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The article's point still stands though: sticking to a platform's design == jarring user experience. Not to say that I agree that it's necessarily bad: his exa

The article's point still stands though: sticking to a platform's design == jarring user experience. Not to say that I agree that it's necessarily bad: his example of Word on Mac vs. Windows is actually interesting bc, given sufficient differences, users would have a hard time switching between the two if they own both platforms and the applications look completely different. I think it should be possible to retain certain UI paradigms (e.g. back buttons, toolbars) while staying uniform across all platforms in other respects.

Zombieball 10y ago
Is it a jarring experience though? I imagine many Google product users use more than just one app, be it Gmail on iOS and the web browser, or docs, etc. Material design creates a consistent experience across devices and platforms for Google apps. I think the result is not jarring but a feeling of familiarity.
- MBCook 10y ago
  It's jarring, because basically EVERY OTHER iOS APP behaves similarly. If you spend all your time on Android and the Web, an for some reason occasionally use a Google app on an iPhone it may feel familiar to you. But if you have an iPhone chances are you spend a lot of time using other iOS apps (including the system ones) and are used to that design language. It's nice that it's consistent with other Google products, the problem is that's the wrong thing to do on iOS because it feels so out of place. You can still use your colors and many of your other schemes, but basic platform conventions like share buttons and menu locations should be respected.
  - ajoy39 10y ago
    but if you're a google docs user isn't it safe to assume you probably use it on more than one device, and google docs looking and working the same across devices is more important than the individual docs iOS app looking like all your other iOS apps?
    - MBCook 10y ago
      Answered here (since you posted a similar comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11786857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11786857
  - lumberingjack 10y ago
    >but basic platform conventions like share buttons and menu locations should be respected. most iOS users I know don't use share buttons anyway. I always get a stupid screen shoot of a web page with a url
    - MBCook 10y ago
      I use the share screen quite a bit, but I also recognize that it sucks. Hopefully they'll fix it. I imagine part of the problem is they added it 5+ years into the platform when most people already had a way of doing things, even if it was sub-par, and they haven't been able to convince people to use it much.
TheAnimus 10y ago
Which is true enough. Maybe they should look at iTunes on Windows for a good example of why it's horrible to ignore the host UI designs. Or maybe QuickTime.
- dsyko 10y ago
  They could look at iTunes on any operating system for examples of horrible UI design.
emodendroket 10y ago
I've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one and they probably should have hewed more closely to the Windows look and feel. It's like emacs -- how many people choose to use Aquamacs or something instead of just the traditional one?
- adrianN 10y ago
  In my experience, the people buying Office for mac care most about seamless interoperating with all the people who insist on using Office to for all their business needs.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    And you don't think a consistent interface is part of that seamlessness? Anyway, at least in 2011 it failed in that metric too, because documents would look quite different on the Mac version than on the Windows version in many cases. What I really wanted, at the time, was the exact same experience on both platforms, from feature set, to way of use, to the look of documents rendered, and since it didn't really deliver that I was disappointed.
    - dpark 10y ago
      > And you don't think a consistent interface is part of that seamlessness? No, not at all. I don't care that my UI is consistent with yours. I care that you can open the doc I sent you.
- dpark 10y ago
  > I've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one Why would you assume that someone buying Office for Mac is more familiar with Office for Windows than the Mac they own that they want to run Office on? That could be true for some customers. It's certainly not true for all customers. It's probably also not a given that even someone very familiar with Office for Windows would want Office for Mac to act like that, instead of like a Mac app.
danielweber 10y ago
It's also a jarring experience if I switch from using Google Maps on Android to using Google Maps on iOS and it's totally different. Granted this is less common.
danudey 10y ago
The whole 'app consistency' vs. 'platform consistency' ignores that most users (probably very close to 'all users') change back and forth between apps on a given platform far more than they change between platforms for a given app. I use Google Inbox, and I switch between that and iOS Mail, Tweetbot, FB Messenger, etc. extremely often. I can't imagine a circumstance where I would have an Android device and switch back and forth between Google Inbox on iOS and Google Inbox on Android more frequently than switching between apps on iOS. Switching to Google Inbox to read an e-mail and then not being able to swipe back, like you can in basically every other iOS app, is jarring and ridiculous. There's no reason for it, other than arrogance. They could keep 'material design' and still make it feel like an iOS app, but they don't bother. Likewise, they seem to have reimplemented text input and text fields, and done so extremely badly, for no reason that I can tell, causing significant problems with selecting text or using third-party keyboards. If you're switching from Windows to Mac (or Android to iOS) and back frequently, then you're going to be frequently switching UI paradigms, but you'll be dealing with consistency in a given context. You use iOS for a bit and everything behaves one way, then you pick up an Android device and everything works another way. When you pick up an iOS device and all your paradigms change, except for this one app where they change back and nothing you're used to works, that's more jarring than switching to iOS and having Google Inbox behave like an iOS app, the way every other app on that device works. In other words, it's not even about material design; it's about fundamental interaction with the app and breaking all of the user's expectations and habits, for no real gain other than, maybe, developer time.

Zombieball 10y ago

Is it a jarring experience though? I imagine many Google product users use more than just one app, be it Gmail on iOS and the web browser, or docs, etc. Material design creates a consistent experience across devices and platforms for Google apps. I think the result is not jarring but a feeling of familiarity.

MBCook 10y ago
It's jarring, because basically EVERY OTHER iOS APP behaves similarly. If you spend all your time on Android and the Web, an for some reason occasionally use a Google app on an iPhone it may feel familiar to you. But if you have an iPhone chances are you spend a lot of time using other iOS apps (including the system ones) and are used to that design language. It's nice that it's consistent with other Google products, the problem is that's the wrong thing to do on iOS because it feels so out of place. You can still use your colors and many of your other schemes, but basic platform conventions like share buttons and menu locations should be respected.
- ajoy39 10y ago
  but if you're a google docs user isn't it safe to assume you probably use it on more than one device, and google docs looking and working the same across devices is more important than the individual docs iOS app looking like all your other iOS apps?
  - MBCook 10y ago
    Answered here (since you posted a similar comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11786857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11786857
- lumberingjack 10y ago
  >but basic platform conventions like share buttons and menu locations should be respected. most iOS users I know don't use share buttons anyway. I always get a stupid screen shoot of a web page with a url
  - MBCook 10y ago
    I use the share screen quite a bit, but I also recognize that it sucks. Hopefully they'll fix it. I imagine part of the problem is they added it 5+ years into the platform when most people already had a way of doing things, even if it was sub-par, and they haven't been able to convince people to use it much.

TheAnimus 10y ago

Which is true enough. Maybe they should look at iTunes on Windows for a good example of why it's horrible to ignore the host UI designs. Or maybe QuickTime.

dsyko 10y ago
They could look at iTunes on any operating system for examples of horrible UI design.

emodendroket 10y ago

I've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one and they probably should have hewed more closely to the Windows look and feel. It's like emacs -- how many people choose to use Aquamacs or something instead of just the traditional one?

adrianN 10y ago
In my experience, the people buying Office for mac care most about seamless interoperating with all the people who insist on using Office to for all their business needs.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  And you don't think a consistent interface is part of that seamlessness? Anyway, at least in 2011 it failed in that metric too, because documents would look quite different on the Mac version than on the Windows version in many cases. What I really wanted, at the time, was the exact same experience on both platforms, from feature set, to way of use, to the look of documents rendered, and since it didn't really deliver that I was disappointed.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > And you don't think a consistent interface is part of that seamlessness? No, not at all. I don't care that my UI is consistent with yours. I care that you can open the doc I sent you.
dpark 10y ago
> I've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one Why would you assume that someone buying Office for Mac is more familiar with Office for Windows than the Mac they own that they want to run Office on? That could be true for some customers. It's certainly not true for all customers. It's probably also not a given that even someone very familiar with Office for Windows would want Office for Mac to act like that, instead of like a Mac app.

danielweber 10y ago

It's also a jarring experience if I switch from using Google Maps on Android to using Google Maps on iOS and it's totally different. Granted this is less common.

danudey 10y ago

The whole 'app consistency' vs. 'platform consistency' ignores that most users (probably very close to 'all users') change back and forth between apps on a given platform far more than they change between platforms for a given app. I use Google Inbox, and I switch between that and iOS Mail, Tweetbot, FB Messenger, etc. extremely often. I can't imagine a circumstance where I would have an Android device and switch back and forth between Google Inbox on iOS and Google Inbox on Android more frequently than switching between apps on iOS. Switching to Google Inbox to read an e-mail and then not being able to swipe back, like you can in basically every other iOS app, is jarring and ridiculous. There's no reason for it, other than arrogance. They could keep 'material design' and still make it feel like an iOS app, but they don't bother. Likewise, they seem to have reimplemented text input and text fields, and done so extremely badly, for no reason that I can tell, causing significant problems with selecting text or using third-party keyboards. If you're switching from Windows to Mac (or Android to iOS) and back frequently, then you're going to be frequently switching UI paradigms, but you'll be dealing with consistency in a given context. You use iOS for a bit and everything behaves one way, then you pick up an Android device and everything works another way. When you pick up an iOS device and all your paradigms change, except for this one app where they change back and nothing you're used to works, that's more jarring than switching to iOS and having Google Inbox behave like an iOS app, the way every other app on that device works. In other words, it's not even about material design; it's about fundamental interaction with the app and breaking all of the user's expectations and habits, for no real gain other than, maybe, developer time.