The last 40 years of UX research has given us the iPhone that my mom learned how to use within a couple hours.

> still attractive

I don't think many people outside of the "Everything New Sucks" crowd here on HN would agree there.

Sure, but I'd say the problem is it also left us with the idea that "because Mom's iPhone is so popular, everything, no matter how complex, should look and feel like that," leaving out e.g. a great deal of useful complexity.

I think complexity doesn’t have to be exposed by default on the UI. I’m not an apple fan, but I think ios finds a great balance between not having buttons for every single command (though behind menus it would be ok), yet still exposing it with some niche tricks you have to learn. For example touching the upper left corner’s clock will scroll up, which won’t be discovered by my mum but I can use it.

The thing I hate most about Apple products is these secret member handshakes that are completely non-discoverable to anyone outside of Apples precious alumni. I’ve been using Apple products for years and I still haven’t figured out hall of these tricks and nor can I recall them when I need them. In fact I’ve even got as far as accidentally triggering gestures and thought “that’s handy” but then been completely unable to figure out how to re-trigger that gesture.

I really don’t understand the hate for menus. Everything is named and categorised. Ok it doesn’t translate to a mobile phone all that well but I also don’t see why desktop UIs have to mimic smart phones and tablets.

For me, KDE gets it right. All the key features immediately available. Menus for advanced features. Hot keys for anything useful (with those hot keys names in menus). And terminal integration with all their core desktop applications (like file manager, text editor, etc) so you don’t have to compromise between using the GUI or CLI.

KDE also makes tiling windows easy without forcing people into a full on strict tiling WM. Something macOS is appalling at - even Windows does a better job than macOS.

I think we should differentiate between single-use programs and those that are more of an investment. Like, my torrent client should not be too clever as I will use it haphazardly with way too much time between starts, so anything I should memorize about it will likely be forgotten by the next time.

But on the other hand, things like photoshop, blender and even microsoft word and general uis absolutely fall into the investment category. You have no chance to discover by accident how to create a complex scene in blender for example — “pros” will always have new tricks for you. These are very complex programs where even your hierarchical menus would overflow with info — so now you have context-dependent right clicks bringing out menus not available otherwise. And I think it is a really great design, originating from the very first GUIs! But it only makes sense for us because we have already learned over the years/decades that right clicking is a cool trick oftentimes providing more functionality. It is a cross-program convention. While available on the menu bar, alt+tab is also not an instinctual thing to press, we had to learn that as well.

Now phones did have to reinvent many things and whether we like it or not, newer generations’ first instinct will be touch based, not mouse cursor based. I also see no evil in trying to create UXes that could potentially benefit from both touch and cursor-based usage. These new conventions has to be created though and hopefully one standardish way will emerge.

> I think we should differentiate between single-use programs and those that are more of an investment.

No you shouldn’t. What might be single use for Bob might be a daily driver for Bev.

The Ribbon bar is a great example of that. It’s targeting people who use applications daily but I only use Word or Excel sporadically and really miss the old menus and toolbars. But there’s going to be tools I use daily that others might only use sporadically.

If only there were a way to let Bob use what Bob likes and Bev use what Bev likes? Like giving people options? Like setting up a nice default, but also providing a path for individuals who want to change things in a meaningful way if they choose?

I'm sorry, but it's REALLY hard to not be snarky about this. Apple has absolutely suckered the world into thinking that "nice default interface" and "ability to change your interface" are somehow zero-sum, and there is no reason for this to be the case.

This deficient thinking has even wormed it's way into Linux, look at the current direction of GNOME. Sigh.

I don’t have an issue with Linux DEs behaving like this because you have the freedom to install other WM and DEs.

I have a problem with GNOME specifically because it changed courses so drastically; it was open and friendly and then by GNOME 3 decided not to be. Bit of a bait-and-switch in my opinion.

Project authors need to have the ability to own the project that author if there’s any hope of it growing and evolving with the times. We might not always agree with the leadership in a particular project but as like as it is open source that’s not a problem as anyone can then fork it and add their own vision to the fork. Which is precisely what happened with GNOME.

As an author of FOSS software myself, I’d quit in a heartbeat if someone told me I wasn’t allowed to make my own decisions about my own projects.

The ribbon bar is much more directed at discoverability for beginners, while the old design corresponds to features hidden behind menus under menus. So you being a sporadic user would (should) fare better with the Ribbon bar, it’s just probably that you remember the older version and change is painful.

It’s not the change that’s the issue. It’s the lack of context for what icons do without clicking them. Text offers that context.

But maybe the ribbon wasn’t the best example of my earlier point about the UI needs of sporadic users vs regular users. Or maybe it illustrates the point really we’ll but the context should be casual users vs power users rather than the frequency of usage?

You might be right. You might be wrong. I have no clue. And it doesn't matter a whit.

The point is - LET PEOPLE CHOOSE. Apple and Windows generally do not do this, Linux does. Or at least used to; this is why I'm actively hostile to things like GNOME getting more popular.

> The thing I hate most about Apple products is these secret member handshakes that are completely non-discoverable to anyone outside of Apples precious alumni. I’ve been using Apple products for years and I still haven’t figured out hall of these tricks and nor can I recall them when I need them. In fact I’ve even got as far as accidentally triggering gestures and thought “that’s handy” but then been completely unable to figure out how to re-trigger that gesture.

True, discoverability is an issue. Sailfish OS suffers from the same. I guess any gesture-based UI does, and on top of that iOS, Android, Windows, macOS... they all have features which the user is unaware of, and when they discover it its like 'why didn't you tell me, Ben?'. Programs do, too. Heck, you could say the same about programming languages. But in the end, it is you, the user's fault. Or is it? Perhaps that is part of the problem?

> I really don’t understand the hate for menus. Everything is named and categorised. Ok it doesn’t translate to a mobile phone all that well but I also don’t see why desktop UIs have to mimic smart phones and tablets.

Because designers instead of two distinctive UIs want a UI which is mostly the same for non-touch and capacitive touch. I saw this in the Maemo community as well. You had three types of apps (ignoring resisitive/capacitive focus, Gtk to Qt transition, CLI apps, web apps (as far as they existed) etc etc): normal/traditional desktop apps ("ugly ports"), touch-optimized apps, and stylus-optimized. That's a mess. And if you take for example iOS, that's where the majority of Apple applications are targeted for; not macOS. So they added a portability layer in 10.14 Mojave.

We may safely say stylus-based is not in use anymore. Back in the 90s it was used for resisitive based touch. Nowadays, if one uses a stylus, its on a capacitive touch screen, and it resembles a finger. So, ignoring web apps (agnostic due to CSS / responsive design), CLI apps (niche) we got two remaining: mouse/pointer based UI (traditional/normal) and capacitive touch-based UI. The one which became popular since iPhone is capacitive. It has taken over the world, so to say.

As a desktop user I use Rectangle on macOS, Power Toys on Windows, and on Linux I would like to use Sway with KDE in the future but right now I am sticking to Gnome. Gnome did spatial file manager right back in the days. Sometimes it was annoying, I think a tiling WM is a better solution nowadays, and KDE allows for that (on top of that Qt > Gtk).

Anyway, neither Windows nor Linux have an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 with gestures which work. macOS does. They're consistent. They work, both hardware-wise and software-wise. But it is not an iPhone with capacitive screen, and given the removal of TouchBar I doubt Apple will go towards such a path. You see, that the fingers cover part of the screen of an iPhone is a disadvantage of the device; not an advantage.

Sorry but I’m really not sure what the point you’re making here.

There wasn't the point, its multiple points.

> True, discoverability is an issue. Sailfish OS suffers from the same. I guess any gesture-based UI does, and on top of that iOS, Android, Windows, macOS... they all have features which the user is unaware of, and when they discover it its like 'why didn't you tell me, Ben?'. Programs do, too. Heck, you could say the same about programming languages. But in the end, it is you, the user's fault. Or is it? Perhaps that is part of the problem?

This is about the (lack of) discoverability of UIs, including gesture-based, touch-based UIs. It also describes such lack of discoverability isn't a new phenomenon in software.

> Because designers instead of two distinctive UIs want a UI which is mostly the same for non-touch and capacitive touch. I saw this in the Maemo community as well. You had three types of apps (ignoring resisitive/capacitive focus, Gtk to Qt transition, CLI apps, web apps (as far as they existed) etc etc): normal/traditional desktop apps ("ugly ports"), touch-optimized apps, and stylus-optimized. That's a mess. And if you take for example iOS, that's where the majority of Apple applications are targeted for; not macOS. So they added a portability layer in 10.14 Mojave.

> We may safely say stylus-based is not in use anymore. Back in the 90s it was used for resisitive based touch. Nowadays, if one uses a stylus, its on a capacitive touch screen, and it resembles a finger. So, ignoring web apps (agnostic due to CSS / responsive design), CLI apps (niche) we got two remaining: mouse/pointer based UI (traditional/normal) and capacitive touch-based UI. The one which became popular since iPhone is capacitive. It has taken over the world, so to say.

This is about how we transitioned to a capacitive touch-based UI which has become the status quo, and how developers want to develop for both traditional pointer-based UI and touch-based UI (or how its made easier for them to do such).

> As a desktop user I use Rectangle on macOS, Power Toys on Windows, and on Linux I would like to use Sway with KDE in the future but right now I am sticking to Gnome. Gnome did spatial file manager right back in the days. Sometimes it was annoying, I think a tiling WM is a better solution nowadays, and KDE allows for that (on top of that Qt > Gtk).

> Anyway, neither Windows nor Linux have an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 with gestures which work. macOS does. They're consistent. They work, both hardware-wise and software-wise. But it is not an iPhone with capacitive screen, and given the removal of TouchBar I doubt Apple will go towards such a path. You see, that the fingers cover part of the screen of an iPhone is a disadvantage of the device; not an advantage.

This is my recent [anecdotal] experience regarding window management and GUI flow on pointer-based UI. Includes which tools I use and recommend.

You, in passing, nailed exactly what's wrong with Apple's way of doing UI.

"Niche tricks you have to learn?" That's ridiculous. It's perfectly fine to do a great default UI that most people like without any adjustment -- but it's preposterous that there's no "go in and change just about whatever you want how you want (even if that option is in the way back)."

This is why I've been hardcore Linux for quite some time.

I didn’t think this was niche, I’m pretty sure this has been an iPhone feature since day 1. I used to trigger it by mistake on the small screens.

It’s also not really a critical gesture, it’s a power user feature like keyboard shortcuts on a desktop system. It’s there if you need it but you can also grab the scroll bar and drag it to the top to do the same thing.

> This is why I've been hardcore Linux for quite some time.

Good thing Linux has no niche tricks that have to be learned to use it.

I kid, I love Linux, but this is a weird criticism to have of iOS which, interface wise, is far simpler than any Linux distro I’ve ever used.

Someone said it much better way up above but -- yes, Apple has "niche tricks that are hard to even know about, because Apple actively hides things from you and secretly changes things without telling you."

Linux is "Yep, this isn't easy, but it's generally well documented and talked about. It may take some work to get there, but it won't be mysterious and unexpected like Apple."

Could you sit in front of Blender, Microsoft Office, GIMP or Photoshop without previous knowledge of them and do anything at all with them? What about IDEs? Please see my other comment where I go into more detail, but I think sufficiently pro features can’t really be made discoverable and it’s okay to have only the base functionality exposed. And I don’t think linux changes anything over that other than you being able to use a different desktop env/window manager. I have had my fair share with tiling wms and whatnot, but on linux I now default to Gnome. It is opinionated but I think that’s the job of a good wm.

> Could you sit in front of Blender, Microsoft Office, GIMP or Photoshop without previous knowledge of them and do anything at all with them?

yes

they have menus, especially GIMP, the ugliest of them all, but menus are everywhere just a right click away

but anyway you are in a familiar zone: every software is made that way, except, of course, Apple.

the problem with Apple is that they are trying to make every software look like a calendar or contact list application.

that's a pretty low bar for a standard UI and frankly it means they consider their users mentally challenged.

It’s not just touching the clock, it’s touching the top edge of the screen.

This is one of the things I really dislike about my iPhone. I've had it over a year, I've built apps for it professionally for close to a decade (cross platform, so I usually was the teams 'android' guy, but I still had to do iOS cause I knew it...) and I'm _still_ finding things almost every few weeks I had no idea existed. Like the ability to pick up multiple icons on the home screen.

I used to call myself an expert iOS user and I didn’t knew this clock trick. I think I’m no more an expert.

Nice one, I didn't know that trick.

I think comparing computers (as in the PC definition) and phones is exactly the issue.

I’ve nothing against iPhone (I’m even writing this answer from one) but it’s designed for consumption, which is ok, for a phone.

But I think that, step by step, we are loosing the good ol’ PC. And to me the good ol’ PC with its apparent complexity, is basically the last open and hackable (on multiple levels) technological tool left to the masses.

PCs main feature is that it is an infinite-purpose tool. You can’t be an infinite-purpose tool without some apparent (but logical) complexity.

Simplification of PCs UX is not even needed anymore since it’s being replaced by other devices for the people that just want to consume.

Anecdotally to this anecdote about iOS usability, my mom didn’t know about the control center or how to switch from wifi to cellular data.

iOS isn’t easy to use because Apple markets itself as special and smart, instead it’s easy to use because we live in an age where people use computers and can guess at most things.

I actually thought nextstep looked really ugly even back in the day. I really dislike the icon styles for some reason with so much grey. Looks really dated (and I can remember thinking that when it was out!).

> Looks really dated (and I can remember thinking that when it was out!).

NeXTSTEP (v0.8) was "out" in 1989. It looked like this:

http://toastytech.com/guis/ns08.html

Whereas Windows in 1989 looked like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2.1x

And Mac OS looked like this:

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/System_6.0.4

I think you might be misremembering.

I don't mean "out" as in first release date, I mean "out" as in it was currently being updated at the time. You're right on Win2.x and System6, but later versions of Win & Mac both looked better to me.

Well, let's look at that.

The very last version of NeXTSTEP was 4.x, and was released in 1996 near the end of NeXT's life. It was basically identical in looks to 3.x. Here are some screenshots of 3.x:

https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/53c394c2-abc2-ab26-5111-c3... https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/53c394c2-abc2-ab26-5111-c3... https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/53c394c2-abc2-ab26-5111-c3...

Some shots of NeXTSTEP 4.2. https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/openstep42

Windows was of course presently on Windows 95. Interestingly, both Windows 95 and OS/2 had largely copied NeXTSTEP design elements, including its famous "3D" look and feel, but even little things, like the popup corner menu, practically identical close and minimize (er, maximize) icons, etc., but with a much worse graphics subsystem, and terrible fonts and icons compared to NeXT.

https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win95

MacOS was not quite on version 8 yet but let's round it up. It too had copied design elements from NeXTSTEP, and likewise had a much cruder graphics subsystem with terrible fonts and icons in comparison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_8

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course. Windows and MacOS had caught up somewhat by then. But I think it's pretty incredible to seriously say that Windows or MacOS were ever better looking (or functioning) than NeXTSTEP, at least up until NeXT was bought by Apple and NeXTSTEP ceased to exist as a product. Heck, neither 95 nor MacOS 8 even had live window dragging, something NeXTSTEP had in 1989.

I have a theory that NeXTStep is so grey, is because high resolution monitors with sharp text were only really affordable in monochrome. So the theming originally leant into that.

Yes, when I started using Linux in ‘99, several desktop UIs imitated this style. And it looked dated and ugly to me, compared to Windows 95, KDE and Gnome.

KDE in 1999:

https://czechia.kde.org/screenshots/images/medium/matthiase1...

GNOME in 1999:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/GNOME_1....

Of course, it's a matter of taste, but GNOME and KDE looked pretty bad back then. If I had the money, I'd definitely preferred NeXTSTEP. It's just so much cleaner and better thought-out. This is what it looked like in the early 90ies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#/media/File:NeXTSTEP_...

BTW, this is what NeXTSTEP looked like in 2000 (Mac OS X public beta):

https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/mac-o...

I love NeXTSTEP, because it was awesome for its time, but I greatly prefer the latest macOS :).

> Of course, it's a matter of taste, but GNOME and KDE looked pretty bad back then. If I had the money, I'd definitely preferred NeXTSTEP

can confirm

That's the reason why I was using Window Maker back then

Yes, the Aqua treatment made it leap forward. I love that aged Gnome style :) Met too, I use MacOS and it's the best UI since 20 years ago.

> The last 40 years of UX research has given us the iPhone

Which is a direct descendant of the NextStep operating system.

I don't know that I entirely agree. It's a bit plain Jane - reminds me of CDE in the 90s - but it's not unattractive. I can see it for a more focussed work environment, maybe, but I could say the same of a terminal running fullscreen in a modern OS too. Or just unplugging.

Because it is so limited. Why teach the grandma something instead of putting her neurons at rest ?

Because making things more complicated than they need to be is a sure way to ensure mental fitness. Source: None, ever.

Found the person who wants to complicate their family members lives rather than help them have an easier time.

I can, of course, install a shell-only Linux on my mom's computer as well, but I don't hate my mom.

Wonder what limits you are referring to

That's only for a certain degree of "use", one most users sadly don't (or can't) get past. Too much good from the past has been buried in the name of making it "easy" for people to do basic things; getting to the really useful things is becoming either a hoop-jumping exercise or no longer allowed.

That's like saying 100 years of research into music theory gave us autotune. If people could have made a capacitive touchscreen handheld device in 1980, I'm sure the interface they would have arrived at would be remarkably similar.

I'm one of those people and I'm still scratching my head at this statement.

You know that the "better looking" part is totally personal, don't you? Personally, I never liked NeXTSTEP looks, not even 25 years ago when I saw some reimplementation under *nix (never touched a NeXT workstation unfortunately).

Indeed. I was around at the time this was considered beautiful. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I guess not sharing the same taste or fanboyism is offensive. Good thing you weren't flagged. The night is young though

Edit: case in point haha. The squad is working overtime to protect the precious from evil non positive words

How dare you deny the Hamburger? And two paths moved through the forest, and our civilization took the Hamburger Menu path. And nothing was the same ever. What a thing the hamburger menu is. One can only divide the history of UI between the pre-hamburger and post-hamburger days.

Plus, I love how we went from 100Mhz to 4 gigahertz and waaayyyy more parallel issue, and yet I still routinely have delayed typing output in 2021 on almost every device and computing platform I use. At least several times a day I count: 4 billion, 8 billion, 12 billion 16 billion... and then my text appears and I can resume typing.

NeXT was great. The Magnetic drive, maybe not so much. It was the original borg cube!

> NeXT was great. The Magnetic drive, maybe not so much. It was the original borg cube!

There's some lost lore there: the "beachball" cursor that still lives in macOS was a pictogram of a spinning MO disc. It was a lot more obvious in Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1 before it was redrawn into Aqua-style in Jagwire.

> What is incredible here is that a UI developed in the 1980s is still attractive, and is arguably better looking and more usable than Windows 11 and Mac OS 12.

I somewhat agree. To me, the utilitarian GUI options and desktops have always had some appeal: i've found the likes of LXDE and XFCE to be wonderfully usable and still have a soft spot for the Redmond theme, alongside boring looking pieces of software that just fit in really well with the overall theme and style of the OS.

Of course, that's a subjective point and opinions might differ: even in regards to *nix, some much rather would work with something like KDE Plasma, GNOME or something else entirely, and that's okay.

It would be interesting to have some insight into how much UX / UI goes into macOS and Windows releases, especially if things are tested with representative, non-technical users and then sent back for changes. My cynical take aligns with yours, for every clever small touch there seems to be a half-dozen awkward design choices to work around.

Not enough if the Dock is any measure. It’s been bad for over 20 years and in some ways still a downgrade from the NeXTSTEP Dock (and to be fair, in some ways an upgrade since it has a few tricks now the NeXTSTEP Dock didn’t).

Same for the Finder. There’s been ample opportunity to revisit the original compromises made, fix some of the behavioral and consistency issues and just not touch it ever again. That, hasn’t happened. To be fair, Spotlight and Quick Look are major feature upgrades over the initial Mac OS X Finder, but pretty much all of the criticisms from 20 years ago, well documented by John Siracusa at one point, stand. Also nobody wants .DS_Store files on their servers and it’s probably worth revisiting that decision.

Ugh yeah those DS_Store files... But Windows has a similar equivalent now. You can turn it off by the way with a defaults command.

And yeah I miss the in depth reviews from John Siracusa every year.

Problem is turning them off kills your window positioning and view options which are pretty important to me. So I want them, but I don’t want them, but rather an alternative to what they do for me that doesn’t scatter files to every single disk or server I look at in the Finder.

A lot of UI development is resume-driven, or marketing-driven. Users buy hardware based on UI appearance, and regular changes make it feel fresh and new.

Those of us who use computers for more serious types of work generally prefer more consistency.

The goals are different.

> What does that say about the last 40 years of usability and user experience research?

Bias. Attractive and usability/UX are not one in the same. I find this appalling yet likely good usability.

Guess there's no accounting for taste, it's clearly an ugly developer designed UI. All for maximum UX but prefer not to spend most of my day looking at something so aesthetically displeasing.

Cool nostalgic retro project though, looks similar to first Unix OS's CDE Desktop I used 20+ years ago.

> Guess there's no accounting for taste,

That's exactly it. Taste, you either have it or you don't.

NeXTSTEP was good enough to pass the Steve Jobs taste test. Outside of Apple products, I double anything you consider "aesthetically pleasing" could say the same.

Good is good is timeless, same goes for other fields. For instance chopin will mesmerize any human like brain for eternity.

Anyway, I guess mainstream had to experiment with UX possibilities and will rediscover the value of simple (and pretty enough) nextstep like GUIs.