Outlook Navigation Bar Moved: How to move back?

[Zarathustra[H]]

So, started working this morning, and my groggy morning brain couldn't figure out where the hell my button for my calendar had gone.

Looks like Microsoft in their wisdom decided to move it from a nice compact position where it has been for decades and everyone knows where it is, to a large bar on the left that wastes tons of screen real estate.

By my count this gives me 48 fewer pixels of width to work with. If you work with outlook snapped to half of a 1080p screen, that's a 5% loss of screen width - where it is already in limited supply - for no goddamn reason what so ever.

Anyone know if it can be moved back somehow?

Furthermore, I have noticed that all the software companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Mozilla, you name it) do this.

1.) Update their software to use increasingly space inefficient layouts. We are getting close to the point where I feel I have less working room on a 1080p screen than I had on a 800x600 screen back in the day. It is profoundly stupid. Give me back my damn information and menu dense layouts that optimize for screen real estate

2.) Make arbitrary UI changes for no reason. People have gotten used to UI layouts. They are ingrained in muscle memory. They should be permanent and unchangeable unless there is a really good reason for changing them.

Does anyone have any personal experience from working on UI design? Can anyone explain what motivates this stupidity? Are they really just clueless, or is there some sort of hidden agenda or baffling design philosophy that is being taught to UI designers that make them all behave this way?

I'd really like to understand.

 

[pendragon1]

So, started working this morning, and my groggy morning brain couldn't figure out where the hell my button for my calendar had gone.

Looks like Microsoft in their wisdom decided to move it from a nice compact position where it has been for decades and everyone knows where it is, to a large bar on the left that wastes tons of screen real estate.

By my count this gives me 48 fewer pixels of width to work with. If you work with outlook snapped to half of a 1080p screen, that's a 5% loss of screen width - where it is already in limited supply - for no goddamn reason what so ever.

Anyone know if it can be moved back somehow?

View attachment 501220

Furthermore, I have noticed that all the software companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Mozilla, you name it) do this.

1.) Update their software to use increasingly space inefficient layouts. We are getting close to the point where I feel I have less working room on a 1080p screen than I had on a 800x600 screen back in the day. It is profoundly stupid. Give me back my damn information and menu dense layouts that optimize for screen real estate

2.) Make arbitrary UI changes for no reason. People have gotten used to UI layouts. They are ingrained in muscle memory. They should be permanent and unchangeable unless there is a really good reason for changing them.

Does anyone have any personal experience from working on UI design? Can anyone explain what motivates this stupidity? Are they really just clueless, or is there some sort of hidden agenda or baffling design philosophy that is being taught to UI designers that make them all behave this way?

I'd really like to understand.

i have it too, its been like that for a while and there are multiple threads on ms support about it, thats just the way it is now. yes, its stupid.