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Its a good article. Force touch is a good example of this. Adding a new action without any signifier for its availability or its purpose when we already have a

Its a good article. Force touch is a good example of this. Adding a new action without any signifier for its availability or its purpose when we already have a baffling mix of durations and gestures. Madness. An innovation by a platform would be to invent a new way to aid discovery / learnability of a UI not just add a new input. For example gestures - there should be a system standard way to be told about the available gestures and their effect for each screen - a bit like browsing a menu to learn what a tool can do. Instead its left to each app to try and invent a tutorial mode.

MereInterest 11y ago
I would say that even a tutorial mode doesn't get back all the usability, because you need to explicitly look for the tutorial. In a desktop GUI, you have buttons, and they are obviously buttons. You can figure out what they do by clicking on them. You can usually find the keyboard shortcut by hovering over the button. Even with a tutorial, there is no smooth transition in a touch interface. Nothing to indicate that a double tap or a three-finger swipe will be recognized. Instead of being presented with new features, the user needs to go looking for them.
- duncanawoods 11y ago
  Yeah, I miss hover mode on touch devices. Ironically, I see hover as the computer equivalent of touching a physical object to help work out how something might work without initiating any operation. With current touch devices, we only have "do" we don't have "feel".
  - collyw 11y ago
    If you could detect the difference between your index finger and middle finger, that would be a fairly cool right buttton emulation. Would that even be possible?
  - mintplant 11y ago
    I thought this was what Force Touch was supposed to be for.
threeseed 11y ago
Force Touch is an fascinating example because it's the equivalent of a "right click". The same right click Apple famously used to hate because of the very discoverability issues you have raised. I think if Apple keeps Force Touch to certain specific use cases e.g. pop or contextual menus off app icons then it could be still very useful.
rangibaby 11y ago
Steve Jobs was against hiding features in modes, which is why the iOS lacked any kind of context menu until version 3, and Apple mice lacked right click for a long time. Speaking of Apple's mice, they are some of the worst offenders in "looks good but don't try using it". There's the infamous hockey puck, and currently the Magic Mouse. I use one when I'm desperate, but usually give up when it magically gives me hand cramps due to it's shape. A bar of soap is more ergonomic, and slides around better too. This article isn't served well by it's sensational tone. If children can pick up something up and use it without training, then it's already doing a better job than a mouse, or even a keyboard, which you basically have to be literate to use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice
- izacus 11y ago
  I thought I was the only one that gets wrist pains after using the Magic Mouse. There's something really wrong with how that piece of hardware is designed it seems :/
  - rangibaby 11y ago
    Do you have big hands? I've used Microsoft mice since the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 because it's easy to push around. I know people who hate it because it's too big for them though.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      I'm very comfortable with the Apple mouse. But that's a single data point. The problem seems to be that the industry has decided that everyone has the same standard pair of hands. Which is nonsense, obviously. It's like selling shoes or clothes in a single standard size. So what happens in practice is people keep trying different mouse models until they find one that happens to fit. For me, the Magic Mouse works fine. For someone else, it won't fit at all. This is also a problem with design. In spite of a century of theory and history there's really no such thing as an ideal standard design, because everyone's cognitive needs/skills are different. So what happens in practice is that "design" means "looks polished and expensive, and confers accessible social proof". This attracts a price premium, and that's where the feedback loop is in the market. The feedback loops for usability are more diffuse and not nearly as strong. The problem with Google's Material is that it doesn't understand the social proof element. It's purely utilitarian. (IMO it's not brilliant for usability either. But that's a different issue.) Apple's design language has been much better at creating social proof through aesthetics. As long as it keeps doing that, usability can be good-but-not-great and it will still be a commercial success. Never mind Windows 8/10 - the less said about that, the better.
cloudwalking 11y ago
I don't disagree with you that 3D Touch is rather undiscoverable. However, Apple have provided guidance that 3D Touch should only be used as a "preview" of an action -- never to reveal new behavior unavailable in other places. We all think of it as right click, but Apple's guidance is very much against the notion. It's possible -- unlikely, I think, but possible -- that 3D Touch will alleviate some of the concerns in this article. 3D Touch should ideally provide a preview of an action -- quite useful in a world without undo.
joosters 11y ago
Force Touch is an oddity; at least for now, any FT actions can only be shortcuts that are reachable in other ways too, since most iOS devices lack force touch. IMO it's fine for shortcuts to be non-obvious (think of all the keyboard shortcuts in any decent desktop app) The problems will emerge if/when developers rely upon force touch for primary actions.
bsdpython 11y ago
The article is overly critical and does not acknowledge either the technical debt nor the complexity inherent in doing even simple changes to something as complex as iOS at this point. Still, lots of points are valid, especially about non-obvious gestures. In general I do everything I can to avoid using gestures. A lot of apps with heavy use of gestures use a one-time tutorial that explains gestures to a new user but that just admits that there's a UX failure to me. I like the idea of having a standard way to check all of the available gestures at any given time. Maybe there is even a way to convey that with simple font, style or color usage but getting everyone to get on board to that level of detail seems impossible. Without such a system, every gesture should be ultra obvious. Even something as simple as having a thumbnail partially cut off to signify that there are more thumbnails viewable upon a swipe gets the job done.

MereInterest 11y ago

I would say that even a tutorial mode doesn't get back all the usability, because you need to explicitly look for the tutorial. In a desktop GUI, you have buttons, and they are obviously buttons. You can figure out what they do by clicking on them. You can usually find the keyboard shortcut by hovering over the button. Even with a tutorial, there is no smooth transition in a touch interface. Nothing to indicate that a double tap or a three-finger swipe will be recognized. Instead of being presented with new features, the user needs to go looking for them.

duncanawoods 11y ago
Yeah, I miss hover mode on touch devices. Ironically, I see hover as the computer equivalent of touching a physical object to help work out how something might work without initiating any operation. With current touch devices, we only have "do" we don't have "feel".
- collyw 11y ago
  If you could detect the difference between your index finger and middle finger, that would be a fairly cool right buttton emulation. Would that even be possible?
- mintplant 11y ago
  I thought this was what Force Touch was supposed to be for.

threeseed 11y ago

Force Touch is an fascinating example because it's the equivalent of a "right click". The same right click Apple famously used to hate because of the very discoverability issues you have raised. I think if Apple keeps Force Touch to certain specific use cases e.g. pop or contextual menus off app icons then it could be still very useful.

rangibaby 11y ago

Steve Jobs was against hiding features in modes, which is why the iOS lacked any kind of context menu until version 3, and Apple mice lacked right click for a long time. Speaking of Apple's mice, they are some of the worst offenders in "looks good but don't try using it". There's the infamous hockey puck, and currently the Magic Mouse. I use one when I'm desperate, but usually give up when it magically gives me hand cramps due to it's shape. A bar of soap is more ergonomic, and slides around better too. This article isn't served well by it's sensational tone. If children can pick up something up and use it without training, then it's already doing a better job than a mouse, or even a keyboard, which you basically have to be literate to use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice

izacus 11y ago
I thought I was the only one that gets wrist pains after using the Magic Mouse. There's something really wrong with how that piece of hardware is designed it seems :/
- rangibaby 11y ago
  Do you have big hands? I've used Microsoft mice since the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 because it's easy to push around. I know people who hate it because it's too big for them though.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    I'm very comfortable with the Apple mouse. But that's a single data point. The problem seems to be that the industry has decided that everyone has the same standard pair of hands. Which is nonsense, obviously. It's like selling shoes or clothes in a single standard size. So what happens in practice is people keep trying different mouse models until they find one that happens to fit. For me, the Magic Mouse works fine. For someone else, it won't fit at all. This is also a problem with design. In spite of a century of theory and history there's really no such thing as an ideal standard design, because everyone's cognitive needs/skills are different. So what happens in practice is that "design" means "looks polished and expensive, and confers accessible social proof". This attracts a price premium, and that's where the feedback loop is in the market. The feedback loops for usability are more diffuse and not nearly as strong. The problem with Google's Material is that it doesn't understand the social proof element. It's purely utilitarian. (IMO it's not brilliant for usability either. But that's a different issue.) Apple's design language has been much better at creating social proof through aesthetics. As long as it keeps doing that, usability can be good-but-not-great and it will still be a commercial success. Never mind Windows 8/10 - the less said about that, the better.

cloudwalking 11y ago

I don't disagree with you that 3D Touch is rather undiscoverable. However, Apple have provided guidance that 3D Touch should only be used as a "preview" of an action -- never to reveal new behavior unavailable in other places. We all think of it as right click, but Apple's guidance is very much against the notion. It's possible -- unlikely, I think, but possible -- that 3D Touch will alleviate some of the concerns in this article. 3D Touch should ideally provide a preview of an action -- quite useful in a world without undo.

joosters 11y ago

Force Touch is an oddity; at least for now, any FT actions can only be shortcuts that are reachable in other ways too, since most iOS devices lack force touch. IMO it's fine for shortcuts to be non-obvious (think of all the keyboard shortcuts in any decent desktop app) The problems will emerge if/when developers rely upon force touch for primary actions.

bsdpython 11y ago

The article is overly critical and does not acknowledge either the technical debt nor the complexity inherent in doing even simple changes to something as complex as iOS at this point. Still, lots of points are valid, especially about non-obvious gestures. In general I do everything I can to avoid using gestures. A lot of apps with heavy use of gestures use a one-time tutorial that explains gestures to a new user but that just admits that there's a UX failure to me. I like the idea of having a standard way to check all of the available gestures at any given time. Maybe there is even a way to convey that with simple font, style or color usage but getting everyone to get on board to that level of detail seems impossible. Without such a system, every gesture should be ultra obvious. Even something as simple as having a thumbnail partially cut off to signify that there are more thumbnails viewable upon a swipe gets the job done.