this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
262 points (83.4% liked)

Technology

59415 readers
2712 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Why did UI's turn from practical to form over function?

E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365

Office 2003

It's easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.

Microsoft 365

Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.

Why did this happen?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] leekleak 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Honestly I like ribbons quite a lot as a design framework and hell, even padding can improve the UX, it's just a shame that neither of these elements have been used well in a decade.

[–] gsfraley 14 points 1 month ago

Agreed. I'm sure if I was heads down in Excel for years beforehand it would be a significant downgrade, but as a casual user, making better use of some of the more advanced features became so, SO much easier with the Ribbon.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The old file menu was way more functional if you needed to be keyboard only.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

In a world that loves to tout "efficiency" sprawling GUIs and mouse-click-everything has drastically reduced efficiency when a keyboard + shortcuts + macros are far more efficient.

The further we stray from the CLI the further we stray from God. CLI-nliness is next to Godliness.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Look to the atheist. He does not use the command line because he secretly believes. He does so because he knows it's good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I'd like to use good GUI programs designed for using with a keyboard, but it seems touch UI is the main theme for bigger developers these days, and keyboard is an afterthought at best