> Sadly, almost nobody uses Win32 scroll bars any more. Everybody uses frameworks that provide their own custom scroll bars.
Yeah and, sadly, those framework implementations are all mired in some amount of bollocks due to lack of care, attention, or interest from their creators. And by bollocks I mean they either behave differently or do less.
But I very much miss the days of consistent UX across Windows applications, or indeed applications on any other OS.
I don’t mind if you want a custom look and feel for your application: I very much do mind if your widgets don’t behave like other widgets of the same type or, at least, where any variance is at least a superset of OS level functionality rather than a crippled subset.
I was always frustrated by how hard Microsoft made this as time wore on and they moved through more and more UI frameworks, and then offerings like CEF and Electron entered the mix as well. The UI story on Windows started getting particularly messy around 2007 or so and has been in an awful state of confusion for at least 15 years now.
I literally have no idea what I’d use to develop a Windows desktop app nowadays and, honestly, none of the options fill me with enthusiasm. With more recent desktop experiments, partly because whilst I might want them to run on Windows I don’t primarily work on Windows, I’ve gone the Rust + Qt route simply because it offers native performance and it doesn’t feel like I’m getting rug pulled by either set of creators any time soon.
> I don’t mind if you want a custom look and feel for your application
I would go further and say that I don’t want a custom look and feel for each app unless the app is a game, especially if your app is a regular line of business app. The default Win32 widgets are good enough. The default Cocoa widgets are also good enough.
The designers of your software and their bosses disagree though, default widgets don't provide "branding" and allow the poor designers to express themselves.
Good designers would not disagree. Platform standards are golden standards, any UX designer worth their salt holds that as an absolute.
The problem starts when you want to ship to every device known to man but you only have the dev power to maybe ship it to the web—enter, Electron (and all that other similar crap).
Don’t blame it on the designers or the developers. This comes from above the worker bees.
Separately from the "who thinks it's actually a good UX" question, I think we should also consider the strategic-villainy of established companies which try to slowly shift their captive customer-base into something weird that creates a barrier to leaving.
Yeah, you lose some people with a shifting target, but it's easier to make them swallow 1% different every month than 50% different (to a competitor) all at once.
bartread · · focus · HN ↗
Yeah and, sadly, those framework implementations are all mired in some amount of bollocks due to lack of care, attention, or interest from their creators. And by bollocks I mean they either behave differently or do less.
But I very much miss the days of consistent UX across Windows applications, or indeed applications on any other OS.
I don’t mind if you want a custom look and feel for your application: I very much do mind if your widgets don’t behave like other widgets of the same type or, at least, where any variance is at least a superset of OS level functionality rather than a crippled subset.
I was always frustrated by how hard Microsoft made this as time wore on and they moved through more and more UI frameworks, and then offerings like CEF and Electron entered the mix as well. The UI story on Windows started getting particularly messy around 2007 or so and has been in an awful state of confusion for at least 15 years now.
I literally have no idea what I’d use to develop a Windows desktop app nowadays and, honestly, none of the options fill me with enthusiasm. With more recent desktop experiments, partly because whilst I might want them to run on Windows I don’t primarily work on Windows, I’ve gone the Rust + Qt route simply because it offers native performance and it doesn’t feel like I’m getting rug pulled by either set of creators any time soon.
kccqzy · · focus · HN ↗
I would go further and say that I don’t want a custom look and feel for each app unless the app is a game, especially if your app is a regular line of business app. The default Win32 widgets are good enough. The default Cocoa widgets are also good enough.
izacus · · focus · HN ↗
oenxkenckejdj · · focus · HN ↗
The problem starts when you want to ship to every device known to man but you only have the dev power to maybe ship it to the web—enter, Electron (and all that other similar crap).
Don’t blame it on the designers or the developers. This comes from above the worker bees.
Terr_ · · focus · HN ↗
Yeah, you lose some people with a shifting target, but it's easier to make them swallow 1% different every month than 50% different (to a competitor) all at once.