New vs Old

AirMario64

AirMario64

Starting MS-DOS...
Has anybody else noticed that as of recently, websites, programs, and operating systems have used significantly less colors? Designers are taking a noticeable amount less time to create graphics, and other such media. All of these new "One" designs consist of mainly solid colors, which are not appealing to the eye. Look at Windows Eight, solid color taskbar, solid color windows, solid colored boxes on the start menu. Other websites/programs have begun to take this approach.
Let's take a look at YouTube in 2007, as opposed to YouTube now, for example. Several options and such are missing, and the graphics look like they took little-to-no effort. Visuals isn't everything, however. The new YouTube design is much more cluttered and is much harder to navigate. In the old channel designs it was much simpler, and everything was right there where you could see it. The old design was more about the user and their creativity, and not about Google trying to run a business and get more money. It had 4 groups, as seen in the first image, which divided different areas of YouTube. Heck, you could even see your channel stats on the home page. Now there is no such organization. It's all a big mass of "Featured," "Top Rated," and other stuff.

For other programs, operating systems, and related things, they have reduced to using a horrible amount of drop-down menus. Yeah, a couple Drop-down menus are nice to have, but it's also nice to have a few main quick-reference options outside of them. The big switch when certain programs changed their designs completely threw me off. I didn't know where to find certain things, and to this day, I still don't. Specifically referring to Firefox, eBay, and Gmail.

Other things that I think have changed for the worst are Firefox, Windows, Internet Explorer (Don't get a false impression that I use this), iOS (Don't get a false impression that I like this company), Gmail, eBay, Microsoft Website, and other such things.

I am making this thread mainly to talk about opinions on what the worst/best changes were. So yeah.
 
i agree, drop-down menus are awful

why can't everything be out where you need it like this
rfKQnju.jpg
 
Nabber said:
i agree, drop-down menus are awful

why can't everything be out where you need it like this
rfKQnju.jpg
Click to expand...

Nabber... I don't mean bookmark every single website you go to. I'm talking about the programs themselves, no add-ons or annoying toolbars.
 
the point still stands

let's look at a library

wouldn't books be much harder to find if we just left them on the floor?

that's why we categorize them into shelves so we can actually find what we're looking for
 
Nabber said:
the point still stands

let's look at a library

wouldn't books be much harder to find if we just left them on the floor?

that's why we categorize them into shelves so we can actually find what we're looking for
Click to expand...

You're missing the point. Categories are nice, but 7 unrelated options shouldn't go into the same drop-down. Especially if they are frequently used commands. [Referring to YouTube] When I used to use YouTube back in '07, I liked having everything right where I needed it. Now you have a drop-down to get through first, and then you can get to your settings... After you go to Google+ first.

This applies to several other websites. Frequently used options, ("Sell an item" in eBay, "Spam/Trash" in Gmail, "History" in Google Chrome) should be where you can see them, so you can quickly access them as needed. Not have to hunt for the correct drop-down first. Those are the minority like this. There are many more.
 
i can't speak for ebay but

spam/trash in gmail is in a menu because the general idea is that you don't want to see spam/trash

and history is in a menu because not everyone uses history. i don't use history, in fact, and i don't know anyone who does
 
Nabber said:
i can't speak for ebay but

spam/trash in gmail is in a menu because the general idea is that you don't want to see spam/trash

and history is in a menu because not everyone uses history. i don't use history, in fact, and i don't know anyone who does
Click to expand...
I only use it to delete my history.
 
Nabber said:
i can't speak for ebay but

spam/trash in gmail is in a menu because the general idea is that you don't want to see spam/trash

and history is in a menu because not everyone uses history. i don't use history, in fact, and i don't know anyone who does
Click to expand...

I guess I could have said "All mail" for Gmail, and "Home" for Chrome (Does Chrome even have that? (lol i rhymed)). Try to think for someone who checks their history often, though. I check my history a lot, due to the fact that I let other people on my computer. But having every single option stored in a drop-down menu is just not what I think of as "convenient." Also, I'm not talking about general drop-downs like "File" "Edit" "View" "Tools" or "Help," I mean non-general ones. There's more I wanted to put in this reply, but I forget what the rest was.

EDIT: I remembered what I was going to say. Imagine your general computer desk. Speakers, microphone, mouse, keyboard, etc. Now, every time you left it, the stuff got put away in the same drawer. You'd have to open up that drawer, or tab, to access it, instead of it being out on your desk where you need it.

I hope this clears up my point and makes it a bit more easy to understand.
 
You could argue that a lot of the throwbacks could be to support mobiles and other computers lacking processing power.
 
Windows 8 looks like what it looks like because you then don't need elephants as computers, by using relatively simple graphics, and honestly, it looks pretty neat. Less colors ≠ ugly.

Same goes for YouTube, the 2007 version you put that screenshot of is just roundly ugly and cluttered IMO.

I compare Windows XP to 7 here. XP has too much color effect without transitions. 7's Aero is the exact opposite and has my preference.
 
I prefer Windows 7 embossy graphics, honestly, but I like color too
 
Colonel Harland Sanders said:
Nabber said:
i can't speak for ebay but

spam/trash in gmail is in a menu because the general idea is that you don't want to see spam/trash

and history is in a menu because not everyone uses history. i don't use history, in fact, and i don't know anyone who does
Click to expand...
I only use it to delete my history.
Click to expand...
You realize that you can set it to never save history, right?

Or at least you can with Firefox.
 
Ema Skye said:
You could argue that a lot of the throwbacks could be to support mobiles and other computers lacking processing power.
Click to expand...
Processors should be getting stronger, though. If normal computers were able to achieve this in 2005-2007, then computers today should be able to as well.

Lakitulerapide said:
Windows 8 looks like what it looks like because you then don't need elephants as computers, by using relatively simple graphics, and honestly, it looks pretty neat. Less colors ≠ ugly.

Same goes for YouTube, the 2007 version you put that screenshot of is just roundly ugly and cluttered IMO.

I compare Windows XP to 7 here. XP has too much color effect without transitions. 7's Aero is the exact opposite and has my preference.
Click to expand...

I guess which version of YouTube you like better depends on which one you used originally. I prefer the older design because of how simple and quick it was to navigate and find what you're looking for.
I agree with you for Windows 7. Win7's Aero is by far my favorite Windows theme. I'm more used to navigating XP though, and that new control panel in 7 is horrible IMO. If it weren't for the search feature I would be lost.
 
yes, processors are getting stronger, but you're also running more intensive programs

there's always going to be a relatively low-end computer, anyway
 
Nabber said:
yes, processors are getting stronger, but you're also running more intensive programs

there's always going to be a relatively low-end computer, anyway
Click to expand...

Programs don't need to require so many resources. I don't even know what all the extra coding is for, but they could achieve high-end programs that required little resources. My old computer is low-end, and it can run memory/CPU hogging programs.

Unless you're referring to the minority of people who still use Windows 98 to try and browse the internet. IE6 doesn't even support HTML5, so low-colors or not, it wouldn't work.
 
well yes theoretically programs don't have to use a lot of resources, but that'd be if the program doesn't have a lot of features

unless my very basic knowledge of computers is failing me, you seem to be requesting programs to stop having more features?
 
Nabber said:
well yes theoretically programs don't have to use a lot of resources, but that'd be if the program doesn't have a lot of features

unless my very basic knowledge of computers is failing me, you seem to be requesting programs to stop having more features?
Click to expand...

Not at all. Features are great, but you don't need to require tons of resources to have them. The original Google Chrome was contained in a nice small 20MB folder. I don't notice any difference then compared to now. It's like those extra megabytes came out of nowhere. Not every single feature needs to take up another 50 megabytes.
 
anything? it's a total of animations and menus and stuff

i don't really keep an active account of chrome features really
 
it annoyed me when firefox collapsed everything into that little orange menu

luckily that was an optional change
 
MS-DOS said:
Ema Skye said:
You could argue that a lot of the throwbacks could be to support mobiles and other computers lacking processing power.
Click to expand...
Processors should be getting stronger, though. If normal computers were able to achieve this in 2005-2007, then computers today should be able to as well.
Click to expand...
Mobiles are used far more than desktops / laptops though and are significantly less powerful than them (and probably always will be). That's the market I think these are for, or at least designing websites so they can easily be viewed on all these devices.

Also, processes only get stronger because programs gradually get bigger and take up more space. Firefox, Chrome, etc have all been actively worked on since 2005 and honestly the performance probably isn't all that much different than what it was in 2005 on a 2005 processor. Unless it, of course, has been optimised for mobile devices which don't have as much power to waste.

And, honestly, with regards to Youtube, not every feature needs to be in-your-face on the homepage. Make the most used stuff in-your-face and easy to get to, and everything else easy-to-get to, but dependent on how many people will actually use it. Usability 101.
 
Nabber said:
anything? it's a total of animations and menus and stuff

i don't really keep an active account of chrome features really
Click to expand...
Animations don't take megabytes, they take kilobytes.
Heck, all the graphics in SM64 fit on a diskette. (Even though SM64 isn't exactly what we're talking about, but the point still stands)


Mobiles are used far more than desktops / laptops though and are significantly less powerful than them (and probably always will be). That's the market I think these are for, or at least designing websites so they can easily be viewed on all these devices.

Also, processes only get stronger because programs gradually get bigger and take up more space. Firefox, Chrome, etc have all been actively worked on since 2005 and honestly the performance probably isn't all that much different than what it was in 2005 on a 2005 processor. Unless it, of course, has been optimised for mobile devices which don't have as much power to waste.

And, honestly, with regards to Youtube, not every feature needs to be in-your-face on the homepage. Make the most used stuff in-your-face and easy to get to, and everything else easy-to-get to, but dependent on how many people will actually use it. Usability 101.
Click to expand...

Developers for mobile devices have made separate applications for them. As far as processors go, Mac computers are still selling their top-priority computers with Dual-Core CPUs, and they seem to be able to run programs. They can run the programs fine, just not as well as what a regular computer would be able to achieve. 'Bout YouTube, I agree that not every feature has to be in your face, but not every feature has to be hidden in a drop-down box, or on the bottom of the YouTube page where nobody's going to look. In fact, I don't think any features (aside from the Upload and Search options) are directly on the home page.
 
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