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by shaan7 2668 days ago
Most software in the 90s were highly customizable and a joy to use because of that. I don't remember customization adding a lot of complexity to desktop applications (having worked with classic VB6, VB.NET (WPF) and Qt4).

The complexity today comes from the fact that there is much more focus and priority on getting the application to match designers' vision. Its extremely complex to offer the user customization while still ensuring pixel perfect UIs. (Emphasis on complex, its not impossible).

1 comments

In the 90s, how many updates were there, especially introducing new features?

I guess the problem is, if you introduce a new feature in a web app, it can be hidden by the customized design of users. Or it would just appear at a random place in the UI, forcing the user to re customize around that new feature.

Yes that is indeed a problem, but not unsolvable.

Customization usually doesn't mean radically changing things. Its more about moving UI elements around or changing a List into a Grid etc. A combination of "new" highlight with a "Whats New" popup (extra points for short video intro) usually does the trick.