[RebeccaTheDev]

One of the big reasons I have always like CDE/Motif was that it, to me, is the epitome of function over form when it comes to a desktop UI and widget toolkit. It's actually the same reason I think the Windows' UI peaked around Windows 98SE. Things that are interactive, like buttons or window frame edges, look interactive and are easy to spot. Buttons look like buttons. Checkboxes look like checkboxes. Contrasting colors are used to separate window frames from window contents. Window frames had actual titles so that you could glance quickly to see the state of your system. You sat down with it, you knew immediately what was what.

NextSTEP/OpenSTEP/GnuSTEP feels similar to me. Yes, by modern standards, they are ugly as sin. But they were super, super usable for the users with very little ramp-up time.

By contrast, everything else is just so flat now. On my Mac, it's a regular Where's Waldo to figure out what is and isn't clickable sometimes. There is very little contrast between the window frames and window content ... if there is any at all, and I really dislike how they've largely done away with title bars entirely. And so much stuff is hidden in menus or behind obtuse, difficult to reach settings. I'll occasionally go look at Windows and it's not much better.

What's really frustrating is watching some of my elderly family members struggle to use newer versions of Windows or macOS because the UX has become so flat that using it can be very obtuse if it's not something that you use all day, every day. It feels like redesigning UIs is becoming a vanity project for companies to show they are "modern" ... rather than trying to make things better for actual human beings that use computers.

[VyseofArcadia]

I cannot agree enough. From another comment I made:

> one thing that I _really_ like that a lot of UI has been leaving by the wayside is making it clear when something on-screen is supposed to be interactable.

> Buttons look like buttons. Menus are always in the same place (in-window or top o' the screen, macOS style) instead of having to play "find the hamburger" in every single application. Title bars are exclusively for identifying and manipulating windows. You don't have to worry about accidentally clicking some control when you're just trying to move a window.

> The titlebar thing really gets my goat. Firefox uses the titlebar as a tab bar, so you switch or close tabs if you try to grab the titlebar to move things around. Slack has a big ol' search bar in the title bar. macOS[1] Mail.app and Calendar.app litter the titlebar with buttons. One of the basic functions of the window manager, _moving windows around_, has been hijacked to put controls there in the name of reducing clutter when we have _insanely_ high DPI displays and we can easily afford to give a little screen space to a few controls.

> Drives me crazy.

> [1] I'm at work, so I'm on mac. At home I run pop!_OS and KDE, but I have similar complaints there.

[dspillett]

> Contrasting colors are used to separate window frames from window contents. Window frames

THIS IS MY BIGGEST⁰ IRRITATION WITH THE MODERN WINDOWS UI. There is no standard window decoration or title formatting, particularly no standard way of differentiating between the active window and others. It is often difficult to tell what application has focus especially if you have two with the same theming on different desktops¹. And it only seems to get worse over time.

I keep thinking of writing a tool that hunts for the top-most window⁴ and draws a nasty great bright green box around it so current input focus is impossible-to-mistake obvious! Ugly but functional.

----

[0] of several…

[1] looking at you MS Office, with nothing but a difference in text decorations²³ between focused and non-focused windows, though that is far from the only or the worst offender

[2] from white to off-white

[3] or, for non-maximised windows, for some apps, a slight difference in how dark that 1px border is

[4] excluding those that are set always-on-top, hopefully that is just a visual thing and the top-most on the task stack is actually the one with input focus

[blackhaz]

I think modern flat UIs are ugly. Yes, they are simply ugly. Give me Motif any day. Really miss Mac OS X Snow Leopard as well.

(Actually typing this from a NextSTEP-themed FreeBSD laptop with IRIX-like window decorations.)

[mattarm]

I share most of these sentiments, but I also don't know how much of this is my own wistful "those were the days..." sentimentality and how much of it is based on a those old Us being actually easier to use in practice.

As far as usability, I do think computers have become easier for non-experts to use, especially for basic tasks. I definitely remember helping some very confused people being completely overwhelmed by what to click on, what deeply nested menu was needed, etc., when just trying to browse the web or check their email. Those basic workflows have gotten better.

In many ways I think modern interfaces are more about mobile first, touch based influences, and moving away from keyboard and multi-button mouse based interfaces. Stripping things down to the very basics is almost required now, given the devices people use. You can't "middle click to paste" on an iPad.

[dsr_]

It's entirely possible for a GUI to be simple and consistent for all normal actions and also have non-obvious shortcuts for people who want to invest the time.

It's even better when the non-obvious shortcuts are documented and standardized so that you don't have to relearn them for each application.

[mixmastamyk]

Not ugly as sin, just needs a minor update to modern resolution and color palettes. As happened multiple times in the 90s.

They even had customizable themes back in the day.

[nbzso]

Still on Catalina. Tried the "new" macOS skins. Don't get me started. I am specialist in generating macOS related downvotes in HN:)

[mcswell]

I came here wondering why anyone would build yet another desktop. Now that I've read your comments--particularly about the flat look--I'm wondering why the github site says "It is probably not well suited for beginners." It looks to me like it could be very well suited for beginners. (And maybe me, too, although I hope I'm not a beginner.)

[mhd]

> It's actually the same reason I think the Windows' UI peaked around Windows 98SE. Things that are interactive, like buttons or window frame edges, look interactive and are easy to spot. Buttons look like buttons.

Unless we're talking about toolbar buttons, where the 3D look that was still in Win95 vanished with either Win98 or one of the early office suites. I still think that's wrong, and maybe even the original sin of our current flatness crisis.

[NegativeLatency]

Well now on your mac you also have to try randomly hovering over stuff to see if it changes so you can then click on it.

[hulitu]

They copied it from web design. In that field discoverability means: hover your mouse over an element, see if the cursor changes, if yes try to click it. And, when all else fails, try to click on everything.

[chakkepolja]

That's modern windows UI, maybe. I don't have any qualms with KDE UIs and still has most qualities you said.

[StuffMaster]

I couldn't possibly agree more