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Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

(github.com)
567 points elvis70 | 3 comments | 30 Mar 25 15:30 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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metadat ◴[30 Mar 25 16:14 UTC] No.43525239[source]▶
This looks nice and easy to use.

My hypothesis is today's "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective, obfuscating key functionality behind layers of confusing menus.

It reminds me of these "OS popularity since the 70s" time lapse views:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cTKhqtll5cQ

The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

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voidfunc ◴[30 Mar 25 16:25 UTC] No.43525330[source]▶
I got in an argument with an accessibility engineer about this recently...

The whole UI as branding thing has utterly killed usability.

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hyperbrainer ◴[30 Mar 25 16:45 UTC] No.43525504[source]▶
It's interesting especially because it seems like companies today pour tens of millions into "accessibility", but I never see a thing's usability in terms of simple and easy-to-do-what-I-want UX fall in to the same category.
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cenamus ◴[30 Mar 25 17:56 UTC] No.43526096[source]▶
Even just simple UX testing with people that have never seen or used your software seems to be a lost art.
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hnthrowaway0315 ◴[30 Mar 25 18:30 UTC] No.43526362[source]▶
Companies are outsourcing testing. I'm not surprised that they get rid of UI testing. Back in the day companies used to invite people to sit down and use their software. Nowadays they just push out whatever they have and then start collecting bug tickets. Then they let the community to vote on the tickets. It's basically a huge "pay for being a beta tester" scheme.
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1. ivan_gammel ◴[30 Mar 25 21:07 UTC] No.43527648{3}[source]▶
UX testing is not UI testing and it is not QA.
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2. girvo ◴[30 Mar 25 22:29 UTC] No.43528372[source]▶
Quite, but lots of companies jam them all together these days.
3. hnthrowaway0315 ◴[31 Mar 25 22:17 UTC] No.43540570[source]▶
You are probably right, just saying in general...