Usability, familiarity, and personality

It all started with quite a few late nights programming this whole thing, and realizing that "Wow, Windows XP is bright! Too bright..."

But why did I go for a Windows XP theme anyway?

I guess it's because some small part of me wanted my website to be a familiar sight. I'd wager quite a bit of people on Neocities, heck, on the internet, are familiar with XP - and maybe they'd feel at home here.

But after some late nights of staring at white screens, and no small amount of looking at other sites on Neocities, it seems familiarity is not a priority.

After all, quite a few of those Neocities sites are personal sites. They don't care if the site is hard to read or navigate. The users just have to deal with it.

And that's a bold strategy, Cotton.

That sort of attitude is exactly why I liked the websites of old; they've got personality.

That said, perhaps I'm too meek for that.

I still want that bit of familiarity. I also want my website to not completely FLASH BANG any users passing by.

As for personality, maybe my (future) choice is personal enough - enough to let a little bit of what I'm about to shine through transparent Aero glass.

See where I'm going with this?

Enter Windows Vista!!!

I never had the hardware to run it when it came out. And by the time I did, the world had moved on to the much-better-received and objectively-better Windows 7.

But there was just something other-worldly, something pretty, something unique about Vista. The way it mixed familiar elements of XP (taskbar comes to mind) with the modern style of Aero (and I mean modern - MicroSlop and Apple are bringing back bits of it). It was a transition period, frozen in time.

It was my gateway and most fond memory of the whole "Frutiger Aero" thing, before it was called as such (I believe the term was coined in 2017, well after Vista's launch date). Technology and advancement was present. Gone were the cartoony icons of XP, replaced by more realistic-looking versions. But at the same time, it gave way to nature, to whatever was on your desktop; it was an assistant, there to help, then to get out of the way. It was optimistic of the future.

But it was short-lived.

I remember fawning over Vista and installing numerous unknown stuff on my Windows XP machine to make it look like Vista in my last year or so of high school, but in my first year of college, every brand new PC in the computer labs would have Windows 7.

And true enough, Windows 7 was the superior OS. Lighter, faster, and a lot of what I said about Aero in Vista applies to 7. But 7 also introduced the superbar, and while a novel invention and truly useful, it also ties it to the more modern and more "sanitized" versions of the OSes that came after.

So, clearly, choosing a Windows Vista theme would be a personal choice.

It'd be a familiar sight to visitors too, though perhaps just not as well-received. At least the layout and functionality would be similar (and AFAIK, Windows Media Player and Clippy were still a thing), so not much has to change in the code.

And perhaps more importantly, with the right choice of a desktop background, the transparent frosted glass effect could effectively minimize the unusability of the website in pitch black.

I just need the resources. Windows XP had plenty of UI kits and references lying around, I haven't seen the same for Vista.

Does anybody know where I can get them? Leave me a message here.

(On a side note, maybe I should make a guestbook of some sort)

This will be a long undertaking, but I will get there.

"Even If I'm A Little Late."
- Lance