Future AmigaOS GUI

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Sure SimoAmi's mockup is nice (although i don't like the HTML shell idea at all, and I DO NOT want windows style explorer windows), but I don't get all the people saying that the OS4 default look doesn't look "modern" enough.

I think if you compare the OS4 default theme to the OS X or XP default themes, OS4 easily looks better. IMHO, of course.

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The shell would have to still default to a monospaced font for legacy applications that expect things to line up, but it could switch to proportional if a program outputs XML, I suppose.

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Note: This post is all IMHO, and indeed subjective :-D

Well, I don't really like Teotwins additions to Simo's designs at all. While its obvious he's a talented artist, I don't know what he was thinking when he came up with that!

First, the curved window top is just horrible. A curved top with square bottom corners is just visually really unappealing imho.

Secondly, that close gadget is just really horrible looking.

The "all in one super gadget" is something that would have all professional human-interface experts going crazy! In practice it would be confusing, counter-intuitive, and introduce a steeper learning curve for beginners. Its no good "clearing up clutter" for the sake of aesthetics at the cost of usability. I really don't see whats wrong with the system we have now!

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The default OS4 (allthough Matthew from Zeoneo did say that it was not finished and that time was too short for the demo) looks extremely dull, boring, outdated.

Thats just the thing. To me it looks great; not to over the top, and it looks much, much BETTER than OS X or WIndows XP's default themes to me, and they are supposed to be 'modern'. I really like it.

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teotwin wrote:
windows is already doing it (ive used it for years but only just noticed that its the same thing implemented differently) and im sure they have many "experts"

Actually, Microsoft are one of the worst companies at creating interfaces. Pretty much everything they make has shocking human interface howlers!

There was a great "User Interface Hall of Shame" at iarchitect.com, but the site seems to have since disappeared. Luckily the wayback machine has a mirror. (click hall of shame on the left). There are quite a few Microsoft programs in there.

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That is your words Tickly.  If you had any idea of how much effor Microsoft puts into their usability testing, you would be surprised.

To quote the iarchitect hall of shame:

"Unfortunately for the user, interface design at Microsoft is now the responsibility of graphics artists rather than interface designers. It should come as no surprise then, that Microsoft is far and away the most frequent contributor to the Interface Hall of Shame."

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SnowBord wrote:
In future, please justify WHY the windows UI is a bad one, apart from the anal 'it's not Amiga'.

I never claimed the Amiga was perfect. In fact, the multitude of GUI toolkits available makes the Amiga pretty bad on the consistency front; probably only beaten by the X-Windows world with its myriad of GUI toolkits, and window managers.

Oh, and that some unknown web site written by schoolkids claims it.

You've obviously not been to the site. IArchitect.com was NOT written by schoolkids.

From the introduction:

"Isys Information Architects Inc. specializes in the design and development of robust, highly usable information systems. Isys focuses on ease of use, recognizing that software should assist the user in the performance of some task rather than becoming a task in itself. Isys was founded by Brian Hayes, a former professor of Industrial Engineering, and system design consultant whose clients have included AT&T, General Electric, General Motors, Lucent Technologies, NASA, Siemens, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army. "

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Incidentally, if you are after specific examples, here are a few. Bear in mind that because they were done by Microsoft, who create a lot of "industry standard" applications, a lot of them are just accepted as standard.

I am not of the opinion that everything Microsoft makes is immediately rubbish, and I also don't bash them for no reason, and I do recognise a lot of positive things they have done.

1) With the introduction of IE4 and Win98 (and continued since), Microsoft took away the borders of buttons in some (but not all) toolbars and made them appear only when the pointer was over them. They also extended this "appearing border" to menus. This is immediately a bad idea; buttons should always appear as buttons, and act as so when pressed. This is common sense, but once again usability is sacrificed for the "cool" factor.

2) Since Office 97 (i think, maybe 2000), lesser-used menu items are removed from menus until they are "maximised" with a special button that appears at the base. This is to present new users with less options and reduce clutter. A good idea, you may think, until you realise that it "learns" which options you use most, and hides the rest. For someone who is not computer literate, menus suddenly changing their layout is a bad idea, and possibly confusing. Also bear in mind that the "maximise" button isn't necessarily obvious to a beginner, who might be reticent to click it, and assume an option is "lost" forever.

3) With IE 6, the picture view mode has special options that appear when the mouse is hovered over it. Besides the fact that these are buggy, and can leave trails when scrolling, all the options are ALREADY available from a simple context menu. These particular pop-ups are unlike any other pop-up i've seen in any other MS application.

4) Up until quite recently, quite a lot of Microsoft programs (Word being a good example) would have action buttons relevant to the whole dialog placed within the borders of a tab page. This is an unnecessary ambiguity that only serves to confuse. You could say "oh, but this was fixed with Windows 95", except that it was present in Word right up to at least Office '97!

There are loads more. I suggest you go take a look at the site :-D

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SnowBord wrote:
1. DIRECT FEEDBACK.  go read an HCI book.

I know what direct feedback is, I still think this is not a good example of it.

2. The theory being you can get access to your most frequently used commands...

Again, I am aware of the reasons behind it and the motivations for implementing it. I'm saying that the actual implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

I am sure you're glowing with delight reading the site's obviously biased view.

Once again you just show that you havent even been to the site! The site has a "Hall of Shame" and a "Hall of Fame". Microsoft also get quite a few entries in the "Hall of Fame" for GOOD user interface techniques. Also, good and bad examples are given for MacOS and a couple of Unix ones.

Anyway, this is more or less of topic for the thread (which was, I believe, future AmigaOS GUI's), and I doubt we'll ever agree on what makes a "good" user interface, so lets just agree to disagree.

(Incidentally, I think Office's interface is vastly superior to OpenOffice).