Why did UI’s turn from practical to form over function?

E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365

Office 2003

It’s easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.

Microsoft 365

Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.

Why did this happen?

  • webghost0101@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    11·
    3 months ago

    16:9 was pushed on us because it was cheaper to produce on mass for tv and pc. 16:9 was better for movies.

    There are some monitors from just before this massive market manipulation and those have 16:10, sometimes with display port before hdmi was even mainstream.

    Apple is actually one of the few companies to make the jump from 4:3 to 16:10 avoiding the 16:9 with very few exceptions.

    To this day i see people work with old software designed for the area of more vertical screens but doing so on screens designed for movies.

    Most people dont even understand what i mean when i explain this. But the good thing is my issue with it was considered a disability so they had to accommodate me with something more sensible.

    Sorry long comments but this is a personal vice for me.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      I swear I still get letterboxes on a 16:9 television watching at least some movies. And of course I get pillarboxes for days watching “fullscreen” pan & scan DVDs or anything shot for TV before 2010.

      16:10 is a pretty good laptop aspect ratio, but on the desktop I don’t think I’m giving up my 21:9 monitor. For gaming it’s simply majestic and having enough real estate for CAD and a spreadsheet open side by side and actually get stuff done is something I won’t give up.

      • webghost0101@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        Actually i have and love my 21:9, but it was a weird journey.

        The most common resolution for them is 3440x1440 21:9

        At work i use a 2560x1600 16:10

        You may see my problem, i was not going to give up those 160 vertical pixels. So i got a 3840x1600 instead…

        Which comes down to the same 21:9…

        I think the reason its not a problem is cause how rarely your only using a single fullscreen window on such ultrawides.

        Majestic for gaming ind… and the gpu caught fire again.

    • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Ha, but the presence of vertical monitors means we can do this , amirite? We’re just better using the screen space people have …. Who have spent hundreds of dollars extra on extra hardware to make this shitty ui usable