points by ndiddy 1 day ago | 0 comments
Windows 10 reversed a lot of the controversial UI changes from Windows 8, but the mouse/keyboard UX was still largely a regression from Windows 7 due to the introduction of giant padding regions on any new/redesigned software so people could use their fingers. Maybe people haven't noticed this as much because the economics have worked out such that most software is now designed for web/mobile first, so having giant padding regions on desktop is more normal.
Macs had managed to avoid this degradation for a while because they didn't have touchscreens, but Apple put in the giant finger-friendly padding regions as part of the UI changes in Tahoe, which got a lot of negative feedback. Now that they're introducing touchscreen laptops, it's unlikely that they'll ever fully revert those changes since it will make the touch experience worse.
[–] Grombobulous 1 day ago
[–] wolrah 1 day ago
That's not a justification for padding, it's a justification for scalable UI. A lot of those "classic" windows dialogs do not scale well on high DPI screens but they still work great with a mouse even if their scaling is ugly. The padding is just there for touch-friendliness.
[–] Grombobulous 19 hours ago
I don't even agree with the premise in the first place if I'll be honest. Windows 11 is almost the same scale as Windows 7. The taskbar is the same size, the tray icons are the same size. Most of Microsoft's applications seem to all be roughly the same scale.
I've heard a lot of complaints about the Settings app being a downgrade from Control Panel and being too padded or whatnot, but let's not forget that the old Windows XP era Control Panel couldn't even be maximized. It was just one size no matter what.
This is even true with laptops since bezels have dramatically shrunk in size.