I still use WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS

Re:I still use WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS by jacquesm on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @04:14AM (#24418614)

Function over form any day. Unfortunately, we are where we are, we have the cycles to waste on useless eye candy with as a result that we are now cycles short in order to deliver a good user experience. Somewhere, somehow, user experience and design became conflated. The resulting mess is an incredible hodge-podge of technologies, protocols and hardware all trying to pretend it is something that it is not: software running on your local machine.

Running older software on modern hardware is a great way of seeing what we've lost along the way.

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Re:I still use WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS by linguae on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @01:08PM (#24423152)

Exactly. This is why I love the classic Mac OS ecosystem. Yes, the classic Mac OS lacked preemptive multitasking and protected memory, which led to system instability that hampered the user experience. However, most applications written for the classic Mac OS strictly adhered to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, and the result was GUI applications that were easy to use, had consistent conventions, and did not look bad at all. The classic Mac OS might not look as fancy as modern desktops, but its usability is unparalleled even compared to modern macOS.

It's always pleasant booting up one of my classic Macs, whether I'm running System 7.5 or Mac OS 8.1 or Mac OS 9, and using programs like Microsoft Word 5.1 or ClarisWorks. These environments are quite simple compared to the desktops and applications of today, yet they are so complete. Microsoft Word 5.1 and Microsoft Excel 4 on my Power Macintosh 7200 are more comfortable for me to use than LibreOffice on my 2013 Mac Pro. There is a lot that software developers could learn from the classic Mac OS and Apple's UI guidelines of the era.

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Re:I still use WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS by tempodox on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @11:29AM (#24422095)

> ...somehow, user experience and design became conflated.

Also, taking “design” to mean “how it looks” instead of “how it works”.

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