I have. I think about UI a lot. I would love to see flat UI, not "flat" in aesthetic sense, but flat in hierarchical sense. Like photoshop menus, fighter jet cockpits, control panels and 90's porsche dashboards - give me a dedicated button exposed upfront. Laid out in logical fashion spatially - a tool bar group for all things audio, another one for display, and yet another one for devices. Ofcourse when number of items are dynamic, dropdowns are ok or another popup window is fine. No icons. Only text (sometimes abbreviated like CTRL PANEL).
IMO hierarchical deep menus are logical but they take up precious time when you need to do that action 80 times a day. Same benefits can be obtained by well designed layout (with borders, background colors and proper labels).
Most people would find that dauting. I think hiding stuff behind menus is not a good idea even though on surface it might feel like making it less complex. In fact, the complexity is the same, just visual clutter is reduced. I argue that we're really good at looking at visual clutter, my professor's desk is a good example of that.
IMO hierarchical deep menus are logical but they take up precious time when you need to do that action 80 times a day. Same benefits can be obtained by well designed layout (with borders, background colors and proper labels).
Most people would find that dauting. I think hiding stuff behind menus is not a good idea even though on surface it might feel like making it less complex. In fact, the complexity is the same, just visual clutter is reduced. I argue that we're really good at looking at visual clutter, my professor's desk is a good example of that.
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