How the Windows Phone Settings Menu was designed.

Windows Phone’s settings. They’re possibly one of the most ill conceived settings menus I’ve ever come across and it’s gotten a lot worse since WP8.0 when it was given more features. Back in early WP7 days, it sort of made sense for more common things to be there at the start. It wasn’t so much scrolling. It wasn’t the best but it isn’t the inane mess it currently is.

Here’s a gif I made from a youtube clip that summarises to me what the WP team must have been influenced by to make the WP settings menu. Get a bunch of things, (e.g. bones) and chuck them a table. What ever order goes!

There are reports that this will finally be solved by giving the option to have alphabetically arranged settings menu. Hurrah maybe.

What I never understood is why an OS that favoured pinning important things to the start screen, why I couldn’t pin aspects of the settings menu? (You can now with certain quick launch apps but not directly from the OS).

Source Vid

Update: This isn’t a post about the whole of WP UI btw. Whilst I do have some gripes in other aspects, I’m just talking about the settings here. It annoyed me enough because it strays away from the simple nature I was used to with WP. Much in the same way like the old default camera UI went away from the simple accessibility but instead hid things in menus. Now it’s much better.

My issue is not about the contents of the settings but their organisation.

Category: Nokia