
Designing Windows 95’s User Interface - LaSombra
https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/
======
russellbeattie
It's hard to remember, but even though Windows 3.11 was extremely dominant at
the time, it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that
it was. The very first version missed wildly in some big ways (MSN was a
folder integrated into the desktop, for example, and no TCP/IP support [*Edit:
yes there was - I misremembered.]), but the core, underlying redesign of the
GUI was so profoundly good it propelled Microsoft into a new level of
ubiquity. Compare it to other GUIs at the time, like CDE, IBM's Presentation
Manager, or even Mac OS 8 and there's no comparison. Windows 95 solidified
Microsoft's dominance, but could just as easily eroded it had they dropped the
ball.

Even though I've used a Mac daily for the past decade or so, I still miss the
task bar, and window-oriented GUI of Windows. I still get frustrated on OSX
when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it. I wouldn't switch
back because of the underlying crap that is the Windows OS and file system,
but I still miss the interface.

Edit: Found this fantastic PDF "Chicago Reviewers Guide" which goes over all
the new stuff in Win95. So much stuff I had forgotten - TrueType fonts, Plug
and Play, registry settings, right-click properties, long file names...
Basically everything that makes Windows what it is today.

[http://tech-insider.org/windows/research/acrobat/940601.pdf](http://tech-
insider.org/windows/research/acrobat/940601.pdf)

~~~
sodapopcan
The one thing I don't understand that Mac has never adopted is being able to
use open and save dialogues as mini file explorers (move stuff around and
rename, specifically). Having to switch to Finder to move or rename a file
that has the same name as the file I'm trying to save is ridiculous. Of course
I never need to do this anymore since I only work on text files under revision
control, but it still seems odd to me it was never introduced. I really just
miss Window Explorer A LOT since moving to Mac. I don't hate macOS, but Finder
is a bit of a joke.

~~~
blattimwind
To be fair, Windows' file open/save dialogues are so far ahead of everything
else that the competition seems like unusable garbage to me. I'm glad KDE/Qt
chose to emulate these very closely on Linux. Wouldn't want a desktop where my
only choice is Gnome's take at this.

(On the flip side, Windows' select-a-directory dialogue of the same vintage is
such an utter piece of garbage that I can't imagine there being _any_ overlap
of designers between the two dialogues.)

~~~
sigzero
Because that is extremely non-intuitive. It's an "Open" and "Save" dialog.
That is what it should do. Joe Public is not going to know it does anything
else, yet it does.

~~~
blattimwind
Actually, you completely missed my point. The Windows dialogue is not only
superior, because it allows power users to do what they need, but also because
it's actually usable for regular users.

For example: I literally _can 't know_ how I can save a file using Gnome's
dialogue in the general case, e.g. if the dialogue opens at /foo, and I
navigate to /foo/bar using the dialogue, but then go back to /foo ("bar wasn't
the right place after all"), I can't save the file there any more. "bar" will
be selected. Clicking "Save" while a directory is selected _will not save_ ,
but navigate instead. Now I'm in "bar" again. I go back to /foo and try to
click something else, say a file. This changes the to-be-saved-file's name to
the selection.

After I asked someone who uses Gnome as their main desktop they told me
"that's easy: you just have to ctrl+click on the selected directory to de-
select it, then you can save in the current directory".

That, my dear readers, is indeed unusable garbage.

~~~
nnq
As a long-time Gnome user, I've only realized how bad it is after reading this
comment ;) (No irony here, I agree it's _truly horrible_ now.)

But, I only realized it now because _almost none of the apps I regularly use
make use of Gnome 's default file open/save dialog._ Linux's extreme
inconsistency has some benefits ;)

Oh, and talking about Gnome, the only reason anyone uses it is that after
configuring a few basic stuff, you _can completely ignore it,_ just run your
apps, forget that there's an actual OS with GUI somewhere beneath them. Heck,
if even the applications running on it ignore Gnome and its "standard
widgets", its biggest strength _is that it can be easily ignored!_

~~~
digi_owl
And watch them take that as cudos...

~~~
nnq
your irony stack is too deep for hn, it might overflow soon

------
wiradikusuma
"not understanding how folders could exist inside of other folders" \-- My mom
is 70 years old now, and I easily get frustrated whenever she's stuck with
seemingly simple tasks with her computer. I usually scold her and yell at her,
"This is so obvious, how come you don't know?" \-- I always regret doing that
afterwards.

After I'm calm, I ask her why, trying to understand it from her perspective.
Every time I do this, I'm always surprised, because she gives valid points,
and I end up cursing the developer :D

So, whenever I design UI/UX for an app, I ask my mom to test.

Rant: In my opinion, there should be an option in Mac/Windows to disable file
drag and drop. Every time I check her computer, I always find dislocated files
simply because she accidentally drag them.

~~~
michaelmrose
How do you manage files in windows at all without drag and drop? Do you just
never reorganize anything?

Further what is the chance that anyone who can't drag and drop would be able
to find the setting to turn off drag and drop?

~~~
chkuendig
Cut & Paste for when you really need to reorganize? But usually it would
probably be enough to just list the most recent files somewhere and provide
full text search for everything else.

~~~
chrisper
Cut & Paste is (was?) dangerous btw. Windows could lose your files:

1\. Cut a file.

2\. Paste it somewhere.

3\. Hit control Z.

4\. Cry because your file is gone.

[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows8_1...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows8_1-update/how-to-recover-files-lost-by-
ctrlz/74e7e588-e27d-4e04-8eda-5876ced6adaf)

But it seems I cannot reproduce that in the current build of Windows anymore.
So I think they finally fixed it.

~~~
evincarofautumn
Yup, I ran into this issue enough as a kid that I stopped using cut/paste/undo
in explorer. If I needed to copy or move files around, I’d use the command
line—which also had the effect of making files copy much faster (seconds
instead of minutes) for some reason.

------
jaclaz
Actually the original article by Kent (NOT Kevin) Sullivan is still available
here:

[http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/...](http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm)

~~~
Multicomp
Thanks for finding this. Saved.

I still have a soft spot for vanilla HTML. When I can hit view source and read
the whole article (minus images) without much difficulty, I'm glad.

~~~
pault
I know it's not exactly the same but the developer tools on all modern
browsers will display the current state of the DOM in the "inspect" tab. It's
true that SPAs will have a lot more clutter in the form of JavaScript hooks
and hidden elements but it's all there in glorious <html/>. :)

------
krylon
The fact that the basic elements of Windows 95's GUI have survived for so long
shows, I think, how well designed it was.

For its time it was a great design that was intuitive to understand,
relatively lightweight and did not get in my way. About the only changes I
think improved things notably were the search field in the Start menu and Aero
Snap.

~~~
mustacheemperor
The replacement of actual Search with this Cortana-based attempt at a "smart"
search or Q&A interaction is absolutely agonizing to experience as a user and
just a completely boggling decision to me in general. Why on earth did a
search feature that will return something different from what you typed in,
with the exact thing you typed in the secondary results, ever make it out of
testing for public release? I have faith it'll improve over time, but right
now Cortana in general feels like a step directly backwards in every category
"she" touches. The Edge browser is actually pretty slick on the Surface, but
instead of being able to right click selected text and search it, I have to
"ask Cortana." I don't want to ask Cortana, I want to search that in Google.

~~~
mustacheemperor
Addendum: I was just browsing the Dell website and the URL bar of Edge
displayed a Cortana logo and blue text "Can I interest you in a coupon?"

So, it's also an ad delivery machine.

~~~
krylon
Now that is downright creepy. Makes me think of that scene in Futurama where
the crew goes online and is attacked by advertisements... ;-)

------
unicornporn
I think it's beautiful. And, compared to Windows 10, Windows 95 was at least
somewhat consistent design wise.

After 12 years of macOS I recently got a Windows 10 machine. There's plenty of
Windows 10 bling on top of the OS, but you don't have to dig deep before you
encounter the embarrassing remnants from very early versions of Windows.
Running the latest version of 10 it still feels very unfinished which I hope
Microsoft intend to do something about.

I don't have too high hopes though, considering it was released two and a half
years ago.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
There are things from earlier Windows I wish they'd kept. Like the perfectly
functional (actually more functional than their replacements) settings panels.

But I think the biggest thing I miss is the start menu being just a view of a
folder hierarchy. The Windows 10 Start Menu is tied into the appstore and uses
some kind of database that can easily get corrupted and cause it to stop
working seemingly randomly. Sometimes performing the right voodoo magic can
fix it, but usually it means an in-place upgrade (aka reinstall). Go on, look
for "Windows 10 start button doesn't work" on google. Fun reads.

It's an example of how complexity meant to make things easier often just makes
them rigid and unfixable when shit inevitably goes wrong. The original start
menu was so stupidly simple that it was almost impossible for anything to go
wrong in the first place, and if it did, it was easy to reason about because
it was simple. I miss that kind of design in my software.

~~~
notriddle
Except for three, humongous improvements that the Windows 10 start menu has
over 95:

* It is flush bottom right with the screen, making it a true "mile button". In 95, there was a tiny non-clickable border around it, so if you just slammed your mouse into the corner, it would not work; someone who worked on Mac OS described MSFT as "narrowly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" compared to the mac's menu bar, which was perfectly flush to the top of the screen and thus a "mile high bar". I think this was actually done with XP?

* After clicking it, you can immediately type the name of the program you want to run, instead of having to click the "Run" entry. I switched off of Gnome onto Windows after learning that this aspect of my workflow wouldn't need to change. I think this was actually done with Vista?

* Subfolders are opened by clicking instead of hovering. Nothing makes me more frustrated than accidentally mousing over the wrong part of the menu and closing a sub-sub-folder. [hyperbole]Whoever invented mouse-over menus should be shot.[/hyperbole]

~~~
ptx
> _immediately type the name of the program you want to run, instead of having
> to click the "Run" entry_

Why click anything at all if you're going to be typing anyway? Pressing Win +
R has worked since the beginning, taking you directly to the "Run" dialog.

> _mousing over the wrong part of the menu and closing a sub-sub-folder_

The classic start menu (since Windows 98, or Windows 95 with IE 4) allows you
to easily rearrange the entries by drag and drop. If you organize it such that
it doesn't have any sub-sub-folders, it works much better. :)

On the other hand, if you just let things stay where the installers put them,
it's pretty terrible. Each application takes something like 5 clicks: Start ->
Applications -> SomeVendor -> SomeApplication -> SomeApplication. I guess this
is the way most people had it, so that's why Microsoft gave up on structure
and focused on search.

~~~
austinjp
> Why click anything at all if you're going to be typing anyway? Pressing Win
> + R has worked since the beginning, taking you directly to the "Run" dialog.

Even fewer keystrokes, and less typing with Win 10: hit Win key, start typing
Word (or settings, or mouse, or whatever), hit enter. The Start menu pops up,
and is searched/filtered as you type. Compare this with the previous option
(which still continues to work as well): Win key + R, type msword, hit enter.
Not much in it with this example, but it's a neat way to access Start menu
items rapidly.

For reasons I haven't yet explored, it occasionally fails to find an item,
which is more puzzling than annoying. An item can be right there, and the
keystroke search fails to find it. I miss the simplicity others have mentioned
of the 95 Start menu simply being nested folders.

~~~
Ascetik
I found that Windows 10 search is not quite as good as 8.1. I know the problem
you're talking about, and it never seemed to happen to me on 8.1, only 10.
They jacked the program search indexing somewhat in 10, it was perfect in 8.1.

------
NoGravitas
Some comparisons to the contemporary version of OS/2 (2.1 was the current
version when Win95 was announced, and 3.0 was released immediately before
Win95):

* Applications minimized to a special folder, which was located on the desktop.

* No start button or task bar (they were added in OS/2 4.0).

* Shredder on the desktop (did not offer restore files like Mac Trash or Windows Recycle Bin).

* Hierarchical folders on the desktop that could contain either shortcuts or files.

* Shortcuts couldn't get "broken" as long as you did all of your file management through the Workplace Shell.

* Folders and file types could be subclassed in various ways to change their behavior and appearance. Simple changes didn't require programming.

* You could mark a folder as a project, and all the programs and files associated with the folder would open/close/hide along with the folder.

At the time, I felt that the Workplace Shell was immensely superior to the
Windows 95 desktop. But it probably was quite a bit less friendly to new
users.

------
jaredcwhite
Windows 95 and its immediate successors had a _lot_ of problems regarding
stability, memory usage, performance in certain cases, etc. That and the
comparison with the NT OS line is a separate discussion however. What is
important about Windows 95 was the design of the GUI. At the time, it was a
huge leap forward in desktop computing.

Even though I jumped on the Mac OS X bandwagon from the very first moment in
2001 and was happy to leave the Windows world behind, the fact remains that
for a few years time in the mid 90s, Microsoft showed a strong ability to
design GUIs that were easy to use, relatively consistent, and flexible enough
to suit a large array of first and third-party application designs. It's a
shame that, IMHO, Windows XP took things in a highly negative direction after
that, and Microsoft never fully recovered. With the possible exception of
Windows 7, every OS release since XP has been a mishmash of competing ideas
and confusing discrepancies, and macOS has continually outpaced Windows in
usability.

I still hold out hope that there's a solid future for Windows when it comes to
UX/UI design, if only because I want macOS to have real competition on that
front.

~~~
ghostcluster
The Task Bar and Start Menu metaphors have held up well. At the time on the
Mac, it was harder to see an overview of running Applications and windows at a
glance.

~~~
jaredcwhite
True. I didn't have much experience with the Mac back in the Mac OS classic
era, but that was one thing I found very annoying coming from the Windows
side. While it took a while to get the Dock right in OS X, it was a big
improvement over the previous Mac UI.

------
garganzol
I remember the first time I used Windows 95. It was a smooth flight to say the
least.

Looking at Windows 95 user interface today, it becomes evident how iconic that
UI was. No fluff, a pure joy to use.

------
jcadam
Ah, remembering Win95 makes me yearn for a simple, clean GUI again. All of the
major operating systems have been in a downward slide in terms of UI/UX since
the early 2000s.

As far as UI/UX is concerned:

Windows peaked with Windows 2000.

MacOS with OS9 (Why didn't they just throw the classic GUI on top of Darwin)?

At least with *nix you have choices and can go with one of the several
variants of Gnome 2 (Xfce, et al).

~~~
kk_cz
Just curious: why Windows 2000 and not Windows 7?

Win7 was still internally consistent (as opposed to the newer tablet / mobile
/ pc / washing machine UIs of later versions) and provided few additional UI
enhancements over 2k.

~~~
Koshkin
> _still internally consistent_

The most _internally_ consistent design was that of NT 3.1 - it was a true
classic in many respects. As far as general usefulness, performance, and
versatility nothing can compare with Windows 10 (except Linux, of course).

~~~
kk_cz
I am not arguing about NT 3.1, but what inconsistencies were there in Win7 UI?

Starting with Win8 you have basically a random choice if some setting is set
in "classic style" or new fancy "settings" dialogs. You can have all the
performance in the world if your users spend most of the time just looking for
the right place to do something.

~~~
ptx
Windows 7 has basically the same problem with settings. You have the dumbed-
down, XP-style control panel that doesn't expose all the settings, and the
hidden classic versions of the settings.

For example, the useless user settings in the control panel and the more
useful old version in "control userpasswords2".

~~~
kk_cz
oh, OK - I entirely forgot about this :). But it's still just an easily
modifiable default for beginners that power user doesn't have to use (or
indeed remember in my case :)).

In Windows 10 you have two different kinds of UI and settings that can be
changed in one but can't be changed in the other and vice versa.

------
AdmiralAsshat
It's impressive how long the "Desktop" paradigm of Windows 95 has stuck
around, particularly if you're in the Linux Desktop world. Most of the popular
desktop environments--Xfce, Mate, and Cinnamon come to mind--still follow that
pattern. The last major one to go in a different direction was GNOME 3, and
the backlash against it was so fierce that several other major DE's forked an
earlier version in order to keep consistency.

~~~
dredmorbius
What was GNOME 3's metaphor?

(I've been so GNOME-averse I appear to have entirely missed that.)

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
It's difficult to explain succinctly. I will say that it's _unique_ , insofar
as it's not trying to copy past paradigms or macOS. But it can be a bit
confusing. Minimize/Maximize buttons, for instance, aren't even included by
default.

Honestly, this is probably the best I can provide:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB7pBRi9Bbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB7pBRi9Bbk)

~~~
dredmorbius
Interesting, though that strikes me as maddeningly annoying as hell to
actually use.

------
vilius
In early UI we can see a Wastebasket, which ended up being changed to the
Recycle Bin.

As a user I would say that Recycle Bin is a misleading name because it has
nothing to do with recycling a file / folder. However it has a more positive
sounding than the weird Wastebasket.

Meanwhile classic Mac OS already had a Trash. Simple, clear and short.

I wonder why Windows could not simply name it Trash? Could it be that they did
tried to stay away from copying as much as possible?

~~~
ubermonkey
I have to think that the common anti-pattern of naive users storing files they
mean to keep in the Recycle Bin wouldn't happen so often if it were still
called Trash.

~~~
toast0
This is a common user behavior on Macs as well. It's an easy place to put
things and find them later (as long as nobody helpfully cleans the bin in the
interim)

------
amiga-workbench
When actual thought and reasoning went into UI design. Nice to see the
methodology.

~~~
ogdoad
Have we actually reached the point where we idolize something that was equally
mainstream to bash when it came out? Remember "Winblows" &c?

Suddenly, faced with hyper-spy mega-corps, the dumb simplicity of the evil-
yet-cute Windows 95 is desirable. Like the lesser of two evils, or the evil
you know.

Any day now, a post will come up extolling the illumined joys of mainframe
COBOL programming.

~~~
krylon
> Remember "Winblows" &c?

There were many, many things wrong with Windows 95 (and its successors). But
the design of the Shell was solid. (Also, considering how hardware
requirements have skyrocketed, it might seem remarkable to some that it could
run on a computer with 8 MiB of RAM and a CPU that makes today's low-end
mobile phones look like supercomputers and still feel snappy.)

I know people used to joke about using the "Start" button to shutdown the
computer, but I never understood what is so funny about that.

~~~
cesarb
> I know people used to joke about using the "Start" button to shutdown the
> computer, but I never understood what is so funny about that.

If you think of shutdown as a "stop" command to the computer, you see the
contradiction: to stop your computer, press start.

~~~
krylon
I get that, I just never thought it was very funny. Start might not have been
the best name for that button, but the idea of having a single a menu to
access all OS functionality and applications was good. Still is good, in fact,
which why so many people got upset when they removed it in Windows 8.

------
louthy
> Our testing data told us that the main problem was windows not being visible
> at all times, so users couldn’t see what they had open or access tasks
> quickly. This realization led us fairly quickly to the task bar design

Hmm, I wonder if that should be reworded to “and then we saw RISC OS and it
had a task bar design that we really liked”. I can’t believe that they
wouldn’t have known about it.

~~~
keithpeter
Yup - I remember that Windows PCs at work became far easier to use after
Windows 95 (actually 98 I think) reached them as I was using an Archimedes at
home.

------
scandox
24 People. If you'd asked me to guess I would have said 240.

~~~
sbov
From some searching, Windows 95 was about 15 million lines of code, and
Windows 3.1 had about 3 million.

Compared to Firefox:
[https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_...](https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_summary)

------
collinmanderson
Amazing to see all of this design work happening starting in 1992.

I always thought of iterative design and development as becoming popular
staring around 2001, and usability studies only becoming popular around that
time too.

> the design documented in the spec was suddenly out of date. The team faced a
> major decision: spend weeks changing the spec to reflect the new ideas and
> lose valuable time for iterating or stop updating the spec and let the
> prototypes and code serve as a “living” spec.

> After some debate, the team decided to take the latter approach. While this
> change made it somewhat more difficult for outside groups to keep track of
> what we were doing, it allowed us to iterate at top speed. The change also
> had an unexpected effect: it brought the whole team closer together because
> much of the spec existed in conversations and on white boards in people’s
> offices. Many “hallway” conversations ensued and continued for the duration
> of the project.

------
erickhill
As the Win95 team formed in 1992, I’d argue the Amiga OS was an excellent
alternative at the time, albeit one oft forgotten due to its subsequent market
share.

Extremely easy to use, extend and navigatee, at the time it’s only missing
piece was a built in “file explorer” but there were also so many 3rd party
options by then, too (Directory Opus being my personal favorite).

------
UweSchmidt
I still miss the dual window "Explorer" from Win 3.1 every time I move or copy
files. The old File Manager had this by default. Installing Midnight Commander
etc. on client computers is not possible, so I have to open two Explorers and
get them to a convenient size.

~~~
mikerg87
I keep hoping for a windows explorer with tabs with each release and each time
I am dissapointed.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
So much thought, effort and research went into this - and was thrown away
altogether in Windows 8.

------
itomato
I've often thought Windows 95 borrowed ideas from Nextstep.

Looking at this retrospective, I can see how it could be possible, especially
if they started design in 1992. NeXT had been winning praise for their UI for
years by that point, and Microsoft were consulting with Susan Kare (an Apple
alum and NeXT employee).

If you compare Nextstep 3.3 and Windows 95 or NT, you can see startling
similarities in title bar size and format (to the pixel), window borders,
'rectangularity', tabbed elements and more. "Great artists steal" and all
that..

~~~
jdswain
Soon after the Windows 95 release I heard that one of the members of the
Windows 95 team had a copy of NeXTstep on a computer they used, and that it
was a source of ‘inspiration’. I can’t find any reference to this now, but the
3D look and grey shades definitely are similar. Windows 95 looks much more
like NeXTstep than Windows 3.11.

------
sangnoir
> Beginning users and many intermediates relied almost exclusively on visible
> cues for finding commands. They relied on (and found intuitive) menu bars
> and tool bars, _but did not use pop-up (or “context”) menus, even after
> training._

This is a lesson the Android team re-discovered decades later, resulting in
Android dropping the "Menu" button. Apple still hasn't gotten the memo yet (3D
Touch). The biggest usability negatives with context-menus are poor
discoverability and inconsistency in different contexts.

------
rocky1138
This is a perfect use case for using microformats to make the document more
semantic, especially since archival for future reference is the author's
explicit goal.

An easy win would be to use h-entry categories[0] for the tags in the
document.

If you're writing stuff on the web, please consider adding some microformats
to make your stuff more accessible and archivable.

[0]
[http://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry](http://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry)

------
richard_todd
It was great to read about the early iterations that didn't pan out, and it
reminds me of how far the average person has come in terms of computer
knowledge (even though I know several people that _still_ have trouble double-
clicking).

I would love to see a similar Windows 8 document, because I have no idea how
they convinced themselves that non-tablet users would like it. Things like
charms and even the freaking start button were hard to discover.

------
petagonoral
Contrast on that article between text and background was poor. following sets
it back to something sane:

    
    
      document.body.style.fontWeight = "normal";

------
makecheck
Windows 95 (and later) always seemed to _just_ miss the mark: they added new
things but were just _so_ close to having something that would work much
better. It was as if they saw useful features to add from other systems but
only copied what they could _see_ without really understanding the _behaviors_
that needed to be copied too.

Examples...

The original Start menu was in a corner of the screen but without the crucial
zero pixels of separation from the physical corner, turning what could have
been a massive target into a tiny one. (Fixed in XP though.)

Menus were sluggish as hell to open, and they lacked hysteresis to make
diagonal traversal a lot easier. Also, there was no consideration for how to
handle a task that might take awhile, such as locating the names and icons of
dozens of items; the menu would not show anything, you’d just wait. Sadly they
were _experts_ at efficiently making menus go _away_ so one accidental mouse
movement and you start all over.

The ordering of frame buttons, “minimize, _maximize_ , close”, on Windows does
not clearly separate the most-dangerous action from the least-dangerous
action, nor are the actions ordered by similarity. Instead, a very common
action on Windows (“Maximize”) is _right next_ to the most dangerous and polar
opposite action (“Blow This Away Forever”), with zero pixels of separation. On
the Mac, the order is “close, minimize, maximize”: if you mis-hit Minimize on
a Mac while moving toward Close, the window will still go away (more or less
what you wanted) instead of becoming gigantic and still visible (polar
opposite). Also, on a Mac there is significant pixel space between the
distinct options so it is harder to mis-click.

The ordering of dialog buttons, such as “OK, Cancel”, meant that it was not
possible for memory to take over. In some dialogs “OK” was in the position
that Cancel would be in, in others it wasn’t. Also, Windows tended to have
_very_ generic names (Yes, No, Cancel), probably because entire APIs for
opening messages had only those options; this required reading every word of a
long-winded message to understand the options, rather than just clicking
something obvious like Save.

Windows 95+ tend to add hierarchy in lots of places that don’t benefit at all
from hierarchy. I _hate_ having to remember some obscure vendor’s name so I
can find “Unnecessary Company Name, Inc. >> Unnecessary Product Suite Name >>
App Name” in a menu for example, when “App Name” in a flat list is the only
sensible option. (Fortunately, Search was a reasonable way to avoid this.
Until it became slow and couldn’t actually find things that clearly exist.)

------
nsriv
I really just wish Windows had a Miller Columns view in Explorer like OSX. All
the apps on Windows that promise this are utter garbage.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns)

~~~
hungerstrike
Sorry to wish against you but I hope Explorer never gets them, not even as an
option, because I think they are a garbage idea for browsing files or anything
else since they're too busy and constantly make you change your focus.

~~~
nsriv
They're bad for browsing, I agree. I do a lot of file management and
reorganization across network drives, and it would benefit me by immediately
exposing one or two directory levels above a file location for drag and drop
simplicity. Multiple windows or tiling tabs in Windows explorer could
accomplish this as well, of course.

~~~
Too
win+right, ctrl+N, win+left, alt+up+up

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SNACKeR99
Clearly there was some magic on that team. Exhibit A: hiring Eno to create the
startup sound.

------
Paianni
I have a feeling that Windows 95's window minimisation was at heart a
workaround for the fact that the architecture couldn't support workspaces and
therefore they had to find a way to 'hack' Windows to hide windows at will.

~~~
thanatropism
Windows 3.1 had window minimization. Confusingly, programs became icons in
your "desktop" (which you could only see when minimizing everything).

~~~
jaclaz
A lesser known program for Windows 3.1/3.11 was at the time the Norton
Desktop, see:

[http://toastytech.com/guis/ndw.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/ndw.html)

that provided, even on Windows 3.1/3.11 roughly the same UI of the Mac OS of
the time, very similar, for some aspects, to the later Windows 9x one.

~~~
thanatropism
I remember someone who had an all-in-one Compaq PC with a version of Win 3.1
that had a shell with tabs on the top, not too unlike the "ribbon" of modern
MS Office.

~~~
jaclaz
Possibly a Contura Aero with TabWorks?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabWorks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabWorks)

[http://www.supervinx.com/OnlineMuseum/Compaq/Contura/Aero%20...](http://www.supervinx.com/OnlineMuseum/Compaq/Contura/Aero%204-25/030-S19-TabWorks.png.html)

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msie
I really miss the Windows 95 ui. Tried to repro it on Windows 10 but no luck.

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NeoBasilisk
Ah yes, the introduction of the start menu. A widget that even 20 years later,
when Microsoft dared to change it even a bit, people absolutely lost their
minds.

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digi_owl
That tabbed beginners UI gets me thinking of the netbook UIs that popped up
for a short while before Intel and Microsoft buried the segment in red tape.

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yarrel
To be fair to Windows 95 it was as much a copy of NeXT as it was of MacOS.

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donmb
But why?

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QGmLe
Copy the Mac OS but make it crappier.

~~~
kk_cz
Except apart for maybe "recycle bin" it was nothing like Mac OS. Central
element of Windows 95 UI was taskbar and start menu, which don't have
counterparts in Mac OS. Central element of Mac OS UI was the shared menubar,
which doesn't have counterpart in Win95.

