<story><title>Nextspace: a desktop environment that brings a NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux</title><url>https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kaba0</author><text>I think complexity doesn’t have to be exposed by default on the UI. I’m not an apple fan, but I think ios finds a great balance between not having buttons for every single command (though behind menus it would be ok), yet still exposing it with some niche tricks you have to learn. For example touching the upper left corner’s clock will scroll up, which won’t be discovered by my mum but I can use it.</text></item><item><author>jrm4</author><text>Sure, but I&amp;#x27;d say the problem is it also left us with the idea that &amp;quot;because Mom&amp;#x27;s iPhone is so popular, everything, no matter how complex, should look and feel like that,&amp;quot; leaving out e.g. a great deal of &lt;i&gt;useful&lt;/i&gt; complexity.</text></item><item><author>dntrkv</author><text>The last 40 years of UX research has given us the iPhone that my mom learned how to use within a couple hours.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; still attractive&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think many people outside of the &amp;quot;Everything New Sucks&amp;quot; crowd here on HN would agree there.</text></item><item><author>petilon</author><text>What is incredible here is that a UI developed in the 1980s is still attractive, and is arguably better looking and more usable than Windows 11 and Mac OS 12. What does that say about the last 40 years of usability and user experience research?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>laumars</author><text>The thing I hate most about Apple products is these secret member handshakes that are completely non-discoverable to anyone outside of Apples precious alumni. I’ve been using Apple products for years and I still haven’t figured out hall of these tricks and nor can I recall them when I need them. In fact I’ve even got as far as accidentally triggering gestures and thought “that’s handy” but then been completely unable to figure out how to re-trigger that gesture.&lt;p&gt;I really don’t understand the hate for menus. Everything is named and categorised. Ok it doesn’t translate to a mobile phone all that well but I also don’t see why desktop UIs have to mimic smart phones and tablets.&lt;p&gt;For me, KDE gets it right. All the key features immediately available. Menus for advanced features. Hot keys for anything useful (with those hot keys names in menus). And terminal integration with all their core desktop applications (like file manager, text editor, etc) so you don’t have to compromise between using the GUI or CLI.&lt;p&gt;KDE also makes tiling windows easy without forcing people into a full on strict tiling WM. Something macOS is appalling at - even Windows does a better job than macOS.</text></comment>
<story><title>Nextspace: a desktop environment that brings a NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux</title><url>https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kaba0</author><text>I think complexity doesn’t have to be exposed by default on the UI. I’m not an apple fan, but I think ios finds a great balance between not having buttons for every single command (though behind menus it would be ok), yet still exposing it with some niche tricks you have to learn. For example touching the upper left corner’s clock will scroll up, which won’t be discovered by my mum but I can use it.</text></item><item><author>jrm4</author><text>Sure, but I&amp;#x27;d say the problem is it also left us with the idea that &amp;quot;because Mom&amp;#x27;s iPhone is so popular, everything, no matter how complex, should look and feel like that,&amp;quot; leaving out e.g. a great deal of &lt;i&gt;useful&lt;/i&gt; complexity.</text></item><item><author>dntrkv</author><text>The last 40 years of UX research has given us the iPhone that my mom learned how to use within a couple hours.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; still attractive&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think many people outside of the &amp;quot;Everything New Sucks&amp;quot; crowd here on HN would agree there.</text></item><item><author>petilon</author><text>What is incredible here is that a UI developed in the 1980s is still attractive, and is arguably better looking and more usable than Windows 11 and Mac OS 12. What does that say about the last 40 years of usability and user experience research?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrm4</author><text>You, in passing, nailed &lt;i&gt;exactly&lt;/i&gt; what&amp;#x27;s wrong with Apple&amp;#x27;s way of doing UI.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Niche tricks you have to learn?&amp;quot; That&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;ridiculous.&lt;/i&gt;  It&amp;#x27;s perfectly fine to do a great default UI that most people like without any adjustment -- but it&amp;#x27;s preposterous that there&amp;#x27;s no &amp;quot;go in and change just about whatever you want how you want (even if that option is in the way back).&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is why I&amp;#x27;ve been hardcore Linux for quite some time.</text></comment>