Post #2571009
2026-05-10 11:57 UTC
@the_wub@mastodon.social @tokyo_0@mas.to
Microsoft did *EXTENSIVE* research on UI design during the development of Win-95. Nothing about the Win-95 design was random or left to chance. For Win-95 to become a success they had to beat their main competitor at their own game: Usability.
Remember that before (Win[NT]-3.x) you had the system menu on the left and minimize/maximize buttons on the right; they changed that only after extensive usability research.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/238386.238611
Replies (1)
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@the_wub@mastodon.social 2026-05-10 12:20
@datenwolf@chaos.social @tokyo_0@mas.to I don't doubt they did. But this IS MicroSoft that we are talking about. In their strange world user friendly is placing window buttons in such a way so that when you want to minimise/maximise a window you end up hitting the close window button instead. Frustrating for inexpert users who, not having noticed their mis-click wonder where on earth the window they were just using has just gone. You cannot make this mistake using the RISC OS layout.