I'm honestly not sure any explanation is needed here. Early UX design wasn't always done with as much thought and sophistication as today's software designers (are claiming to) apply. The first Windows systems had plenty of UI blunders that make the cursor thing look insignificant by comparison, and I can promise you they weren't all about "visual balance" or similar. Lots of them have carried over to later versions.
> there's a (pre-release) 1985 HIG that's quite different. It includes e.g. case studies (useful!), and an extended discussion of Jung's theories of intuition and how they should influence your designs (!!)
The most modern "designers" read is the labels on grocery store items.
Microsoft did a lot of user and interface research. It wasn't as streamlined as Apple's, but it's incorrect to say that they didn't give it much thought.
What's with this myth that Microsoft never cared about UI/UX design? It's simply not true. They're especially not any better at it now than in the 90s and 00s. Modern designers don't put even a fraction of research into UI design than what Microsoft used to do.
Making things intuitive and easily usable was absolutely a priority of Microsoft back then, and they put a lot more thought in that than most modern "UX" design.
Making things pretty wasn't a priority for Microsoft the same way it was for Apple. But I wouldn't call that UX.
I always thought it is obvious - it was done so that it will be well visible on predictable background patterns. Otherwise (if it would be a clean vertical, horizontal, 45 degree design) it would easily "hide" in plain sight, sticking to grids, window borders. Blend in too easily.
UX may not have been as big back then but there’s nooo way no one noticed it being uneven if there was any designer involved. I just always assumed it was an artist’s style choice.
I'd assume it was a deliberate choice because I'd think it'd be easier to implement a graphic with straight lines than with lines just off enough to be noticeable.
I think the apparent contradictions here can be explained quite easily: Apple cared about design, and Microsoft did not.
Looking back from an era in which Apple's sensibility has prevailed, it's quite hard to explain the extent to which Microsoft, at least until the late '90s, really didn't care whether their software looked good. They genuinely didn't see it as important.
Well, Microsoft did hire Susan Kare to design the Windows 3 icons. Kare previously and famously did a lot of early Macintosh GUI design work for Apple. But while Apple saw GUI design as a holistic effort, at Microsoft, the good stuff (e.g. Kare's icons) and the bad stuff (e.g. the sloppily designed mouse cursor) just went hand in hand. Which adds to your point.
