4 ms·

Irony considering the author starts with her experience at OneNote. OneNote (desktop) possibly is the worst designed software in Microsoft Office suite. I fin

by achow 11y ago

Irony considering the author starts with her experience at OneNote. OneNote (desktop) possibly is the worst designed software in Microsoft Office suite. I find the following quote from Chris Pratley (creator of OneNote) interesting "You know you have a good design when you show it to people and they say, “oh, yeah, of course,” like the solution was obvious.". No wonder OneNote is so heavily into literal metaphor of a notebook, which frankly does look and feel clumsy inspite they attempting to polish it up a bit off late (it used to look plain ugly till couple of years back). From official Microsoft document: The user interface is specifically designed to look like a 3-ring binder, complete with tab dividers. Users can divide the notebook into multiple topics and subtopics for the various types of information they want to record and save. Workers have all the advantages of an old fashioned notebook binder with the additional advantages of being able to copy information from one section to another... Document link: https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiplu6ijLvKAhVCbY4KHavzB4IQFgggMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.microsoft.com%2Fdownload%2F1%2Fa%2F2%2F1a298a90-6894-46ef-86de-9d74704d1e3b%2FOneNoteBenefitsWhitePaper.doc&usg=AFQjCNEjvKxQ44E3QDrw5mAXMrG7iu7HhA&bvm=bv.112064104,d.c2E https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web...

douche 11y ago
What's wrong with OneNote? I quite like it. The only thing that I'm not psyched about is the fact that I have at least three different Microsoft accounts, and all three have separate notebooks that aren't always easy to sync and switch between. But this is a common problem across everything that uses Microsoft account authentication.
- radiorental 11y ago
  We (a group of designers) have been evaluating one note for remote collaboration. Aside from it's egress architectural shortcomings it is non-intuitive in a number of aspects. 'Good design' is sooo much more than the world view laid out in the article. For an organisation like MS, 50% of the job is defending a proposal against 'design by committee' and navigating group politics. Don't get me wrong, it's a good article but only half the battle, if that! One note has promise but it's clear that a lot of the design intent got ambushed as the product made it's way out the door.
  - sp332 11y ago
    *egregious Anyway "intuitive" is not a top priority if you're designing for power users.
    - jcassell 11y ago
      But don't you think that even power users desire some system of quick learn-ability? Or do they simply enjoy reveling in their hard-to-come-by knowledge that would deter the average user? I'm hearkening back to Final Cut 7 days here.
      - sp332 11y ago
        Sure, it would probably help. But it's not that important - I mean the product isn't going to succeed or fail on the basis of its intuitiveness. For example, look at all the pinches and swipes that Apple products support. Those aren't intuitive. They made sure to run TV ads for months showing the pinch-to-zoom feature so that people would know how to use it.
        bpchaps 11y ago
        If you consider command line as an interface, the number of people who just don't "get it" is huge. POSIX compliance and similar exist for a reason, and yet we have garbage utilities where help, --help, -help, ?, -?, "", info, --info, $1 help, help $1, etc all exist and do effectively the same thing. "Power" users need love, too. Looking at you, systemd folk.
        sp332 11y ago
        Yes, the interface has to actually be good even if it's tough to learn.
    - eckza 11y ago
      It is. But when you're designing for power users, sometimes it's more worthwhile to trade intuitive design for deeper functionality. But intuitive design should always be the top priority, IMO - making something less intuitive in order to achieve power-user goals should be the exception, not the rule. Just my $0.02, and you're free to tell me why I'm wrong. I'm not a designer, I just like using well-designed tools; and more often than not, the best tools behave exactly as you'd expect them to, and communicate intent pretty clearly and intuitively.
k-mcgrady 11y ago
What about that OneNote design is bad? It may look ugly to you but I find it serves its purpose well. It's a metaphor the kind of people who use it will understand.
- achow 11y ago
  Well, not answering directly but following illustrates the point: Apple's iOS7, Well, It Was Time For Skeuomorphism To Die http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/19/apples-ios7-well-it-was-time-for-skeuomorphism-to-die/#2715e4857a0b70d98891444b http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/19/apples-io... One of the bad example of Skeumorphism of Apple http://dun4nx4d6jyre.cloudfront.net/assets/findmyfriends.jpg http://dun4nx4d6jyre.cloudfront.net/assets/findmyfriends.jpg. Note the 'hand stitched' detailing. OneNote could have continued to do things well without using clumsy, awkward, out of place design language.
  - makecheck 11y ago
    There's nothing wrong with a hand-stitching look. Making an app look interesting is not the problem. The issues with skeuomorphism occur when the attempt at making a "real life" object imposes restrictions on functionality that would not have existed otherwise. For example: - Making something look like a "book" causes designers to try too hard to shove things into a two-page view when computers are outstanding at being far more flexible than a book (e.g. multiple resizable columns, scrolling, and so on). - Making something look like a "dial" just makes it unnecessarily hard to interact with when using a mouse or even a touch screen. Interface elements designed for use on computers are superior.
    - Silhouette 11y ago
      Thank you. I wish people wouldn't just equate skeuomorphic design and bad design to be trendy (particularly when they don't know what "skeuomorphic" actually means, as often seems to be the case). As you say, there is nothing wrong with having details or styling in a UI, particularly if they are cosmetically attractive, as long as form still follows function. I think a lot of people on the flat design bandwagon try to create a false dichotomy with skeuomorphism and try to use this as an excuse. All too often, I suspect they really prefer flat design for other reasons, such as not being any good at more sophisticated styling but also not wanting to hire a digital artist onto a project team, or wanting to avoid anything where the implementation requires real graphics instead of whatever severely limited tools are available using nothing but CSS and the icon font from their favourite UI toolkit. I'm not saying no flat design has ever been done well, but all too often I think it's just lazy and/or unskilled design and the anti-skeuomorphism dogma gets wheeled out to try to justify it in some more flattering way.

by achow 11y ago

douche 11y ago

What's wrong with OneNote? I quite like it. The only thing that I'm not psyched about is the fact that I have at least three different Microsoft accounts, and all three have separate notebooks that aren't always easy to sync and switch between. But this is a common problem across everything that uses Microsoft account authentication.

radiorental 11y ago
We (a group of designers) have been evaluating one note for remote collaboration. Aside from it's egress architectural shortcomings it is non-intuitive in a number of aspects. 'Good design' is sooo much more than the world view laid out in the article. For an organisation like MS, 50% of the job is defending a proposal against 'design by committee' and navigating group politics. Don't get me wrong, it's a good article but only half the battle, if that! One note has promise but it's clear that a lot of the design intent got ambushed as the product made it's way out the door.
- sp332 11y ago
  *egregious Anyway "intuitive" is not a top priority if you're designing for power users.
  - jcassell 11y ago
    But don't you think that even power users desire some system of quick learn-ability? Or do they simply enjoy reveling in their hard-to-come-by knowledge that would deter the average user? I'm hearkening back to Final Cut 7 days here.
    - sp332 11y ago
      Sure, it would probably help. But it's not that important - I mean the product isn't going to succeed or fail on the basis of its intuitiveness. For example, look at all the pinches and swipes that Apple products support. Those aren't intuitive. They made sure to run TV ads for months showing the pinch-to-zoom feature so that people would know how to use it.
      - bpchaps 11y ago
        If you consider command line as an interface, the number of people who just don't "get it" is huge. POSIX compliance and similar exist for a reason, and yet we have garbage utilities where help, --help, -help, ?, -?, "", info, --info, $1 help, help $1, etc all exist and do effectively the same thing. "Power" users need love, too. Looking at you, systemd folk.
        sp332 11y ago
        Yes, the interface has to actually be good even if it's tough to learn.
  - eckza 11y ago
    It is. But when you're designing for power users, sometimes it's more worthwhile to trade intuitive design for deeper functionality. But intuitive design should always be the top priority, IMO - making something less intuitive in order to achieve power-user goals should be the exception, not the rule. Just my $0.02, and you're free to tell me why I'm wrong. I'm not a designer, I just like using well-designed tools; and more often than not, the best tools behave exactly as you'd expect them to, and communicate intent pretty clearly and intuitively.

k-mcgrady 11y ago

What about that OneNote design is bad? It may look ugly to you but I find it serves its purpose well. It's a metaphor the kind of people who use it will understand.

achow 11y ago
Well, not answering directly but following illustrates the point: Apple's iOS7, Well, It Was Time For Skeuomorphism To Die http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/19/apples-ios7-well-it-was-time-for-skeuomorphism-to-die/#2715e4857a0b70d98891444b http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/19/apples-io... One of the bad example of Skeumorphism of Apple http://dun4nx4d6jyre.cloudfront.net/assets/findmyfriends.jpg http://dun4nx4d6jyre.cloudfront.net/assets/findmyfriends.jpg. Note the 'hand stitched' detailing. OneNote could have continued to do things well without using clumsy, awkward, out of place design language.
- makecheck 11y ago
  There's nothing wrong with a hand-stitching look. Making an app look interesting is not the problem. The issues with skeuomorphism occur when the attempt at making a "real life" object imposes restrictions on functionality that would not have existed otherwise. For example: - Making something look like a "book" causes designers to try too hard to shove things into a two-page view when computers are outstanding at being far more flexible than a book (e.g. multiple resizable columns, scrolling, and so on). - Making something look like a "dial" just makes it unnecessarily hard to interact with when using a mouse or even a touch screen. Interface elements designed for use on computers are superior.
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    Thank you. I wish people wouldn't just equate skeuomorphic design and bad design to be trendy (particularly when they don't know what "skeuomorphic" actually means, as often seems to be the case). As you say, there is nothing wrong with having details or styling in a UI, particularly if they are cosmetically attractive, as long as form still follows function. I think a lot of people on the flat design bandwagon try to create a false dichotomy with skeuomorphism and try to use this as an excuse. All too often, I suspect they really prefer flat design for other reasons, such as not being any good at more sophisticated styling but also not wanting to hire a digital artist onto a project team, or wanting to avoid anything where the implementation requires real graphics instead of whatever severely limited tools are available using nothing but CSS and the icon font from their favourite UI toolkit. I'm not saying no flat design has ever been done well, but all too often I think it's just lazy and/or unskilled design and the anti-skeuomorphism dogma gets wheeled out to try to justify it in some more flattering way.