Comments on: Microsoft Windows Vista: Senile Edition

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:25:10 +0000

….nothing surprising about the vista look >.> ….. seen better on Open Source… nuff said

By: dorel

dorel — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 01:50:34 +0000

safaf

By: 4e5tr

4e5tr — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:05:59 +0000

dsrg

By: The Mikeness

The Mikeness — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 00:55:24 +0000

usability studies show that the bigger problem is vertical scrolling, so you would if anything want taller close buttons if you want to be able to use them easier. for example, ever find a site that has one of those dropdown menus across the top of the page? those are alot easier to use than a similar menu that opens to the side.

This effect is called the horizontal scrolling problem or something like that. This is the main reason Vista is moving away from the classic start menu, because people who arent that great at using the mouse have a terrible time trying to navigate thru the start menu on a deep resolution like 1600×1200. (im calling it ‘deep’ because big means 1600×1200 to half the people and 640×480 to the other half). This is probably why those cool monitors you can turn sideways to read long documents easier are so popular now. (Theyre also good if you can set them to be taller and then use dual monitor on them that way :P)

Im glad that they are trying to resolve a few of the usability design issues in Vista, but yeah as you guys say, consistency is very important in usability. for example, it took me about 2 minutes to find out how to get the menu bar to appear in windows live messenger the first time i tried it, and the ‘Home’ button and friends being on the right side of IE7 and not able to be moved across next to the back/forward buttons, to me, is a ‘Windows Genuine Annoyance’.

By: TS

TS — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:02:40 +0000

Did you actually accurately measure this against defaults and take a historical perspective on the elements you refer to Chris? I think you might be wrong in a couple of cases, and in most of the others we're talking about a delta of 2 – 4 pixels (negligable given the changes in size of display size & resolution, hardly 'gigantic'). I see a lot of UI compression in Vista if you compare with the old defaults and actually measure everything. Also note that if some controls would be kept the same size as they were in win95 (designed for 640-480) they'd be very hard to target for many people with less mouse dexterity. Rather uncomfortable for the buttons you want to easily find, target and click (like Play/Pause) and that also represent the main function of the entire product.
Search for images of WMP from version 7 to 11 and you'll see continuous reduction and integration of the chrome/UI, making way for more content. The play button of wmp7 is about 150% of wmp11. And what exactly do you use the horizontal space in the titlebar to the left of the min/max/close buttons for to care so much about loss of space caused by its horizontal size change of a couple of pixels? ;)
I actually am with you on the higher goal here: make UI easy to use AND efficient. But i think you might be exaggerating a bit on these particular details, and actually missing the points and details behind the Windows Vista UI.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 16:04:33 +0000

At work I actually use two 1280 x 1024 Monitors. On my Laptop at home I have 1920×1200, which is great, but I would like to be able to scale the text on my browser (without breaking the frames/tables etc) because, while, yes I can still read it, I'd like to make it a little easier on my eyes so it doesn't become in the future. I'm also hoping that scaling works A LOT better in Vista then XP. Course, it would be nice to get rid of the Title bar, or make it more useful by allowing us to put navigation buttons in there too. I love the slimline interface of Full screen mode for browers (usually F11 button will get you this), but it would be nice to have that streamlined interface without actually having it take up the full screen.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 14:09:05 +0000

That's “elephantiasis”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 11:47:54 +0000

I totally agree with Chris. Some people prefer to use their increasingly high-res displays to display increasingly more information!
When you're actively working in many applications simultaneously, 1600×1200 + 1280×1024 just isn't enough (I run the same combo). How people can get anything done at less than 1600×1200 (small fonts mode) is beyond me. ;)
So I too would like to see an option to shrink all of that stuff (down to something at least as space-efficient as the Classic UI).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:37:02 +0000

hi there. i wouldn't worry about the largeness of things in vista. as far as i'm aware the whole point of vista's stuff is that it will be able to scale nicely to compensate for the increasingly high-res displays that people have. if vista were stuck in the one-size-only past of XP and previous windowses, soon fonts and buttons would be far too tiny for people to see! and how you can still need more room with those two huge monitors is beyond me.

By: MrDee

MrDee — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 19:59:38 +0000

Bugged the Huge title bars which seem to be left overs from the alpha phase, you see it in the network wizard, (Network) or Network ID, Photo Printing.

By: Googledex

Googledex — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

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By: incoherentmumbling.com

incoherentmumbling.com — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

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By: Toolbar EULA

Toolbar EULA — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

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