No... the problem with desktop software is that creating a good UI/UX is a hard software problem typically solved by software developers instead of designers. Whereas, the accessibility and power of web technologies show that making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI.

>making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI

I find this a bit questionable. What are some examples of this good UX and UI? Many HTML-ish UIs I can think of are not good. Slack, Discord, modern Windows apps such as the new settings app for example. They tend to suffer from poor reimplementations of native widget functionality, poor implementations of scrollable elements especially infinitely scrollable ones, low information density and too much whitespace often exacerbated by flat design, janky responsiveness often with high latency.

Apart from the remarks about flat design, whitespace and information-density, which are very personal imho, I would say Google Drive, Google Docs, Microsoft Office Online, GitHub source code editor, Visual Studio code, Atom, all do a good job.

Good job? Maybe on a beefy first-world computer. The UX goes down the drain if you try to run a few of those apps at once.

Doubtlessly the programmers who work on those products use computers with dozens of gigabytes of ram and half a dozen cores or more. They're out of touch with the sort of computers a TON of casual computer owners are using daily.

The products you mention are all hugely successful, often against the backdrop of existing OSS with similar features (IRC, for example).

Maybe there's some abstract notion of "good UI" that is distinct from "people like to use it". Or maybe people are stupid.

But on a purely empirical basis there is absolutely no evidence for the supremacy of the old UI paradigms you champion.

Many of the things I'm talking about aren't even debatable they are simply bugs. For example infinite scrolling areas jumping around as they load content and the interface having variable and high latency in response to user input. 'Poor reimplementations' could be stuff like copy and paste being bugged out in a text box.

In any case you're right, I think there isn't enough study into these things.

Github Desktop I'd say

Your first point is correct, but as a ux designer (not what I do, but it is in my background), most web ui is terrible. It is done by designers, but they obviously have a background in art not user machine interaction and it shows. Once the page loads (takes too long Turing off users) it looks nice, but try getting anything done.

Whoa.

I much prefer finding my way around any "badly designed" UI that can respond in 20-100ms a "well designed" UI that responds in 500-5000ms.

Most web software providers don't (can't!) deal with server latency or the client-side processing of the JS/CSS etc. that they use. That's why I use a lot of "well designed" UIs that respond slower than equivalent systems from the 1980s.

> the accessibility and power of web technologies show that making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI

"Modern" UIs are often atrocious, and I'm not the only person who thinks so.

"better UX" is not a thing I [This comment uses cookies to enhance the user experience. Click :HERE: to accept] would ever say about websites over desktop software.

UI/UX isn't a software problem at all. It's a design problem, and designers solve it no matter the platform.

There's also the question of how open open source programmers might be to some UX/UI designer stepping in and trying to force their vision on the project.

LibreOffice interface feels familiar (to me, at least), and I fell productive with it. My only complain is that the application itself is quite heavy and takes quite some time to start in my Macboook (late 2013)..

(LO Dev) We actually have quite an active ui-design sub-group, which tries it's best to refresh the look and feel.

Feel free to join in :-)

LibreOffice has a ribbon!

Yes, unlike Microsoft they offer you a choice of interface. I'm sure if MS had done the same there wouldn't be nearly as many complaints.

Thank you so much for saying this. I had no idea until I read your comment and immediately opened the view menu. I am blown away I didn’t know about this after over 10 years of using LO...

It's still pretty ugly and doesn't work as well as the office version, though.

I find it reasonably straightforward to use. I can find most things easily in the submenus.

Though I'm on the side of classic menus in the infamous ribbon dispute.

Beauty/ugliness is subjective. For some it is "old and ugly", for some it is "retro".

I agree, and programmers (at least on HN) seems to prefer minimalist and/or retro interfaces.

However I'm pretty confident that if I show such an interface to non technical people, they will feel that it doesn't look nice, compared to whatever proprietary app they use on their phone, Windows/Mac, ...

I personally don't use Word nor LibreOffice (I use mostly LaTeX), but if we want free software to become more popular, there must be a focus on the design.

I don't care how ugly it is. I care about how quickly people can get their work done. The ribbon is better for this because the things most often used are right there and easy to find. Sure rarely used stuff takes longer, but that is a good trade off.

Is there some way to move stuff in word so that it is more accessible. Just wondering.

Yes, since ages ago the ribbon is customizable. You can create a new tab with exactly what you want in it.

There is also a search feature now, so its not like you need to know where rarely-used things are.

I don't personally mind people putting in a fancy ui, put whatever ui you want on it.

Just also give me keybindings and let me hide whatever ui you make.

Well, the head of the design team is Heiko Tietze. His PhD is in Psychology and he's worked at various companies as UX designer/lead.

So, why you'd you contact him and tell him where he's going wrong? I'm sure he'd value your insight and guidance.

On the other hand, professional UX/UI office software designers came up with the ribbon.