4 ms·

Many of the apps shown have a humongous banner element that does nothing and take up nearly a third of the screen space. This might be unintentional and not pa

by yakult 9y ago

Many of the apps shown have a humongous banner element that does nothing and take up nearly a third of the screen space. This might be unintentional and not part of the design language, but the fact that it wasn't caught before press release doesn't fill me with confidence. That and the fact that every single MS UI has sucked really bad and in very obvious ways ever since XP.

pawadu 9y ago
Some first party windows app currently do this on the front page (front window?) but once you get to the content (e.g. open an email) they adapt by minimizing the dead space. Works pretty good but must be really hard to code.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  Giant banners draw the eyes to exciting things. It's not really "dead" space: it's alive space that brings the eye to what's happening or what's new/fresh or what's about to go on. You see it plenty on the web. Just like you often see on the web when used this way, the spaces change as you interact with them: they disappear as you navigate deeper into the site, they shrink as you scroll a bit down, etc. (They aren't that complicated to code in either XAML or HTML/CSS, the two markup languages used for this.)
  - yakult 9y ago
    This is a bad idea. Not only is it useless and take up a lot of space, it now moves as I interact with the page, further distracts me from the content that I'm interested in. Especially egregious on mobile if it pops back up again when I scroll up, then sort of bobs up and down if I press and hold at just the right spot. >it's alive space that brings the eye to what's happening or what's new/fresh or what's about to go on. That's the misalignment of interest right there. The devs would love to have their users focus on "what's new", i.e. ads and self promotion. The users give on average zero shits and just want the functionality they came for. I guess we all know which side MS is on.
    - WorldMaker 9y ago
      It's not necessarily a bad idea, but it is something that needs to be used responsibly. Obviously not every app/website needs something like, but they can be interesting when used to good effect. Certainly I know examples I like and examples I hate, and I think everyone has a different preference, but it's not the worst design tool on the block. «The users give on average zero shits and just want the functionality they came for.» Groove also uses it to front-and-center feature artist information and album art of the currently playing song or some album you are looking at it. There are links in those banners to start playing something or otherwise interact with it. As a design tool it's neither good nor bad, user hostile nor user friendly: it's merely an option in the palette of design choices for an app/website and its up to the designer how they want to use.
      - yakult 9y ago
        >Groove also uses it to front-and-center feature artist information and album art of the currently playing song or some album you are looking at it. Front-and-center is not the way I would describe it. They're squashed to the left, leaving huge swaths of empty. Notice how the actual functional buttons in the banner are tiny, have no frame around it and no hint that they're clickable. They're tucked away in a corner and almost an afterthought. Also, definitely not touch-friendly. (I suppose that paradigm is dead now.) Looking closer, I especially like how there is an 'additional functions' button at the end even though there's plenty of space to put more buttons. Most of the space is just wasted on a pointless gaussian blur that would get old real fast. Also note how the actual functionality (in the article picture for groove) is to display icon lists of albums, and there are certainly more than can be fit on the screen. The humongous banner comes at the cost of reduced functionality. >As a design tool it's neither good nor bad, user hostile nor user friendly The way tools are implemented and marketed can either push third-party devs towards user friendliness, or away from it, e.g. by making certain choices easier/harder or by promoting certain reference designs. The message I'm seeing so far is definitely not towards encouraging user-friendly UI.
zardo 9y ago
They need to reserve that space. Without banners, their would be no where to put banner ads.
wbkang 9y ago
Did you even read the article? > One example of this is collapsing, dynamic headers, which are, again, common already on the Web. The Groove Music app already uses such a header; when viewing a particular artist, the header is shown with biographic text and a large picture. Scrolling down through the artist's songs shrinks the header, removing the text and using a small picture.
- yakult 9y ago
  See other discussion in this thread.

by yakult 9y ago

pawadu 9y ago

Some first party windows app currently do this on the front page (front window?) but once you get to the content (e.g. open an email) they adapt by minimizing the dead space. Works pretty good but must be really hard to code.

WorldMaker 9y ago
Giant banners draw the eyes to exciting things. It's not really "dead" space: it's alive space that brings the eye to what's happening or what's new/fresh or what's about to go on. You see it plenty on the web. Just like you often see on the web when used this way, the spaces change as you interact with them: they disappear as you navigate deeper into the site, they shrink as you scroll a bit down, etc. (They aren't that complicated to code in either XAML or HTML/CSS, the two markup languages used for this.)
- yakult 9y ago
  This is a bad idea. Not only is it useless and take up a lot of space, it now moves as I interact with the page, further distracts me from the content that I'm interested in. Especially egregious on mobile if it pops back up again when I scroll up, then sort of bobs up and down if I press and hold at just the right spot. >it's alive space that brings the eye to what's happening or what's new/fresh or what's about to go on. That's the misalignment of interest right there. The devs would love to have their users focus on "what's new", i.e. ads and self promotion. The users give on average zero shits and just want the functionality they came for. I guess we all know which side MS is on.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    It's not necessarily a bad idea, but it is something that needs to be used responsibly. Obviously not every app/website needs something like, but they can be interesting when used to good effect. Certainly I know examples I like and examples I hate, and I think everyone has a different preference, but it's not the worst design tool on the block. «The users give on average zero shits and just want the functionality they came for.» Groove also uses it to front-and-center feature artist information and album art of the currently playing song or some album you are looking at it. There are links in those banners to start playing something or otherwise interact with it. As a design tool it's neither good nor bad, user hostile nor user friendly: it's merely an option in the palette of design choices for an app/website and its up to the designer how they want to use.
    - yakult 9y ago
      >Groove also uses it to front-and-center feature artist information and album art of the currently playing song or some album you are looking at it. Front-and-center is not the way I would describe it. They're squashed to the left, leaving huge swaths of empty. Notice how the actual functional buttons in the banner are tiny, have no frame around it and no hint that they're clickable. They're tucked away in a corner and almost an afterthought. Also, definitely not touch-friendly. (I suppose that paradigm is dead now.) Looking closer, I especially like how there is an 'additional functions' button at the end even though there's plenty of space to put more buttons. Most of the space is just wasted on a pointless gaussian blur that would get old real fast. Also note how the actual functionality (in the article picture for groove) is to display icon lists of albums, and there are certainly more than can be fit on the screen. The humongous banner comes at the cost of reduced functionality. >As a design tool it's neither good nor bad, user hostile nor user friendly The way tools are implemented and marketed can either push third-party devs towards user friendliness, or away from it, e.g. by making certain choices easier/harder or by promoting certain reference designs. The message I'm seeing so far is definitely not towards encouraging user-friendly UI.

zardo 9y ago

They need to reserve that space. Without banners, their would be no where to put banner ads.

wbkang 9y ago

Did you even read the article? > One example of this is collapsing, dynamic headers, which are, again, common already on the Web. The Groove Music app already uses such a header; when viewing a particular artist, the header is shown with biographic text and a large picture. Scrolling down through the artist's songs shrinks the header, removing the text and using a small picture.

yakult 9y ago
See other discussion in this thread.