[apankrat]

Yes, hell, hell, I'll tell 'ya! Especially horrible the muscle memory aspect for the UI parts that are accessed once a year, if ever. And don't get me started on the situational awareness. Needing to pay attention to the contents of the screen? What an unrealistic burden.

Seriously though, feel free to offer your version of the same that would cleanly separate secondary options and sub-options so not to overwhelm the user with a laundry list of settings.

> I'm failing to see the point of that dropdown (well, dropup) menu.

The point of all that "hell" is the layering and progressive refinement of the UI.

[jbstack]

The "once a year" point goes both ways. If it's only going to be used once a year, then "juicing" (in the sense that the original article meant) is only going to give very negligible added value whichever way you look at it. The original example (mushrooms in Mario) is effective because of the frequency of the event which triggers it. If the player only heard the sound once per year, it would be irrelevant.

On the other hand, if we're talking about parts of the UI which will see regular use then I agree with the other comments about usability reduction, while also acknowledging that there are other opinions out there. The best approach with these sorts of controversial features (i.e. those which some users love and others hate) is to offer a toggle in the options with a default aimed at the non-power user.

[mananaysiempre]

> If it's only going to be used once a year, then "juicing" (in the sense that the original article meant) is only going to give very negligible added value whichever way you look at it.

Meh. The animations juice, maybe. The slightly non-standard UI, though, is probably worth it if it avoids the nested-modal-dialog hell the stock Windows UI is prone to having. Installed mouse and audio drivers on NT 4 recently and, well, I’m glad I forgot how bad it was. Making settings non-awful is important even if you only visit them once.

What’s the upside for the user of a nested sequence of modal dialogs anyway? Though I understand the technical convenience given how limited the bare Win32 toolkit is. And there definitely is a downside for the user: I can’t say how many times I’ve seen relatively sophisticated users fruitlessly smash the OK button on the wrong (not top-level) dialog, because they all look the same. (This is perhaps salvageable by more prominently shading disabled windows—something Win95 admittedly could not afford on contemporary hardware—instead of blinking the title bar, but is it worth it?)

[Rychard]

What you've basically said is "I don't agree with your opinion, therefore you are wrong". While you may have provided justifications for your beliefs, your delivery was unnecessarily aggressive and only served to further alienate yourself from the discussion. I would encourage you to try and engage in more constructive conversation in the future.

For what it's worth, I also despise this sort of needless UI fluff for essentially the same reason they do; it reduces usability.

But that's just like, my opinion, man.

[apankrat]

The GP made generic dismissive remarks on a spherical cow in vacuum and under a blanket assumption that the other person is an idiot.

That's not how one starts a "constructive conversation".

But, yeah, that's just like my opinion too, man.

[MrGilbert]

Tbf, the initial comment already set the direction ("absolute hell"?). It provides mere rambling and no real benefit to the OP.

Not that I encourage the tone in this thread, but... There is another perspective to it.

[Dalewyn]

>Needing to pay attention to the contents of the screen? What an unrealistic burden.

I know far too many people (read: common users) who quickly lose track of what's going on if their program keeps changing things. Hell, I find most people still can't keep track of tabs in a web browser (because each tab overwrites most of the window), let alone your stuff.

>feel free to offer your version of the same that would cleanly separate secondary options and sub-options so not to overwhelm the user with a laundry list of settings.

A singular, global button or toggle somewhere that permanently keeps the UI in either Simple or Advanced modes? Almost nobody needs to flick between the two back and forth. Common users only care for what will get their work done, power users always want (and can deal with) all the details.

>The point of all that "hell" is the layering and progressive refinement of the UI.

What you call "layering and progressive refinement" I call an unnecessary click and movement of UI elements that don't have to exist. The former is a waste of time, and the latter is a waste of screen real estate.

[martyvis]

Very frustrating for older people when web sites become adventure games with hidden doors and changing maps

[themeiguoren]

For the first link I think it’s pretty bad as-is, but would be much better if you distinguished the new “more” items in some way. Eg different colored text (and make the “more” button match that formatting). That way you don’t need to re-scan every single option to find what’s changed, and keeps the visual shape of the sections of existing text there. I am also baffled by the menu hiding. But I think the other two examples are pretty nice.