Re: Vista... is MS blatantly stealing the Mac's UI?
- From: Nicholas Buenk <morn@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:45:30 +1000
Mike Dee wrote:
ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:znu-E7A6F2.01133529072005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
In article <Xns96A281DAFB109emteedee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Mike Dee <mikedee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Maybe not, I think this time around they're "borrowing" heavily
from Linux.
I see Microsoft still hasn't figured out the whole "coherent,
logical UI" thing. Take a look at: http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/lh_5098_notebook_18.jpg
It (still) appears to me stolen, a cross between a KDE & Gnome look-
alike.
I can't tell what the hell is going on there. Some of those icons seem to represent folder-like things (though I bet they don't behave like normal file system folders), while others seem to represent commands. Meanwhile the whole window looks like a file system window, but looking at the location, we see it's actually a control panel. Huh? And why are the objects that appear in an icon view on the right duplicated in the list-like pane on the left? And why are "Games" separate from "Installed Programs"?
So gamers can't get lost? ;-)
I ran into some screen shots of IE 7 today as well that seem to
raise some questions: http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=102
OMG!! I'm gobsmacked by these images. Apart from the XP close box these look very much like KDE with an Aqua theme!
An excellent link BTW, ZnU.
Notice that the main menu, unlike in every other Windows app, is
not at the very top of the window. Rather it sits below the bar
containing the location field and the forward/back buttons, and
the bar containing the open tabs. At first I thought it might make
some kind of sense to put it below the tabs, since many of the
menu commands would apply only to the current tab rather than to
all tabs, and putting it there would imply that it was contained
within the current tab. Upon further reflection though, that makes
no sense, because the bar containing the forward/back buttons and
location field contains *only* items that apply to the current
tab, and that's *above* the tab bar.
Also, there are a bunch of icons in the menu bar, most of which don't even represent menus. That's rather non-standard.
Just to return to one of my long-time gripes, I see Microsoft
still names buttons with "Yes" and "No" rather than with
appropriate verbs (in this case, "Check" and "Don't Check"), which
requires the user to pay more attention reading the dialog: http://www.flexbeta.net/images/ie7beta1/phishing_filter.gif
Apart from the "yes" "no" buttons and the XP close box, little else is left that reminds me of Windows.
As long as Microsoft makes these kinds of silly, basic mistakes, Apple has nothing to worry about on the usability front, to matter how shiny Microsoft makes their icons.
To my way of thinking, MS sees Linux as an enormous threat. What better way to destroy an enemy that to make it look the same? They've done it before, eh?
Right, a bunch of transparencies and it's a linux rip off? heh. .
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