The tiny tech tribe who could change the world tomorrow but won't

There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow to make IT better, and it would become better. Not better for some, not better for a while, but better for all and forever. Those ten people are those who sign off on the Settings menus on desktops, mobile and consumer at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Sony. …

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory

XKCD - Standards

[m4r35n357]

Re: Obligatory

The Gnomewreckers at Red Hat can help with this, you all just need to standardize on systemd.

[Jedit]

"you all just need to standardize on systemd"

Situation: there are now 16 competing standards.

[PB90210]

Re: "you all just need to standardize on systemd"

"Standards... So many to choose from..."

[best-heygman]

Re: Obligatory

I like GNOME and I also like Systemd, so this is a great suggestion ;)

Anyway, I also really like KDE, because you can change all the settings and make it work like GNOME.

[Pascal Monett]

"There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

Name and shame.

This needs to be done. Kick the anthill and get them moving.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

Ten people?

I've worked in companies where there are more than ten people responsible for UI standardization in each department and even they can't agree with each other.

As for cars, they may standardize on a wheel & a couple of pedals, but beyond that it's a free-for-all. It was bad enough when every manufacturer just put indicator and light switches in different places, but now that they're infested with touchscreen UIs designed by people who don't even drive they are even worse. Hire a car at an airport these days & you'll spend so long just to figure out how to start the engine, turn on the lights and adjust the seat that you'll end up trying to read the user manual on your phone (because they don't even print them nowadays).

This is a lost cause. Even voting with your wallet won't help.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

I stopped at a filling station to top up a recent Toyota before returning it. I could not figure out how to open the fuel filler cap.

Searching online eventually revealed that it was opened by a small black button, embedded in the black carpet, hidden in the shadows under the seat. All it was missing was the "beware of the leopard" sign.

[Ozumo]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

Was it labelled in black on a black background?

[EricB123]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

The rear seat heater was about in the same convenient position in a van I rented once.

Couldn't figure out why the air conditioner was having such a hard time cooling the cabin...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

Agreed. Our van and car have the steering wheel, turn signals, gas pedal, and brake pedal in the same places, but everything else is different. Headlights: one is a knob on the dashboard, one is a twist of the turn signal lever. Windshield wipers: one is a twist of the turn signal lever (and push it in for cleaning), another is a separate, dedicated lever that you push up, down, and twist (all 3!) to get the different settings. Gearshift: One is on the dashboard, the other is between the seats. (At least they're both P-R-N-D.) Different ways of moving seats, opening the hood, opening the gas flap...

Cars are NOT standardized!

[PRR]

P-R-N-D

> (At least they're both P-R-N-D.)

There's a US law for that. I dimly remember the before times when you never knew what the shift pattern was, and some makers persisted in stupid choices.

https://www.jalopnik.com/why-prndl-5870701

US Department of Transportation Standard No. 102. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title49-vol6/pdf/CFR-2024-title49-vol6-sec571-102.pdf

(Current doc says 2024, but I know this became The Standard in the early 1960s.)

[ben kendim]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

I rented Kia SUV's a couple of times and loved them, EXCEPT, where are the knobs? I would have bought one, but waiting for the model year when all the knobs come back so I can minimize touchscreening...

[doublelayer]

Re: "There are ten people in the world who could decide tomorrow"

There aren't. Even if there's a single person at each of those companies, which there isn't, their choosing to try to standardize this wouldn't make any difference. Not even for their own hardware. Samsung's chief of UI commands that colors will always appear in the same place. The phone, television, appliance, watch, website, web app, individual phone app, Windows laptop driver setting program, etc teams all have to get that memo and implement this change, but not all of them even have the same places. Phones and televisions at least both have a device settings page, and I'm going to guess that any setting they offer about colors is already in there under display, but many of the other things don't have one, so it can't be put there. Just trying to standardize Samsung's UI settings would take lots of people.

But that's not what the author wants. The author wants to be able to set that globally, up to and including inter-device automatic sync, effective on all software and websites. That's far more than ten people. Let's consider what the worst group is for the user described who can't see blue on white well. The worst system isn't the one that allows you to make that change but you have to set it manually. That's annoying of course, but at least you can set it to something better after some effort. The worst ones are the ones that don't have any options for color schemes except whatever their UI person set it to, and that's a lot of things. A standardized place to put the controls and syncing the data structure everywhere, while being mildly tricky and almost impossible respectively, would do nothing to fix that. So even if those ten people existed and could perfectly coordinate and impose the plan on the hundreds or thousands of people it would take to implement it everywhere, the biggest problem would still be there.

[Claude Yeller]

Ecumenism

I am reminded of the perennial efforts to bring together the different churches of Christianity (Ecumenism), or any other religion for that matter.

All churches involved invariably agree that they are part of one religion. They also invariably agree that their version is the real, ture standard that everyone should adhere to.

So, nothing happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ecumenism

Not nothing.

Everyone is able to find a denomination or congregation within which they can feel (reasonably) comfortable. Some people get comfort from a set liturgy they know and can follow, others like less structure; some like calm, others more "happy-clappy"; some get more assurance from a formal leadership hierarchy, others a universal priesthood; and so on.

Many denominations work together within their communities, whilst maintaining separate "administrative hierarchies".

[Korev]

Re: Ecumenism

> Everyone is able to find a denomination or congregation within which they can feel (reasonably) comfortable

Especially those at the top who mysteriously get rather wealthy

[collinsl]

Re: Ecumenism

That money was just resting in my account!

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Ecumenism

So, nothing happens.

Either that, or you get a Holy War.

Sometimes "nothing happens" is the best outcome.

[ParlezVousFranglais]

Re: Ecumenism

Ah yes, the Catholic and Protestant priests arguing over the finer points of theology - eventually the Catholic says " ok let's just agree to disagree, after all, we're both doing the Lord's work, you in your way, and I in His..."

[fg_swe]

Small, Independent Church

Not as corrupt as the big ones: E.g. xfce.

[PerlyKing]

Re: Ecumenism

"That would be an ecumenical matter"

[Korev]

Re: Ecumenism

Yes!

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: Ecumenism

Are those my feet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ecumenism

There is, at least, a written standard. Very few churches actually read it, however, and some (ex. Catholics) created their own.

[algol60forever]

Re: Ecumenism

Even if they all agreed, there'd still be two standards - the God one and the No-God one.

[Neil Barnes]

Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

At an estimate, it looks like there are around five to six thousand settings: a combination of binary choices, numeric, and text entry - with absolutely no reference to what any of the choices do (in the config page).

Some of them can be deduced; one can at least guess what area others are in; but there's nothing to indicate where (under what general heading) one might seek a particular function, or even if it exists. And what's with some of the entries being in bold face?

Not really criticising Mozilla here, but this is a good example of a poor settings UI.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

Some of them can be deduced; one can at least guess what area others are in; but there's nothing to indicate where (under what general heading) one might seek a particular function, or even if it exists.

Not only that, but there are setting Firefox software responds to that don't exist in the defaults, so you have to know they exist and how to create them yourself.

Not really criticising Mozilla here

We should.

[JoeCool]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

Given the three choices, I'd rank them best to worst:

about:config

android settings

Windows settings.

I've never used iSettings.

Android has fewer items to manage and is newer, but it's still been better managed than Windows.

[AMBxx]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

Except that Android settings vary from one phone to another, again between Android versions and I'm sure depending upon the day of the week.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

You deserve my upvote for "depending upon the day of the week."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

<< depending on the day of the week >>

With Windows it depends on the second in the day. The Windows UI changes more often than a "whores drawers", as they say.

[PerlyKing]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

I agree that about:config is a poor UI, but I think it's a great DI (Developer Interface) :-D

It strikes me as something that some developer added as a quick & dirty way to change settings on the fly and got left in because it is undeniably useful, at least if you have the right magical incantations to hand!

[David 132]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

And what's with some of the entries being in bold face?

I think that’s used to denote items that have been changed (by you, or plugins, or whatever) from their defaults.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

My router (an Asus) has a nice, fairly easy to use graphical interface. I've been happy with it except for one section: The Traditional QoS settings. They're well layed-out, fairly clear on their intended purpose, but don't actually do anything. At all. I suspect the code (or chip?) that actually does QoS isn't present in that model, but the settings are!

Oh, unhappy about another section - that you have to agree to a "we own your data" EULA to use some of the "built-in" features. (I said no.)

[dcline1701]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

I think we're ignoring frequency. I've used Firefox's config less than a dozen times in the past decade.

That's why I like it the best of all of them.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

I use it on a basis of "how do I (or even can I) unfuck the latest release?" i.e. at least monthly.

[GidaBrasti]

Not needed

Not needed any more, nor standards for that reason.

AI agents will soon take over and they'll know how to handle things.

They could even learn to make tea!

[theOtherJT]

Re: Not needed

They could probably learn to make something that's almost, but entirely, unlike tea.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Not needed

A few whooshes there.

[fg_swe]

Muhahahaha

AI screwing up everything ? Surely Hollyweird have a movie for that scenario.

[Willy Ekerslike]

Kubrickian monolithic mobile device

Off topic and not wishing to appear pedantic (though I probably will): whilst the "2001: A Space Odyssey" screenplay was co-written by Kubrick and Clarke, the "Kubrickian monolith" was based on an Arthur C Clarke short story "The Sentinel". I speak as someone who was raised on the novels of Clarke (Asimov coming a close second); I also had the same science teacher as Clarke, so I apologise if I come across as a bit defensive...

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Kubrickian monolithic mobile device

But The Sentinel was a pyramid (another example of carcinisationism - it's a really convenient way to stack rocks) whereas the 1:4:9 monolith first appeared in 2001.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Kubrickian monolithic mobile device

Just checked, my mobile phone is a 1:7:15 monolith. Not at all Kubrickian.

[mdubash]

Re: Kubrickian monolithic mobile device

Just brickian, if you're not careful.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Kubrickian monolithic mobile device

I have the movie action figure... with 0 points of articulation.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Kubrickian monolithic mobile device

If it doesn't have Kung Fu Grip, it's not worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article seems like nonsense ....

"Preferred text size and style, icon size and spacing, good and bad color combinations, language - if a machine could pick that up from your phone"

Why would I want the same text size on my desktop that I have on the small screen my phone? Icon size? etc etc.

"if cars didn't have a standard control layout"

You have to be joking! What standard? There's mostly a steering wheel, and mostly some pedals, and often some stalks but what the stalks do vary notoriously between cars. But how do you start your car? How do you open the doors? How do you control the radio? etc etc ....

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: How...?

That would be an ecumenical matter.

[I am David Jones]

Re: The article seems like nonsense ....

I understood it as your preferred settings, for various display types, would be stored in your phone so that you can easily import your settings to whatever device/app you are using.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The article seems like nonsense ....

.. or the device you want to configure gets there first and overrides what's in your phone.

I'd call that The Microsoft Way..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The article seems like nonsense ....

Ugh. No thank you! At work recently, I got a new laptop and was setting it up. Went to log into our work order management system (through Edge, the employer's designated browser), and it didn't work. Tried on the old laptop - didn't work either. Checked with IT - no known outage.

Turns out that I had set the "do not track" flag on the new machine, which caused the work order management system to totally bork. Edge, helpfully, had copied the changed setting across to the old laptop...

[SVD_NL]

"better accessibility for one is better accessibility for all."

I will continue to preach the same thing: Accessibility benefits everyone, not just the people who need it.

This also extends beyond software, for example appliances that replaces easy-to-use knobs with their "sleek" touchscreen panels. This makes them very difficult or impossible to use for people with impaired vision or motor control, and it also makes them harder to use for people without impairments (my "smart" oven is often the target of many expletives when i try to use it with dirty or wet hands).

[I am David Jones]

Re: "better accessibility for one is better accessibility for all."

And the majority of people who don’t need it will need it at some point in the future.

[Anonymous Coward]

And who said satire was dead eh?

[AMBxx]

One more request

I just want the scroll bars to be big enough to click and to stop disappearing.

[SomeRandom1]

Re: One more request

Definitely this, and buttons which look like buttons. It's supposed to be a user interface, not a puzzle game to guess your way through.

[JulieM]

Re: One more request

As well as being displayed permanently, scrollbars should have arrows at each end, allowing easy scrolling of a screenful at a time with just a single click. Clicking a scrollbar arrow with the alternate mouse button should scroll in the opposite direction to the arrow, so you do not need to move the mouse if you overshoot.

[druck]

Re: One more request

Otherwise known as RISC OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: One more request

Also screen edges. Resizing a window under Windows is occasionally a real *pain*.

[PB90210]

Re: One more request

And stop making windows full screen just because moving/resizing touches the edge of the screen!

[DarkwavePunk]

Re: One more request

How the hell did I have a perfectly usable GUI with real buttons and scroll bars back in the day on a 320x200 monitor? Progress eh...

[I am the liquor]

Re: One more request

Windows 11 has a setting under Accessibility>Visual effects>Always show scrollbars, which is somewhat effective. MS Word ignores it, obviously, because it's MS Word, but some other applications are better with that setting enabled.

[JulieM]

The Problem

The problem is simply that as far as the people at the top are concerned, "interoperability" is a bug, not a feature.

Google want everyone to be using Android. Apple want everyone to be using Macs and iDevices. Microsoft want everyone to be using Windows and Office. Some Linux kernel distributors want you to be using their distribution.

And anything that makes it too easy for users to switch between different vendors' systems is seen an attack on this cushy little arrangement.

[fg_swe]

Bingo

The hardware makers add their own little ins4ne keyboard layouts to lock you into their brands.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Problem

IMessage is the exception, but the reason I use Macs is because they talk open standards by default. WebDAV, IMAP, SMTP et al - standard available.

[Sandgrounder]

Re: The Problem

Apple, the company who have to make up names like retina to make their screen resolutions sound different?

The company that had to be forced by the EU to use USB?

The company that put chips in cables to only let theirs work?

The company that locks out other ear buds, watches, speakers and home networks and any other non fruity made stuff?

That company?

Imessage is the rule, the others are the exception.

[OldSod]

Re: The Problem

Apple, the company who **led the industry in the adoption of USB** in 1998 (introduced on the iMac).

Apple, the company who released their own small-form factor reversible device connector (the Lightning physical interface) in 2012 when the USB Type-C physical connector was first being developed, with the Type-C specification not being published until 2014 and not adopted by the IEC in 2016, four years later. The Lightning interface was only on the device end of the cable, the other was the standard USB Type-A.

Apple, the company that relatively quickly adopted the Type-C connector on all of their devices except the mobile devices. Even with the mobile devices, since the Lightning cables were using the standard USB Type-A connector on the other end, all that was needed to connect to a plethora of commodity products (USB hubs, chargers, and various computing devices) was a cable. Yes, Apple "dragged their feet" switching to USB Type-C as the connector on the mobile devices but the switch was all but inevitable, regardless of the EU action.

Apple has a long history of implementing standards, often as an early adopter. Their lead is not always followed - FireWire didn't catch on nearly as well as USB, and USB speed improvements eventually replaced it, for example, but those USB speed improvements took time to emerge. Apple used SCSI for an external peripheral interface on the Macintosh Plus in January, 1986. This was workstation-class peripheral support, but other interface standards eventually came to dominate. Apple used Thunderbolt as a high-bandwidth port-consolidation solution and kept at it as the Thunderbolt physical interface adapted and finally reached Nirvana with (again) the USB Type-C interface.

Apple has its share of incompatibilities, but it isn't all one-sided.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Problem

Webdav, caldav, carddav, smtp, imap, ssh/scp, ftp, ldap - that all works. Heck, it even does NFS mounts. If there's one OS that's easy to set up to communicate with a Linux box it's MacOS as it's all built in - no extra purchases required.

As for lock out, I used Airpods Pro on a Dell machine but I ended as the Jabra Elites I have work better as they can keep two Bluetooth links alive at the same time - and they happily work on MacOS as well. I also have it talk to any streamer facilities, but that's via software.

In short, it works for me and that's really the only parameter that matters :)

[midgepad]

common user settings architecture

might be a name for it.

How about an RFC?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: common user settings architecture

RFC? How quaint. Those go back to the days when stuff was expected to work. Nobody reads those now.

[TheBruce]

Re: common user settings architecture

RFCs are more like the Bible then a standard. Too many competing religious interpretations. Don't get me started on SQL joins.

[jake]

Re: common user settings architecture

No, the RFCs are NOT a form of Bible. Read these two sites for why:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/faq/

https://www.ietf.org/process/rfcs/

[An_Old_Dog]

Evolution

It's the same in tech, where the clamshell laptop and Kubrickian monolithic mobile device are the same across brands and platforms, both when turned off and when up and running

The author wrongly presumes all feature-convergence in tge tech world is due to "evolution to the most-functional form", vs human politicking, design fashionistas with agendas, and companies buying the cheapest, mass-produced components from Asia.

[goblinski]

The names, look and location of UI elements get reshuffled on a regular basis in Windows within the same OS between updates, I'm not even scratching the surface on the names of major product and tools within MS that change names randomly as well.

So - good luck with that.

[David Hicklin]

> The names, look and location of UI elements get reshuffled on a regular basis in Windows within the same OS between updates,

And is it in Settings or Control Panels? Or a bastardisation of both!

[PB90210]

A month or so ago, the BBC Weather app grew a white 'toolbar' across the bottom that added precisely nothing to the app

It has 3 options: 'home' takes you back to the weather (requiring a max of a couple of taps on 'back' previously), 'locations' that could be accessed by flicking up or down for preset locations or a couple of taps to get to 'search', and 'discover' for things like severe weather warnings and tide tables that again were previously just a couple of taps away... and you still have the 'more' icon as an alternative

[Blackjack]

Apple won't do it, despite their business being selling yesterday tech at tomorrow prices, as Samtime from YouTube puts it. Linux won't do it because the whole point of using Linux is choice (and having something useful for servers that crashes less). And Microsoft won't do it because changing thjngs is one of the ways they force people to move to the newest version of Windows.

So it won't happen.

[JimC]

We used to have this to a good extent with CUA

At one stage PC apps standardised on IBM's Common user architecture interface design. Windows 2 and 3 used it for example. But then Microsoft broke the rules with Windows 95 and its fragmented ever since. One is reminded of the Tower of Babel.

[Mage]

Re: Windows 95?

No, it was Office Ribbon and Vista that really lost the plot. Before that it was a gradual drift. Apart from Explorer replacing Program manager (no big loss) and File manager (a mistake, so was still on NT 4.0 in 1996 if you wanted it) the Win95 menus and Office 95 menus were much like WFWG 3.11/Win3.x and Office 4.3, and Word 2000 not so much different menus to Word 2.0

[Mage]

Yes.

Absolutely true.

[ColinPa]

Dyslexia rules not ko

I remember seeing a site talking about which fonts and formatting to use that make it easy for people with Dyslexia to read.

The site didn't use the fonts..but the standard ones which are hard to read!

[Mage]

Re: Dyslexia rules not ko

Except the Open Dyslexic font has no science backing. A graphic designers font project! What works best is whichever clear font the reader is comfortable with (see issues of sans vs serif) and decent size, contrast, decent kerning, not keming, margins, line spacing.

Which is easier? Sans or Serif? If you've mostly read web sites and computer, then Sans (arial, verdana). If you've mostly read paper back novels for grown-ups or teens, then serif (Georgia, Times Roman etc). But not fussy fonts.

[DS999]

This isn't even a good idea

If there was a "standard" for how this worked then we'd be locked into that FOREVER, as any attempt to deviate from it would be shouted down by the same people who cheer on this misbegotten idea here.

Other than "here's how we force Apple to offer the settings options I personally think they should have" I don't know what the motivation to do this could possibly be. Are you going to make some products REMOVE settings to get a common set? Or are you going to collect the superset of all settings and make them the requirement? What happens when new technology comes along, like AR glasses or a smart ring or a brain implant? You gonna force it to handle its settings the same way as a PC and a smartphone? Good luck getting those triangular pegs into a round hole.

[Mage]

Re: This isn't even a good idea

There was a standard. It started as the results of research by Xerox. But now Google, Microsoft & Apple are drivien by "pretty", visual impact, catching attention, "modern". A UI isn't a corporate advert!

So actually it is a good idea. It's nothing to do with what a program/app does or the content, but like the steering wheel, accelerator, brake, clutch, gears and speedometer on a manual ICE vehicle.

[ChuckUK]

Copyright comes so can't do "this" legal issue.