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I'm not sure about the 'huge strides'. I feel nowadays with 'flat design' (is that the right term?) I don't know where I can click and what actions will be perf

by ant6n 11y ago

I'm not sure about the 'huge strides'. I feel nowadays with 'flat design' (is that the right term?) I don't know where I can click and what actions will be performed. It's like the UI is a bunch of text labels, but they may actually be links, but they may actually perform an action. Although there's no way to know, since the label doesn't say what action is performed, and since we don't have mice anymore, we don't have hover-hints. Take as an example the calling apps in Android. It'll show contacts, with name, an avatar, maybe a phone number. Which of these are clickable? Which of these will result in the phone making a call, and which will result into going into looking at the contact? How do I send an SMS rather than call? How do I edit it? How do I get a call history? Every time I use it I click on things without being sure what will happen and I am always surprised at what happens.

avn2109 11y ago
Fair points. The lack of affordances is bothersome indeed, but presumably the UX design fashion will swing back in the other direction at some point in the near-ish future.
- yosefk 11y ago
  I think that apart from the specific problem of not knowing what's clickable and what's the consequences of clicking, which we have right now, there's the more general problem that we're having all the time and that is the random changing of shit for reasons which have little to do with improving anything. Such as, you have to keep making new versions of things so that nobody clones your old stuff and takes some of your market share, and you kinda want to do everything in a new way so that cloning all those versions gets harder - and you know that users will be forced to upgrade whether they like it or not, or else they won't be able to interoperate with those who upgraded unwittingly, and/or those for whom you actually made the upgrade worthwhile. Or you have so many people on your team and you need them to do something to justify the size of that team. Or because you took over a project and you need to show how much should be done here and how great it is that you took over. Or because you want to work around someone's UI patents, and maybe file your own while you're at it so that new competitors are forced to invent yet another kind of UI.
efdee 11y ago
> Which of these are clickable? All of them > Which will result in the phone making a call In the calling screen, each one. In the contacts screen, none. > and which will result into going into looking at the contact? In the calling screen, the three dots. In the contacts screen, each one. > How do I send an SMS rather than a call? Click the text balloon icon (in the detail view) > How do I edit it? Click the edit icon (in the detail view) > How do I get a call history? Scroll down a bit (in the detail view). Have you actually used the thing you're complaining about?
- johnmaguire2013 11y ago
  > Have you actually used the thing you're complaining about? But see, that's exactly the problem. In your answer to his comment (to which he asked plenty of questions almost facetiously to prove a point), you showed off all the inconsistencies. The actions taken by the symbols are different depending on the context. Why? I should know what clicking will do BEFORE I do it. I shouldn't have to have used it before.

by ant6n 11y ago

avn2109 11y ago

Fair points. The lack of affordances is bothersome indeed, but presumably the UX design fashion will swing back in the other direction at some point in the near-ish future.

yosefk 11y ago
I think that apart from the specific problem of not knowing what's clickable and what's the consequences of clicking, which we have right now, there's the more general problem that we're having all the time and that is the random changing of shit for reasons which have little to do with improving anything. Such as, you have to keep making new versions of things so that nobody clones your old stuff and takes some of your market share, and you kinda want to do everything in a new way so that cloning all those versions gets harder - and you know that users will be forced to upgrade whether they like it or not, or else they won't be able to interoperate with those who upgraded unwittingly, and/or those for whom you actually made the upgrade worthwhile. Or you have so many people on your team and you need them to do something to justify the size of that team. Or because you took over a project and you need to show how much should be done here and how great it is that you took over. Or because you want to work around someone's UI patents, and maybe file your own while you're at it so that new competitors are forced to invent yet another kind of UI.

efdee 11y ago

> Which of these are clickable? All of them > Which will result in the phone making a call In the calling screen, each one. In the contacts screen, none. > and which will result into going into looking at the contact? In the calling screen, the three dots. In the contacts screen, each one. > How do I send an SMS rather than a call? Click the text balloon icon (in the detail view) > How do I edit it? Click the edit icon (in the detail view) > How do I get a call history? Scroll down a bit (in the detail view). Have you actually used the thing you're complaining about?

johnmaguire2013 11y ago
> Have you actually used the thing you're complaining about? But see, that's exactly the problem. In your answer to his comment (to which he asked plenty of questions almost facetiously to prove a point), you showed off all the inconsistencies. The actions taken by the symbols are different depending on the context. Why? I should know what clicking will do BEFORE I do it. I shouldn't have to have used it before.