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Am I crazy or does the Xbox one have the worst menu layout ever?

TI82

Banned
I am trying to navigate to watch videos on a USB and it is infuriating. Apparently you need an app to do so, but there is no quick way to jump onto the store to get it. Everything feels like it takes 5 buttons to get anywhere even launching games seems esoteric.


Not to be rude on them, but this feels so backwards from the relatively easy to navigate Xbox 360 blades and dashboard.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Im a UX designer and yes, it's awful UI.

PS4 is not bad.
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
The Xbox menus are universally awful.

Designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson.

When the 360 came out, that interface was the shit.

1888782-xbox_360_blade_interface.jpg


Nowadays? Yeah. It's pretty bad.
 

TI82

Banned
I dont have a problem with it

How do I get on the store to download those app then? I click the home button it brings up a guide, I click the store button and it just brings me back to the main page and nothing changes...?

Like I am so beyond confused how to navigate the Xbox one.
 
Terrible UI and menu layout by far. Menus upon menus, ads in the main home screen and it’s cluttered. PS4 and Switch are miles ahead of it.

Did you know you can hide sections of the home menu (community, mixer, store, etc)? I didn't even know you could do that until recently (click both sticks and press Y, something like that).
 

TI82

Banned
Restarted the Xbox one and this time it recognized my USB and asked if I wanted to download the app.

Why the inconsistency? Like... With all the money they spent on the Xbox one X you think they would hire for an entire UX redesign because this is just awful. PS4 by comparison is a lot more minimal and manageable.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
The Xbox menus are universally awful.

Designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson.
The last 360 menu was fine. I don't think its beautiful, but I think it's relatively simple with the tabs at the top representing pages.

Xbox One uses the same tab system but it somehow feels like a mess. There are all kinds of different layout paradigms for each section of the OS. It's maddening.
 
I think we need to remove "the worst ever" from our thread titles in general on GAF as a whole, it's too hyperbolic and lets the rest of the 10 or nothing internet culture bleed in.

Now is it amazing? No but, compared to what it was 2013-2015 holy shit is it a god send compared to that trash. That actually deserves the "worst ever title".

It's still a little slow and cumbersome and has some ways to go but I'm not gonna hail the PS4 has ultimately better I think the switches simple UI is better than both, and I think the 360 and PS3 in their current forms are much faster and more responsive.
 
No issue, but the PS4, I couldn't even find the fuckin' eject button on the system itself. Turned off the console multiple times when all I wanted was to eject the disc. Pain in the ass.

I feel blades couldn't have lasted, not as systems evolved to be even more multimedia devices than they were before.

Switch is obviously the simplest thing on the market. Though it'd be nice to have a splash of color, I'm not complaining.
 
It's complete shit. Microsoft is a software company and they have the worst UI of any console of the last 3 generations. They started the downward spiral after the blades last gen and keep making it worse


It's still a little slow and cumbersome and has some ways to go but I'm not gonna hail the PS4 has ultimately better I think the switches simple UI is better than both, and I think the 360 and PS3 in their current forms are much faster and more responsive.


The ps3 is borderline unusable especially when it comes to using the store.
 
I like the look of the UI, however navigating it is a chore. Why does it take two button presses for me to get back to the home page? Why is screenshotting and video recording only capable with a press of the guide button and then one of the face buttons instead of just pressing the guide button twice or pressing the guide button and another button? Why can't you just show me most of my games and apps on the home screen instead of me having to pin every fucking thing? I swear I have no idea who is making these choices.
 

TI82

Banned
I think we need to remove "the worst ever" from our thread titles in general on GAF as a whole, it's too hyperbolic and lets the rest of the 10 or nothing internet culture bleed in.

Now is it amazing? No but, compared to what it was 2013-2015 holy shit is it a god send compared to that trash. That actually deserves the "worst ever title".

It's still a little slow and cumbersome and has some ways to go but I'm not gonna hail the PS4 has ultimately better I think the switches simple UI is better than both, and I think the 360 and PS3 in their current forms are much faster and more responsive.

I am not kidding this is in my opinion the worst console UX I've ever used. I didn't use it at launch but for me yes this is the worst ever especially compared to any of the 360 iterations I used. I'm sorry if that is hyperbolic to you but just my opinion.
 
How do I get on the store to download those app then? I click the home button it brings up a guide, I click the store button and it just brings me back to the main page and nothing changes...?

Like I am so beyond confused how to navigate the Xbox one.

You are doing the right thing. The store is probably not coming up because of a bug in the Xbox One (probably some sort of memory leak). The easiest way to fix this is to reboot your console. Here is a link to instructions which tell you how to reboot your console: http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/errors/xbox-one-app-wont-start . The reboot instructions are under the solution 2 heading.
 

bman94

Member
Yeah some parts odd the UI is pretty awful like the store and anything left to the home screen.

However...I like it a ton more than the PS4 UI. It's aggravating to in and out of apps, I hate how you can't pin apps to the main bar thing, I hate the unnecessary clutter, the fifty million menus...

I don't see how both Microsoft and Sony fucked up royally with the UI for this generation. The Wii U UI is slow but at least it's straight foward.
 

TI82

Banned
You are doing the right thing. The store is probably not coming up because of a bug in the Xbox One (probably some sort of memory leak). The easiest way to fix this is to reboot your console. Here is a link to instructions which tell you how to reboot your console: http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/errors/xbox-one-app-wont-start . The reboot instructions are under the solution 2 heading.

Thanks I did restart it and now it worked. This whole thing really confuses me especially as a software developer like how does Microsoft release something like this...?
 
I wasn't fond of it when I got my console but once they updated the games sorting I was fine with it. My only complaint is they do major changes to it way too often, like 3 times a year something big changes. Right now i quite like it, I haven't used the PS4 enough to comment but the Wii U has an awful UI, the worst for me. The separate apps for media is stupid but once it's there it's not difficult to use. Are the people who genuinely don't like use the console often or not? Curious - since had I not used it as my main system I could understand more.
 

raduque

Member
I definitely don't enjoy using my Xbox One as much as I did when it had the simple tab interface. And what's with that weird flyout thing on the left? I don't like that all.

I haven't played a game on it in about a year. It's really just a glorified Plex/Netflix box.
 
I like the look of the UI, however navigating it is a chore. Why does it take two button presses for me to get back to the home page?

When you press the Xbox guide button, literally the first thing in the list is the home page. Is this a serious complaint?

Why is screenshotting and video recording only capable with a press of the guide button and then one of the face buttons instead of just pressing the guide button twice or pressing the guide button and another button?

That is because it was implemented after launch, where back then they pushed it via voice command. They should implement it better, though.

Pressing guide button twice would be a terrible idea, which is why they moved away from that in the first place. And asking for it to be pressing the guide button and another button makes zero sense as a criticism when you're basically asking why do we have to press guide + X or Y. That is pressing guide and another button...

Why can't you just show me most of my games and apps on the home screen instead of me having to pin every fucking thing? I swear I have no idea who is making these choices.

On the home screen, right at the top right on the screen it says "My games & apps." It's one click away. Are you serious with this hyperbole?
 
You're very sane. After using the PS4 UX for a year, the X1 UX felt very messy to me. The PS4 menus aren't perfect (would really like pinable apps, and for inserted games to stay pinned to the beginning of the bar), but it mostly makes sense. The X1 just feels so cobbled together, with very little empty space. The home page just has too much going on.

Personally, I really liked the final iteration of the 360 menu aside from the ads and the inability to pin apps right to the home area. The X1 experience feels like a major downgrade in comparison.
 

jviggy43

Member
Seriously the 360 was soooooo mich better and it's always baffled me how obtuse the Xbox one menu system is. The new update is even worse. Like hitting the home button doesn't take you to home anynore.....why?
 
Seriously the 360 was soooooo mich better and it's always baffled me how obtuse the Xbox one menu system is. The new update is even worse. Like hitting the home button doesn't take you to home anynore.....why?

Because now its faster to get to literally everything else you want to get to?

Achievements, Parties, Friends & Clubs, Messages, Notifications, Mixer, and Settings. Not to mention Home, Games & Apps, Store and all your recently used stuff and pins..

It's like no one remembers how it used to be and has improved.. Or people just like piling on?
 
On the home screen, right at the top right on the screen it says "My games & apps." It's one click away. Are you serious with this hyperbole?
That's probably the best part of it's UI is it's games sorting. If you have a ton of games it's really easy to get to all of them quick. There's no point of pins when you have that right there, I stopped using them once they updated the UI so you had a grid and sorting options + having it at the top of home.
 

JusDoIt

Member
It's the worst, and yet it somehow keeps getting worse. Stop trying to be different and take a hint from smartphones and other consoles and put a row of game and app icons front and center on the homescreen.
 
Seriously the 360 was soooooo mich better and it's always baffled me how obtuse the Xbox one menu system is. The new update is even worse. Like hitting the home button doesn't take you to home anynore.....why?

Because trying to summon the guide in-game would flat out not work sometimes, especially in memory intensive games where double tapping the Nexus (which would previously open the guide) would either open the controller menu or go home instead.

Not to mention that the newer controllers are designed in a way that makes double tapping the Nexus a bit harder.

I agree that the Xbox UI isn't very good, but it's a lot better than it was post March 2014 patch, where the UI and snap were straight up unusable for at least a year and a half.
 

Gator86

Member
Makes no sense. MS is where they are today because of a monopoly on OS in the PC space. It's been over a decade and they still have no clue how to make a functional console one.
 
When you press the Xbox guide button, literally the first thing in the list is the home page. Is this a serious complaint?



That is because it was implemented after launch, where back then they pushed it via voice command. They should implement it better, though.

Pressing guide button twice would be a terrible idea, which is why they moved away from that in the first place. And asking for it to be pressing the guide button and another button makes zero sense as a criticism when you're basically asking why do we have to press guide + X or Y. That is pressing guide and another button...



On the home screen, right at the top right on the screen it says "My games & apps." It's one click away. Are you serious with this hyperbole?

I will admit my complaints are nitpicky, but seriously if Sony can make these complaints moot with a simple button press from game to home, what's stopping Microsoft? Why should everything take two menus when it should only take one? And for the second quote, why would holding down two buttons at the same time be an issue? It's faster than having to go into a menu and then pressing a face button to do it. Literally if I'm going to use those features I want them as fast as possible, because who knows if I'm going to miss what I want to capture.
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
I absolutely hate it. There's too many ads, too many tiles, too many apps, its slow, it's ugly, it's a complete disaster.
 

Jaraghan

Member
It's atrocious. Doesn't help that the UI lags like a mofo. I'm browsing the store and it takes upwards of 5 seconds for the console to register my inputs. It is so god damn infuriating.
 
Thought this was a zombie thread from years ago, the new interface is really fast to do the majority or things can't see what the issue is.
Even had a ps3 and 4 owning friend over to play diablo, when we were done be wanted to have a look at what games i have, I left the room to make drinks and he said how nice and smooth the interface was.
 
Even had a ps3 and 4 owning friend over to play diablo, when we were done be wanted to have a look at what games i have, I left the room to make drinks and he said how nice and smooth the interface was.

Seriously? I have an Xbox One and PS4 and find that notion quite surprising. The Xbox UI is way more cumbersome IMO. PS4 UI is much better.
 
How do I get on the store to download those app then? I click the home button it brings up a guide, I click the store button and it just brings me back to the main page and nothing changes...?
Sounds like something is broken if this is true, and judging by how the restart fixed it I guess so.
I am not kidding this is in my opinion the worst console UX I've ever used. I didn't use it at launch but for me yes this is the worst ever especially compared to any of the 360 iterations I used. I'm sorry if that is hyperbolic to you but just my opinion.

How often do you use your Xbox? My 9 year old nephew has no difficulty navigating it, yet GAF thinks it's impossible to find their way around.
 

Ushay

Member
My only gripe is how slow the store is occasionally, outside of that I feel it is MUCH faster and better looking than last time.

They could definitely improve it's design in the future.
The functionality is excellent, no complaints here. It's packed with good features just wish there was a way to minimise it all.
 

JoeLT

Member
Thought this was a zombie thread from years ago, the new interface is really fast to do the majority or things can't see what the issue is.
Even had a ps3 and 4 owning friend over to play diablo, when we were done be wanted to have a look at what games i have, I left the room to make drinks and he said how nice and smooth the interface was.
Yeah I was used to these threads a year ago when it was a mess. I literally had my Xbox packed up in a closet because of how bad the UI was. These days though the UI is fast, smooth and fantastic.

It's considerably faster to do a number of things than on my PS4, but you would have to be more familiar with the UI than seems like anyone else in this thread.
Even my SO who isn't very tech savvy flies through the UI, there is a lot of stuff on the home screen but that's because of the sheer information and features. If they had it any other way I would be annoyed because the Xbox would become way less usefull.

When I read these comments I genuinely wonder how many of you even use an Xbox very much when you struggle to find the store or your apps. As for the OP seems like some kind of bug if a restart fixed it.
 
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