

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TotempaaltJ 2924 days ago
> other than the weird choice of iconography

I think that by now, we're well on our way of educating people on the meaning of the hamburger icon...

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