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On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 02:50:33 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
>> One thing I've observed over the years of Microsoft products is that
>> they tend to aim for "good enough" rather than "perfect". Sadly,
>> that's the way of things in software creation - the companies that make
>> technically excellent software - and groundbreaking software - tend not
>> to do as well because they spend too much on development and not enough
>> on marketing.
>
> One of their biggest flaws is that they seemingly have this idea that a
> new version of their OS (or other software suit) has to look&feel
> different from the previous version, for the sole reason of
> looking&feeling different from the previous version, even at the cost of
> usability (and often even at the cost of breaking *their own*
> GUI design and usability principles.)
That's certainly true. I do wonder how much user acceptance testing they
did on their designs. Most companies cut that corner when designing a
new UI.
> There are many things that Windows 3 did right in terms of usability of
> the GUI design. Each new version of Windows has chopped off those design
> principles one by one.
>
> Sadly, this trend has infected other companies as well (I'm looking at
> you, Apple. Each new version of OS X is worse and worse in terms of GUI
> design and usability.)
From what I've seen, I agree (but I haven't seen Mavericks yet). I
didn't really care for the Windows 3 design either (I was a Desqview
person prior to Windows' dominance - and I still prefer text interfaces,
and tend to see GUIs as a way to open more terminal windows, though
obviously these days you have to work with a GUI to run a fair amount of
software).
Jim
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