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I disagree. Having a consistent UI in all available applications makes it easy for the people to use the applications. One of the main reasons I prefer OSX to W

by yoz-y 10y ago

I disagree. Having a consistent UI in all available applications makes it easy for the people to use the applications. One of the main reasons I prefer OSX to Windows is that most of the applications have a set of well defined, consistent behaviours. (For example, Window decorations) On iOS there is no reason for this to be different.

ericdykstra 10y ago
Consistent UI can make it easy for people to use applications, for certain applications, sometimes. It's not a hard and fast rule. Let's say I'm making a banking app that is generally just used for people to check their balance and other simple tasks. It's too my advantage to follow the standard UI conventions of the OS. If, however, I'm making an app that I expect the majority use case to be power users that use the app many times per day, I'm going to optimize for them. That may mean seemingly unintuitive gestures, shaking the phone to switch between app modes, radial menus, or something else. I'm not saying that conventions don't have a place, they obviously do, but I think app designers should be able to design the experience for users that they see as best, rather than following convention for the sake of convention.
- yoz-y 10y ago
  I definitely agree. In this particular case however I do not think that Google Maps is considered an application for power users. On mobile especially one has to be very wary of advanced features as the discoverability is really bad.
- CannisterFlux 10y ago
  Funny you should mention a banking app. The ING banking app on Android is dreadful! It is mostly because it doesn't adhere to any of the standard Android conventions such as a toolbar, sliding left-hand drawer for jumping to different sections, the "back stack" is well handled, etc. It makes moving around a pain. You can't easily jump between your accounts or cards, pressing back after viewing your balance takes you right back to the start, and so on. Another bit of anecdata is the Android ebay app. It used to be an OK not-really-material app, probably iterated on since the Gingerbread days, then Holoiefied. Then about a year ago they updated it to be (I think) more iPhone-like and the fans really hammered it in the Play store. Lots of "what the hell have you done, 1-star" type reviews. I didn't like it much either. The problem was again that navigation was weird and non-standard. Everything was light-grey on white too, which didn't help. Then they updated it again fairly recently to be what you might call a prototypical Android Material-design app, and it really was a relief to see. Now it works great, there are far fewer weird mystery navigation parts and the reviews are picking up. I get what you mean, that apps can add things outside the norm, but they really need to get the base layout right. If you have a few odd/power features, that's great, but don't make the whole app some weird Homer's Car-style monstrosity.
- kenjackson 10y ago
  I agree with that, but note that especially in the mobile world -- apps that have "power users" are few and far between.
nightski 10y ago
Yet billions of people manage to use the web, which has very little constraints. In fact, the browser is probably the most used app on either platform.
- d4nt 10y ago
  Well, the web does have it's own set of UI conventions: http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/ http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/
- yoz-y 10y ago
  This is true. I do not argue that the apps that look & feel differently are not usable, just that they are less familiar and less quick to grasp, which I translate as 'worse'. It is a matter of opinions. But the web does have conventions that make stuff hard when broken. For example most people expect to see the whole page change when they click a link and doing something else is confusing (such as popping a window or opening a link in new tab by default) There is no shortage of complaints about websites that do "innovative" stuff and liberties with good ol' conventions.
- geon 10y ago
  But the web has it's own set of conventions! Trying to build a native-osx or native-windows UI on the web gives you a horrible user experience.
reitanqild 10y ago
> One of the main reasons I prefer OSX to Windows is that most of the applications have a set of well defined, consistent behaviours. I hear this from time to time. As someone who has spent significant time on a number of platforms Windows and it's ecosystem, from 2000 until 8 at least, has seemed a whole lot more consistent. Super-annoying things on Mac include: * modifier keys vary by application. (On Windows ctrl + left/right arrow is always [0] jump word by word and shift + left/right arrow is always select-as-you-move. From there it follows that ctrl+shift+left/right arrow is select-one-word-at-a-time.) * there is one menu and you can find most options there. Bonus: you can always reach the menu using alt. On Mac there is the global menu, helpfully located on another part of the screen or even on another screen and there is one or more spot-the-extra menu(s) somewhere in the application. The reason why I am pointing this out is to help every developet who doesn't get MBPs thrown after them: Macs are super sleek but I at least feel more productive and less annoyed on Windows or Linux. [0]: with a few super-annoying exceptions.
- ciniglio 10y ago
  1) This is true on the mac too, but it's option instead of ctrl. (option + arrows, option + shift + arrows). It's certainly not common for apps to break this afaik.

by yoz-y 10y ago

ericdykstra 10y ago

Consistent UI can make it easy for people to use applications, for certain applications, sometimes. It's not a hard and fast rule. Let's say I'm making a banking app that is generally just used for people to check their balance and other simple tasks. It's too my advantage to follow the standard UI conventions of the OS. If, however, I'm making an app that I expect the majority use case to be power users that use the app many times per day, I'm going to optimize for them. That may mean seemingly unintuitive gestures, shaking the phone to switch between app modes, radial menus, or something else. I'm not saying that conventions don't have a place, they obviously do, but I think app designers should be able to design the experience for users that they see as best, rather than following convention for the sake of convention.

yoz-y 10y ago
I definitely agree. In this particular case however I do not think that Google Maps is considered an application for power users. On mobile especially one has to be very wary of advanced features as the discoverability is really bad.
CannisterFlux 10y ago
Funny you should mention a banking app. The ING banking app on Android is dreadful! It is mostly because it doesn't adhere to any of the standard Android conventions such as a toolbar, sliding left-hand drawer for jumping to different sections, the "back stack" is well handled, etc. It makes moving around a pain. You can't easily jump between your accounts or cards, pressing back after viewing your balance takes you right back to the start, and so on. Another bit of anecdata is the Android ebay app. It used to be an OK not-really-material app, probably iterated on since the Gingerbread days, then Holoiefied. Then about a year ago they updated it to be (I think) more iPhone-like and the fans really hammered it in the Play store. Lots of "what the hell have you done, 1-star" type reviews. I didn't like it much either. The problem was again that navigation was weird and non-standard. Everything was light-grey on white too, which didn't help. Then they updated it again fairly recently to be what you might call a prototypical Android Material-design app, and it really was a relief to see. Now it works great, there are far fewer weird mystery navigation parts and the reviews are picking up. I get what you mean, that apps can add things outside the norm, but they really need to get the base layout right. If you have a few odd/power features, that's great, but don't make the whole app some weird Homer's Car-style monstrosity.
kenjackson 10y ago
I agree with that, but note that especially in the mobile world -- apps that have "power users" are few and far between.

nightski 10y ago

Yet billions of people manage to use the web, which has very little constraints. In fact, the browser is probably the most used app on either platform.

d4nt 10y ago
Well, the web does have it's own set of UI conventions: http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/ http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/
yoz-y 10y ago
This is true. I do not argue that the apps that look & feel differently are not usable, just that they are less familiar and less quick to grasp, which I translate as 'worse'. It is a matter of opinions. But the web does have conventions that make stuff hard when broken. For example most people expect to see the whole page change when they click a link and doing something else is confusing (such as popping a window or opening a link in new tab by default) There is no shortage of complaints about websites that do "innovative" stuff and liberties with good ol' conventions.
geon 10y ago
But the web has it's own set of conventions! Trying to build a native-osx or native-windows UI on the web gives you a horrible user experience.

reitanqild 10y ago

> One of the main reasons I prefer OSX to Windows is that most of the applications have a set of well defined, consistent behaviours. I hear this from time to time. As someone who has spent significant time on a number of platforms Windows and it's ecosystem, from 2000 until 8 at least, has seemed a whole lot more consistent. Super-annoying things on Mac include: * modifier keys vary by application. (On Windows ctrl + left/right arrow is always [0] jump word by word and shift + left/right arrow is always select-as-you-move. From there it follows that ctrl+shift+left/right arrow is select-one-word-at-a-time.) * there is one menu and you can find most options there. Bonus: you can always reach the menu using alt. On Mac there is the global menu, helpfully located on another part of the screen or even on another screen and there is one or more spot-the-extra menu(s) somewhere in the application. The reason why I am pointing this out is to help every developet who doesn't get MBPs thrown after them: Macs are super sleek but I at least feel more productive and less annoyed on Windows or Linux. [0]: with a few super-annoying exceptions.

ciniglio 10y ago
1) This is true on the mac too, but it's option instead of ctrl. (option + arrows, option + shift + arrows). It's certainly not common for apps to break this afaik.