The Windows 95 UI designers wrote a paper going over their design methodology and how they incorporated feedback from real-world users at a variety of levels of computer proficiency into their design. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/238386.238611
For example, the reason for the single "Start" button in the taskbar was that they initially had multiple buttons for different specific purposes, and relied on a "Programs" folder on the desktop for launching programs, but found that this design didn't hold up in testing:
> Users had considerable difficulty deciding what each of the three buttons on the Tray was for and later had trouble remembering where to go for a particular command because their functions overlapped in certain contexts (e.g., to find something in Help, do you go to Find or to Help?).
> Users of every type were confused by the Programs folder. We thought that having a folder on the desktop with other folders and links to programs inside it would be a natural transition for Windows 3.1 users accustomed to Program Manager, while being relatively easy to learn for beginners. We were wrong! Beginners quickly got lost in all of the folders and other users had a lot of trouble deciding whether they were looking at the actual file system and its files or just links to actual files.
> The results from these studies and interviews greatly changed the design of the Windows 95 UI. In the early Windows 95 prototype, we had purposefully changed some things from Windows 3.1 (e.g., the desktop was now a real container) but not others (e.g., File Manager and Program Manager-like icons on desktop) because we were afraid of going too far with the design. We were aware that creating a product which was radically different from Windows 3.1 could confuse and disappoint millions of existing users, which would clearly be unacceptable.
> However, the data we collected with the Windows 95 prototype and with Windows 3.1 showed us that we couldn't continue down the current path. The results with beginning users on basic tasks were unacceptably poor and many intermediate users thought that Windows 95 was just different, not better.
> Beginners quickly got lost in all of the folders and other users had a lot of trouble deciding whether they were looking at the actual file system and its files or just links to actual files.
TBH, I often have no idea whether anything is really a file/directory or some fake thing in Explorer, and this aspect has gotten worse over the years. Now they make it hard for users to find their home folder and present a bunch of virtual things that are confusing. Home, Gallery, Music, Videos - all virtual apparently. Moving things into OneDrive that used to be in the home folder. The Downloads folder, if clicked from the side panel, doesn't have a path, etc.
> Home, Gallery, Music, Videos - all virtual apparently.
Huh? I agree with you that in general it's a mess. (found it fascinating that the hierarchy that Explorer shows is technically not the file system - It's its own thing which works more like the unified directory tree in Linux, complete with mount points and different "virtual file systems". The real file system is only a part of it)
But the Gallery, Music, Videos etc subfolders are AFAIK ordinary folders that just have custom icons and localized names. For reasons I don't understand, Microsoft would like users to forget the home folder exists and only work with those preassigned directories. But that's just a convention and a bunch of UI nudges. The home folder is still there and can be used without problems.
At least that was the case before the aggressive push for OneDrive started. They might have changed it since then...
I understand their research...and at the same time, looking at the Macintosh interface, Apple came up with something often touted as better and more user friendly while offering a different paradigm.
It feels like the Windows UX designers came up with the local optimum for the UI they were willing to try, but didn't go beyond.
The Macintosh interface was designed around running a single program at a time, multi-tasking was shoehorned in later on. The Windows 3.1 interface is a lot closer to the Macintosh interface than the Windows 95 interface is, so I think a lot of the Windows 3.1 feedback regarding multitasking and UI navigation applies there too. When Apple had the opportunity to redesign the UI for Mac OS X, they added the Dock, which is functionally similar to the Windows taskbar.
> In Windows 3.1, beginning users took over 9 ½ minutes, on average, to locate and open a program that was not immediately visible. Results were not much better for our Windows 95 prototype. These results were clearly unacceptable, given that our market research data (and common sense) told us that starting a program was users' number one task.
> Beginning users and some intermediates had a lot of trouble using the mouse, especially double-clicking. As a result, they often failed to find things in containers when the only way to open them was double-clicking.
> Beginning users and many intermediates relied almost exclusively on visible cues for finding commands. They relied on (and found intuitive) menu bars and tool bars, but did not use pop-up (or "context") menus, even after training.
> All but the most advanced users did not understand how to manage overlapping windows efficiently. Beginners had the most trouble-when they minimized a window, they considered it "gone" if it was obscured by another window. We heard many stories from educators (and witnessed in the lab) how users caused the computer to run out of RAM by starting multiple copies of a program instead of switching back to the first copy. Intermediate users were more proficient but still had trouble, especially with Multiple-Document-Interface (MDI) applications such as Program Manager and Microsoft Word. Market research data confirmed the problem by revealing that 40% of intermediate Windows users didn't run more than one program at a time because they had some kind of trouble with the process.
> Beginning users were bewildered by the hierarchical file system. Intermediate users could get around in the hierarchy, but often just barely, and usually saved all of their documents in the default directory for the program they were using. This problem (especially the novice case) was also observed with Macintosh users.
For example, the reason for the single "Start" button in the taskbar was that they initially had multiple buttons for different specific purposes, and relied on a "Programs" folder on the desktop for launching programs, but found that this design didn't hold up in testing:
> Users had considerable difficulty deciding what each of the three buttons on the Tray was for and later had trouble remembering where to go for a particular command because their functions overlapped in certain contexts (e.g., to find something in Help, do you go to Find or to Help?).
> Users of every type were confused by the Programs folder. We thought that having a folder on the desktop with other folders and links to programs inside it would be a natural transition for Windows 3.1 users accustomed to Program Manager, while being relatively easy to learn for beginners. We were wrong! Beginners quickly got lost in all of the folders and other users had a lot of trouble deciding whether they were looking at the actual file system and its files or just links to actual files.
> The results from these studies and interviews greatly changed the design of the Windows 95 UI. In the early Windows 95 prototype, we had purposefully changed some things from Windows 3.1 (e.g., the desktop was now a real container) but not others (e.g., File Manager and Program Manager-like icons on desktop) because we were afraid of going too far with the design. We were aware that creating a product which was radically different from Windows 3.1 could confuse and disappoint millions of existing users, which would clearly be unacceptable.
> However, the data we collected with the Windows 95 prototype and with Windows 3.1 showed us that we couldn't continue down the current path. The results with beginning users on basic tasks were unacceptably poor and many intermediate users thought that Windows 95 was just different, not better.