[deltaonefour]

Except I personally don't really see shitty changes here.

Literally every UI change to every major UI product ingrained in out culture labeled as a UI travesty. It happens every single time. Look back a decade or so, it's so predictable. I saw an article like this coming from a mile away.

Still your argument could be valid. It just needs data to back it up. (I'm not making an argument either way... Just pointing out the biases)

[mixmastamyk]

Once you are aware of "Fitts' law" and "Chesterson's Fence" it is easy to see the new design as amateur hour. As GP mentions, yes also folks hate change, but you are a bit too eager to dismiss valid complaints.

Finally we are software dev "makers" here for the most part, not non-technical consumers who need retraining for a button move.

____

Edit: I'm not allowed to post "so fast" so to the below:

Sorry, this (below) is just a silly reply. Black is white and white is black, amirite?

It's obvious not all the use cases are handled in the new design, it's a trivial, elementary observation.

What I mentioned above were the result of decades of studies. If you think some random designer has better study data (in an era where OS investment is down an order of magnitude) I've got a bridge to sell you.

[deltaonefour]

>Finally we are software dev "makers" here for the most part, not non-technical consumers who need retraining for a button move.

Being a software developer doesn't give you some kind of magical brain that makes you better at using a GUI. This is part of what I don't like about our field. The arrogance. As if all other users are 90 year old grandmas who's never touched a computer before.

>Once you are aware of "Fitts' law" and "Chesterson's Fence" it is easy to see the new design as amateur hour.

These "laws" aren't really laws that are data driven. Maybe they are data driven in principle but the windows GUI changes very very likely were made using custom data driven conclusions that can very well go around these "laws." Still it is actually by far much more likely for these laws to simply be "coined" by some random person based off of anecdotal experience.

You should know software developers fall for "laws" all the time. These are not "laws" proven they are just strange anecdotal principles that sound good in theory but are not proven in practice. https://reflectoring.io/laws-and-principles-of-software-deve...

The stupid part is that one of these "laws" is called a "theorem." It shows that many software developers have little understanding between the difference between science and logic. None of those laws in software or design are based off of any sort of science at all (aka not data driven), nor are they based off of logic. They are based off of anecdotal observations, and anecdotal observations are beaten and overridden by logic and science every time. Which, I'm pretty sure, is what Microsoft did here (though without any actual evidence this is just an educated guess on how they approach UI/UX research).

[deltaonefour]

>What I mentioned above were the result of decades of studies.

Show me those studies. I can assure you, that the laws and principles of software development aren't based off of ANY studies. SOLID? No studies. Just an acronym to make it sound better.

Therefore, if software is like this... I highly doubt that these principles in Design were developed out of science at all. Like software they must be anecdotal observations. But happy to be proven wrong.

You could provide me with studies done after these principles were "coined" but that's not what I'm looking for (less convincing). I would want proof that these principles were "developed" based off of analytics.

[deltaonefour]

> If you think some random designer has better study data (in an era where OS investment is down an order of magnitude)

No I'm saying a the random UX researcher likely does research and analytics on a very narrow and exact use case of windows. Those laws your bring up, (if scientifically valid at all) likely refer to an extreme generality. It's like saying all men are taller than women. The generality is true but there are many, many exceptions and corner cases. These laws obviously don't refer to windows, they refer to everything and as a result are only generally right, and not exactly right about everything.

[CRConrad]

> Those laws your bring up, (if scientifically valid at all) likely refer to an extreme generality. [...] These laws obviously don't refer to windows, they refer to everything and as a result are only generally right, and not exactly right about everything.

If you look up stuff that's referred to in stead of just spewing the first thing that comes into your head, you embarrass yourself a lot less.

If you had looked up Fitt's law, for instance, you'd have known that it says "it's easier to hit the edge of a screen with a mouse pointer than some line in the middle, and far easier to hit a corner than some point in the middle".

Now please explain how this "extreme generality" does not "refer to windows". (It's not like it's a "corner case" (hnyuk, nyuk).)

[deltaonefour]

>"it's easier to hit the edge of a screen with a mouse pointer than some line in the middle, and far easier to hit a corner than some point in the middle"

With widescreens my mouse point never touches an edge. I mean that's a corner case your axiom fails to address. Because human behavior is part of the system you have to use science and data driven methods to determine the best course of action as human behavior can be unpredictable. Axiomatic statements like "it's easier to hit the edge of a screen with a mouse pointer than some line in the middle, and far easier to hit a corner than some point in the middle" are often invalid in the face of human behavior. Axioms and logic are the domain of maths and logic not human behavior. This is another reason why I sort of dismiss these "laws". This attempt to formalize rules as if they're axiomatic when clearly they are not.

>Now please explain how this "extreme generality" does not "refer to windows". (It's not like it's a "corner case" (hnyuk, nyuk).)

Almost every website or UI is a corner case. Even changing the color of the mouse cursor could have chaotic effects. New Coke is the perfect example of this where not even data could accurately predict the outcome... let alone logic.

In God we trust, all others must have data.

[CRConrad]

> With widescreens my mouse point never touches an edge. I mean that's a corner case your axiom fails to address. Because human behavior is part of the system you have to use science and data driven methods to determine the best course of action as human behavior can be unpredictable.

Except this was measured in studies of human behaviour. Only they apparently studied humans who had both mice with acceleration and the intelligence to give the mouse a quick flick to get across even rather large screens.

> Almost every website or UI is a corner case.

A) No.

B) Buy a joke detector.

Now please stop spouting meta bullshit that only shows that you still prefer blathering to actually getting a grasp on what it is you're blathering about. Thank you.

[deltaonefour]

>Except this was measured in studies of human behaviour. Only they apparently studied humans who had both mice with acceleration and the intelligence to give the mouse a quick flick to get across even rather large screens.

Did you address my comment on widescreens? No.

LOL show me these studies.. they need to be replicated dozens and dozens of times because I don't know if you heard, the entire field of human psychology suffers from a replicability crisis so basically all the science and most associated fields related to such human behavior Bull f-ing shit. You know what's an Associated field? UI and UX design.

I bet you that you can't even find the study. The whole thing is just coined based of anecdotal saying of some random ass hole.

>A) No.

No to you.

>B) Buy a joke detector.

I bought one and I'm pointing it at you. It's ringing. That means you're a joke.

>Now please stop spouting meta bullshit that only shows that you still prefer blathering to actually getting a grasp on what it is you're blathering about.

You need to grow a brain. None of what I said is bullshit. It's real. You have no ability to think outside the box and look deeply at your long held beliefs. I am literally telling you that you've been worshipping this UI bullshit for a good chunk of your life.