spiderwaffles

Oh man, this hit way too close to home. I've been trying to ditch the Windows GUI since XP, and back then it was so easy. A few dock programs, a few launchers and ease of use programs, throw in a nice looking, albeit cringeworthy theme and you were good to go. Then Vista hit, and it wasn't the worst UI redesign ever but I feel like since then we've been stuck. I GAVE UP trying when Vista came out, and just learned to put up with it. But we shouldn't have to settle for this. Ideally I figured we'd be at UI levels of stuff like Ghost in the Shell or Evangelion, with all those holographic circles linking to other circles where you have statuses on the outermost circle for the application and then the inner circle displayed the program. Or at least Star Trek / Mass Effect where there was a structure to all the ship functions. Hell, even the interface of Alien's MUTHUR computer seems to have a more logical design around it, if not more akin to a command line. Which is another thing I feel like should be another truth. "You shouldn't need the command line, HOWEVER it should always be accessible IF you need it... WITH DOCUMENTATION." Something Linux gets very right and Windows does not. With windows you have to go into the start menu, then type in CMD, then right click on it and select whether or not you want to run as an admin or as a standard user. Yes, I know you can do shortcuts or hell even use powershell, but with Linux it's always accessible even in the most broken state and you can switch user privilege levels ON THE FLY. All of this being said, which is mostly just ranting. I don't have the know-how or design ability to construct a new UI but SOMEONE has to. It's an absolute nightmare out there. I work for a tax software / accounting software company and our UI makes me want to gouge my eyes out. The only reason I put up with it is because I've been TRAINED to use it. Which is another truth "You shouldn't have to TRAIN people to use your UI", people should be able to pick it up, poke around for a minute and get the general idea.