Re: To answer your question about the upcoming Style-Guide...

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Fri, Jul 24, 1998 at 06:08:36AM -0700, Dan Kaminsky wrote:
> The Hall of Shame has baselining problems.  Can you imagine if that thing
> was as harsh on web pages and on Java Applets?  The Hall of Shame attacks
> one of the best interfaces in modern use without nominating anything better.
> I just taught myself QuarkXPress and that app will linger in my dreams as
> the worst designed UI in modern release.

from what I've seen of win95 it's the most slapped together peice of
interface without all that much thought .... easy interfaces are object
oriented, not app oriented ... I care about a document, not an app ...
how do you fax something in OS/2 .... drag the document onto the fax object
on the launcher, drag a number from an adress book onto the fax ... and
voila

macos is also old, althout it has gotten better in terms of OO ....

there ARE much better interfaces then win95 ... most notably, os/2, beos,
next ... and hopefully it will be gnome as well :) ... (once we get a good
doc corba framework ready etc ... we can make it nicely OO)

I have only used win31 which was an example at how to do non-OO interface
... I have used macs, and I find their interface a bit too non-OO as well
(but mac interface was better designed at the beginning and didn't need
all that much change to get where it is now, unlike windows which changes
interface in each major revision .... looking at windows 2.0 I'm suprised
they even came up with something usable) ... the first macs were usable
and used almost the same UI features as the current macs ... this shows
good design ...

OS/2 is an example of an well engeneered UI as well ... I have used OS/2
for a long time ... IBM spent a lot of time and money on designing the
UI ... so we shouldn't just say ... we can do it better ... we don't have
the R&D money to hire a bunch of psychiatrists to test what UI is best
... we should just put IBM's spent money to good use :)

the main concern of MS was flashy UI not a well done UI ... this is why
their whole thing on "3D" was so bing in 95 ... while they seemed to keep
the same basic structure of how things are done in win31 ... they dumped
the program manager for the desktop itself ... they put all the folders
in a menu ... I don't see the huge difference ... they changed the way
win31 looks .. not the way it works ...

George

-- 
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George Lebl <jirka@5z.com> http://www.5z.com/jirka/
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