

The UI circle is complete - Macha
http://blog.webicity.info/2010/10/26/the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/

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adamesque
Both the Win 3.x example and the Ubuntu example suffer from the same
(presumed) failure: application organization imposed by the OS vendor.

I can find things on my messy desk because _I_ made the mess. If someone else
arranged my desk for me, suddenly I have to understand their mental model
before I can locate anything.

Which is why I can never, ever find what I'm looking for in Windows' Start
menu. Even if the categories seem obvious, they never map 100% to my way of
thinking.

(If those categories in the Ubuntu example are user-defined, then they're OK
by me.)

…and let's please not even get into how confusing and redundant the Dock looks
in the otherwise nice Lion example.

~~~
wazoox
When I still used windows (a very long time ago, before 2002), I spent some
time organizing programs in folders and subfolders within the start menu. I
had "games", "graphics", "dev", etc, with applications subfolders. It's
actually very simple to do (well it was back in win98 at least): right click
anywhere in the start menu and "browse here".

~~~
adamesque
You definitely want customization to be simple.

But even still, you should be careful about the mental model you're imposing
on your users, especially if they're forced to literally dismantle that model
to rearrange things the way they'd like.

Cognitively, it's almost more than twice as much work, once you factor in the
uncertainty of messing with things you're not sure you can/should mess with.
_(Were they pre-arranged a certain way for a reason? Will things break if I
move them?)_

Which means that people are _even more_ likely to leave your default
categorization in place, so it had better be bulletproof.

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NathanKP
Personally I think that Spotlight style search launchers are the best way to
launch applications. If the search launcher is designed halfway well, with
learning about which applications you use most often it only takes a few
keypresses to bring up the applications you need.

Of course with touch devices it is probably more convenient to swipe to the
application icon you want and touch it, but on the PC I find it much easier to
click the search icon, type the app name and press enter.

~~~
semanticist
If you can remember the name of the application without prompting.

I'll frequently have to troll through my /Applications directory looking for
something that does X that I know I installed ages ago and will recognise when
I see it.

It's important to have multiple useful ways to get to your applications. My
unprompted recall, in general, is quite weak, but someone else might have
vision issues that makes distinguishing icons apart difficult. For this kind
of basic functionality, I think that having several high-quality approaches is
best.

~~~
Groxx
A good reason to include meta info about applications, so it can be pulled up
after name matches.

Personally, I've almost quit using the Windows start menu. I hit win-key and
start typing. Utterly _pathetically_ slow and inaccurate compared to using
something like QuickSilver or Alfred, but I can still get places much more
quickly than using a mouse when I'm programming.

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avk
For inspiration: things that reject this same old paradigm:
[http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Desktop-Metaphor-Integrated-
Env...](http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Desktop-Metaphor-Integrated-
Environments/dp/026211304X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288128575&sr=8-1)

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anigbrowl
No it isn't. I still want a Conetree godammit:

[http://www.infovis.net/imagenes/T1_N173_A1014_ConeTreeIntera...](http://www.infovis.net/imagenes/T1_N173_A1014_ConeTreeInteractionsV5N2MarzoAbril98p11.jpg)

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devmonk
What about...

The Original Mac:

<http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=271>

The Xerox Star 8010:

<http://lowendmac.com/wale/07/the-roots-of-the-mac-os.html>

~~~
ThomPete
Every GUI is a descendent of the Xerox Star

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petercooper
I remember when the screenshots of Windows 95 first came out in the magazines
and people's reactions. With the people I knew, at least, was an almost
universal hatred of the Start menu which I put down to it merely being "new."
In retrospect, it was a pretty stupid idea UI wise that, sadly, so many others
copied (IMHO, of course).

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joelesler
What? That we are back to icons? The icons never left from OSX.

~~~
nlawalker
Back to screens full of icons for applications.

Since Win95's Start Menu (I'm sure there are perhaps earlier examples in other
desktop environments, but Windows is what I'm familiar with), users have been
encouraged to keep _documents_ on the desktop, and keep application shortcuts
filed away in the Start menu or on the Quick Launch bar or other similar
launcher. OSX and various Linux desktops are organized in the same way: you
_can_ put application shortcuts on the desktop, but the desktop is better for
documents.

Why did this happen? A)Even for non-tech-savvy people, the idea of a "file"
makes perfect sense if you think about a document, B)Someone realized that
opening a document in an application made for that kind of document should be
a first class action, and shouldn't necessarily require you to first open the
application and then use the application to open the document, and C)When you
start putting documents on a desktop, putting "applications" alongside them
using the same visual representation (a clickable icon) can be confusing. The
result was a more literal "desktop," complete with your click-to-open
documents laying around. Tools (applications) were put away in the desk
drawers, so to speak.

The widespread usage of iOS has put apps front and center again, both
figuratively and literally - users have again become accustomed to seeing
grids of icons for their applications instead of their documents. This is
reflected in the Ubuntu and OSX screenshots.

~~~
anigbrowl
_users have been encouraged to keep documents on the desktop_

Almost every piece of windows software I can remember installing has asked me
if I wanted to create a desktop icon for the application. I have a
whopping...2 documents there.

This hasn't required any special effort on my part, many applications default
to saving in the user or (later) 'My documents' folders. I typically open
documents from the file manager or via a 'Recent' menu, but prefer to launch
the app if I starting a new document, and can't say I've noticed an
irresistible trend for doing things the other way - if you ask me, it depends
on the person rather than being driven by the OS.

~~~
Macha
Almost every piece of Windows software tries to add itself to the quick launch
too.

It's more about self-promotion than following best practices. "Hey, look at
me, I'm here! Use me, tell all your friends"

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maxxxxx
It's interesting that UI's started out program-oriented, then document-
oriented, and now going back to program-oriented.

~~~
glhaynes
I agree! Very interesting.

I remember when "document-centric" was all the rage in UIs (often went hand-
in-hand with the term "object-oriented"... right around Windows
95/OpenDoc/Workplace Shell timeframe) and I would think that it seemed odd,
because most users I knew had nearly no real concept of document/folder
hierarchies.

You'd ask a user where their document is and they'd answer — just like they do
today — "It's in Word."

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wallflower
Brings back memories of DESQview

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview>

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jessriedel
No arrange by penis?

