[ndespres]

Some of these complaints feel like they aren’t specific to Firefox at all, but are UI conventions that used to be ubiquitous and no longer are, much to the chagrin of those of us of a certain age.

He also rails against menu items that are greyed out and unusable, where to me that’s a very useful indicator that the action isn’t available here but that I’m looking in the right place.

When I want to click a menu item and find it greyed out, that tells me something. But when I want to click a menu item and it’s not there at all, I’m confused. Did a developer move it somewhere else? Did the name of the action change? Am I losing my touch?

[vanschelven]

Indeed both the "..." and "disabling over removing" were in the windows 95 UI manual

[quesera]

They were original in the 1984 Macintosh OS (before it had a name), and published in the first edition (1987) of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines.

Just two of the things Microsoft copied successfully. :)

[zinekeller]

Eh, they were definitely from Xerox (so it would be unclear since that both Windows and the Mac System Software derived some of their UI elements from Xerox experiments)

[quesera]

The Alto? I don't think that's accurate. Only 2000 devices ever shipped, and I used one at my parent's workplace back in the day. But I would have been far too young to remember that detail.

It may well have been kicking around PARC before Jobs made the deal with Xerox. But I can't find any images that show either of those UI elements, pre-Lisa.

[jrmg]

Also macOS in its various guises, for decades.

[pdntspa]

I have a lot of questions about the person who wrote that blog post, in that it seems to be a quick hot take without any digging into the reasons why things are the way are

Blog first, ask questions later? It's like c'mon man, have at least a little bit of curiosity...

[darkwater]

No idea about author's exact age but I would bet he was born around Y2K (according to his CV) and, well, it's IMO a testament that usability is based on habits, culture and conventions, and it's not a universal truth.

[kps]

Intuitive equals familar — Jef Raskin https://doi.org/10.1145/182987.584629

[wk_end]

"The only intuitive user interface is the nipple."

(usually attributed to Bruce Tognazzini)

[unethical_ban]

Before tearing something down, ask why it was built.