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.
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.
There absolutely was TCP/IP support in Windows 95 from the very beginning. It was not installed by default but it was trivial to add via the Network applet in Control Panel. SLIP/PPP was also supported and you had basic utilities like Telnet and FTP included so you could connect to the Internet right out of the box.
No web browser, though. Internet Explorer 1.0 shipped with the optional Plus! pack.
> Compare it to other GUIs at the time, like CDE, IBM's Presentation Manager, or even Mac OS 8 and there's no comparison.
Well, I agree that there was no comparison with System 8, but not in the sense you mean. I think that the Mac back then was head-and-shoulders a better system than Windows. It might still be, but they're both so painful to use now that it's very difficult to pick a winner.
The Macintosh system was very understandable, very clean. Extensions were an easy-to-understand way to extend one's system, and easy-to-disable too. The window system itself was better-thought-out and less-confusing than Windows's was. The Finder was much more straightforward than the Windows equivalent (was it called the File Explorer back then?). The way that the Mac associated programmes to files (with an application code & a file code) was much better than the extension-based naming of Windows. The way that the Mac used its files' resource fork was great.
Programming a Mac back then was very clean & straightforward. I don't think there's anything today as nice, except maybe Cocoa, maybe. Certainly not the Windows 95 API!
> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it
Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?
You may not recall, but when win95 came out - there were lines blocks long awaiting to buy it, much like when the iPhone came out.
I recently sold several windows 95 shrink wrapped original copies on eBay which was the OS on 32 3.5” floppy disks. As an original piece of computer history.
Win 95 was monumental and great. Aside from outlook, and excel, the greatest product MS ever made.
I'm predominately a Linux user and I switched away from Mac OSX specifically because of the underlying file system. I'll admit that it was annoying finding windows sometimes but the case-preserving, case-insensitive file system made no sense.
>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.
OT but have you tried Witch[1] as a task switcher? It switches between windows, which made my life SO much easier
Not sure why you’d have to hunt for minimized windows because there is a separate area on the dock reserved for them, and the animation clearly shows the window moving towards it.
> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it.
OSX took the NextStep/OpenStep interface and dumbed it down to great detriment, then added new things back (spaces, zooming) which were inferior logically but required less 'thinking' of how one works and more 'shiny looking' to potential customers..
IMHO hands down the best mouse-oriented window management paradigm to exist to date is the NextStep/OpenStep style over and above windows and osx, though I will admit windows has improved things with their sort of hybrid 'classic' windows+'macish' updates, and some of the newer ui things (e.g. window thumbnails) haven't made it into the current flagship of that lineage which is the open source WindowMaker..
Since the 'official' lineages are dead, am hoping the WindowMaker people continue to innovate/move this paradigm forward as they have been doing subsequently for the last N years...
it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that it was
I remember these times well. It was considered a huge break. People were whining about how stupid the Start menu was compared to just seeing your apps in front of you all the time :-D I love that we eventually came full circle to a Windows 3.1 Program Manager-esque approach with iOS nowadays!
To me Windows is bloatware. But I also make the OSX dock as small as possible and autohidden. I launch everything through spotlight though as I abhor unecessary point and click (synonymous with hitting the windows key and typing a couple letters of the application to launch.).
I remember Windows 95 as a complete disaster of crashes, data loss, failing installations, incompatible applications, missing drivers and countless other problems which were only fixed with the release of Windows 98 (maybe even SE), which was much much better. I have memories of people sticking with DOS and 3.x, only having 95 as a nondefault boot option in case they wanted to watch the Buddy Holly video or launch the new Encarta cd-rom.
> still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it.
Learn to use the dock? The taskbar on Win 95 was evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and the Dock from NeXT was one of the influences. Which is the same dock was have today in macOS.
You can still have personal preference, of course. But if you have trouble using macOS to find minimized windows, that's because you haven't learned to use it not because it's not possible.
"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.
>So, whenever I design UI/UX for an app, I ask my mom to test.
I have an informal rule that I will try to get someone at my job that has never seen or used the application to be the one to test out new features or UI changes. Generally just asking when they have some time, handing them a phone or laptop, and asking them to do a task in the app (with a small amount of background about the task if needed).
There has never been a case where this hasn't monumentally improved the application. Questions like "what do I do here?", "how do I get it to start?", and "did it work?" were extremely common for quite a while before we managed to get the UI in a good state. You just don't see the implicit assumptions you make at so many places.
Sadly it's hard to "formalize" something like this (at least in my experience), because the benefits seem to be greatly reduced if the person testing has seen or used the application before, and I found it works best the "further away" someone is from software development.
I used to get frustrated explaining what I thought were simple computer tasks to my mother, but as I've gotten slightly older I am getting just as stuck as she was with some basic computer tasks! I totally get it now.
She also reminds me that she used to work at Digital (DEC), on the cutting edge of tech, in the 80's, but left her job to raise me- so I'm the reason she's so far behind, technically!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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).
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.
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..
> 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.
[+] [-] russellbeattie|8 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] sodapopcan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] einr|8 years ago|reply
No web browser, though. Internet Explorer 1.0 shipped with the optional Plus! pack.
[+] [-] eadmund|8 years ago|reply
Well, I agree that there was no comparison with System 8, but not in the sense you mean. I think that the Mac back then was head-and-shoulders a better system than Windows. It might still be, but they're both so painful to use now that it's very difficult to pick a winner.
The Macintosh system was very understandable, very clean. Extensions were an easy-to-understand way to extend one's system, and easy-to-disable too. The window system itself was better-thought-out and less-confusing than Windows's was. The Finder was much more straightforward than the Windows equivalent (was it called the File Explorer back then?). The way that the Mac associated programmes to files (with an application code & a file code) was much better than the extension-based naming of Windows. The way that the Mac used its files' resource fork was great.
Programming a Mac back then was very clean & straightforward. I don't think there's anything today as nice, except maybe Cocoa, maybe. Certainly not the Windows 95 API!
[+] [-] vadimberman|8 years ago|reply
Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?
[+] [-] samstave|8 years ago|reply
I recently sold several windows 95 shrink wrapped original copies on eBay which was the OS on 32 3.5” floppy disks. As an original piece of computer history.
Win 95 was monumental and great. Aside from outlook, and excel, the greatest product MS ever made.
[+] [-] smoyer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kllrnohj|8 years ago|reply
You lost me. HFS+ is arguably one of the worst file systems around (yes I know that Apple finally switched to APFS but that was fairly recent).
I'm really curious what you actually liked about Mac's file system vs. Windows?
[+] [-] garblegarble|8 years ago|reply
OT but have you tried Witch[1] as a task switcher? It switches between windows, which made my life SO much easier
[1] https://manytricks.com/witch
[+] [-] tinus_hn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cat199|8 years ago|reply
OSX took the NextStep/OpenStep interface and dumbed it down to great detriment, then added new things back (spaces, zooming) which were inferior logically but required less 'thinking' of how one works and more 'shiny looking' to potential customers..
IMHO hands down the best mouse-oriented window management paradigm to exist to date is the NextStep/OpenStep style over and above windows and osx, though I will admit windows has improved things with their sort of hybrid 'classic' windows+'macish' updates, and some of the newer ui things (e.g. window thumbnails) haven't made it into the current flagship of that lineage which is the open source WindowMaker..
Since the 'official' lineages are dead, am hoping the WindowMaker people continue to innovate/move this paradigm forward as they have been doing subsequently for the last N years...
[+] [-] beamatronic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petercooper|8 years ago|reply
I remember these times well. It was considered a huge break. People were whining about how stupid the Start menu was compared to just seeing your apps in front of you all the time :-D I love that we eventually came full circle to a Windows 3.1 Program Manager-esque approach with iOS nowadays!
[+] [-] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhasmaFelis|8 years ago|reply
That would not have been my first pick for an example of Win95's failures. Perhaps the daily system crashes.
[+] [-] IronWolve|8 years ago|reply
I remember when unified USB support came out in Win95 2.5, it was big damn news at the time.
[+] [-] rapind|8 years ago|reply
To me Windows is bloatware. But I also make the OSX dock as small as possible and autohidden. I launch everything through spotlight though as I abhor unecessary point and click (synonymous with hitting the windows key and typing a couple letters of the application to launch.).
[+] [-] rvanmil|8 years ago|reply
I remember Windows 95 as a complete disaster of crashes, data loss, failing installations, incompatible applications, missing drivers and countless other problems which were only fixed with the release of Windows 98 (maybe even SE), which was much much better. I have memories of people sticking with DOS and 3.x, only having 95 as a nondefault boot option in case they wanted to watch the Buddy Holly video or launch the new Encarta cd-rom.
[+] [-] ebbv|8 years ago|reply
Learn to use the dock? The taskbar on Win 95 was evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and the Dock from NeXT was one of the influences. Which is the same dock was have today in macOS.
You can still have personal preference, of course. But if you have trouble using macOS to find minimized windows, that's because you haven't learned to use it not because it's not possible.
[+] [-] wiradikusuma|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Klathmon|8 years ago|reply
I have an informal rule that I will try to get someone at my job that has never seen or used the application to be the one to test out new features or UI changes. Generally just asking when they have some time, handing them a phone or laptop, and asking them to do a task in the app (with a small amount of background about the task if needed).
There has never been a case where this hasn't monumentally improved the application. Questions like "what do I do here?", "how do I get it to start?", and "did it work?" were extremely common for quite a while before we managed to get the UI in a good state. You just don't see the implicit assumptions you make at so many places.
Sadly it's hard to "formalize" something like this (at least in my experience), because the benefits seem to be greatly reduced if the person testing has seen or used the application before, and I found it works best the "further away" someone is from software development.
[+] [-] ndespres|8 years ago|reply
She also reminds me that she used to work at Digital (DEC), on the cutting edge of tech, in the 80's, but left her job to raise me- so I'm the reason she's so far behind, technically!
[+] [-] ubermonkey|8 years ago|reply
That would save SO MUCH HASSLE. Great idea.
[+] [-] netsharc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mr_toad|8 years ago|reply
And of course, bakckups weren’t properly tested and didn’t work.
[+] [-] michaelmrose|8 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] digi_owl|8 years ago|reply
It also gets in the way when trying to use Windows via a touch screen.
[+] [-] jaclaz|8 years ago|reply
http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/...
[+] [-] krylon|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unicornporn|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] NoGravitas|8 years ago|reply
* 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|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] garganzol|8 years ago|reply
Looking at Windows 95 user interface today, it becomes evident how iconic that UI was. No fluff, a pure joy to use.
[+] [-] jcadam|8 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|8 years ago|reply
(I've been so GNOME-averse I appear to have entirely missed that.)
[+] [-] romaniv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vilius|8 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] amiga-workbench|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] louthy|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] scandox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collinmanderson|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvfjsdhgfv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itomato|8 years ago|reply
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..
[+] [-] sangnoir|8 years ago|reply
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.