3 ms·

Not really. What if there's an emergency and someone's trying to dial a number but, due to mitigating circumstances, are having trouble using your crazypants di

Not really. What if there's an emergency and someone's trying to dial a number but, due to mitigating circumstances, are having trouble using your crazypants dial pad? What if, worse, they're only familar with your pad and are confronted with an actual phone that uses a totally different system? What if this isn't a dial pad, but an interface for a car or heavy equipment? What if, in a moment of panic, someone's muscle memory kicks in and they do what they've always done to avoid disaster, only in your system it does the opposite? Switching from rotary dial to a dial pad was a big deal, and whatever system they chose for the dial pad out of all those kooky options would be the standard. If they had them in random order for whatever reason, then leave it alone. I see this all the time when people think they're "helping" by showing a keyboard in alphabetical order. No, not helping. It used to be that every single country would have one or more power plug types. Over the years some have faded out, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes stubbornly, but having fewer standards is almost always better. The long-tail of UX is misunderstood indeed. Just because you can redesign something doesn't mean you should.

ksk 9y ago
>What if there's an emergency and someone's trying to dial a number but, due to mitigating circumstances, are having trouble using your crazypants dial pad? What if they're handicapped, and only have one finger and the new layout allows them to dial faster? The current design would have failed them. Every design works within the constraints that are given. Creating cases where a particular design works/doesn't work isn't hard or interesting, unless you actually do something about it (which is what this article is proposing). >The long-tail of UX is misunderstood indeed. Then I would invite you to study it some more. >Just because you can redesign something doesn't mean you should. No reading of what I said, or the linked article has anything even remotely close to suggesting that. Maybe you could have asked for clarification since your reply seems very confused to me.
- astrodust 9y ago
  > Then I would invite you to study it some more. I am very much a UX enthusiast if not long-time student of that field. I am a constant proponent for usability features. These patently awful dial pads help nobody but the authors of the blog post fishing for clicks. They're junk. They're worse than useless. Apple made a "one handed keyboard" for iOS 11 (http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/21/inside-ios-11-apples-new-one-handed-keyboard-allows-for-easier-typing http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/21/inside-ios-11-appl...) and it shows how it can be done. They scrunched it down a bit to make it more convenient to use. They did not arbitrarily rearrange everything into an unfamiliar layout and force that layout on everyone who wanted to use that feature. Another example is the Matias "half" keyboard (http://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/ http://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/) which comes in two varieties: Minimal and full-sized. Both offer similar features and are intended to be used with one hand. Note they didn't jumble up the keys, either, they made it as conventional and familiar as possible while still achieving usability goals.
  - ksk 9y ago
    Design that can't stand up to honest scrutiny isn't good design IMO. If you feel this isn't honest scrutiny, then that is a separate issue than saying one shouldn't work on established UX paradigms.

ksk 9y ago

>What if there's an emergency and someone's trying to dial a number but, due to mitigating circumstances, are having trouble using your crazypants dial pad? What if they're handicapped, and only have one finger and the new layout allows them to dial faster? The current design would have failed them. Every design works within the constraints that are given. Creating cases where a particular design works/doesn't work isn't hard or interesting, unless you actually do something about it (which is what this article is proposing). >The long-tail of UX is misunderstood indeed. Then I would invite you to study it some more. >Just because you can redesign something doesn't mean you should. No reading of what I said, or the linked article has anything even remotely close to suggesting that. Maybe you could have asked for clarification since your reply seems very confused to me.

astrodust 9y ago
> Then I would invite you to study it some more. I am very much a UX enthusiast if not long-time student of that field. I am a constant proponent for usability features. These patently awful dial pads help nobody but the authors of the blog post fishing for clicks. They're junk. They're worse than useless. Apple made a "one handed keyboard" for iOS 11 (http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/21/inside-ios-11-apples-new-one-handed-keyboard-allows-for-easier-typing http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/21/inside-ios-11-appl...) and it shows how it can be done. They scrunched it down a bit to make it more convenient to use. They did not arbitrarily rearrange everything into an unfamiliar layout and force that layout on everyone who wanted to use that feature. Another example is the Matias "half" keyboard (http://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/ http://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/) which comes in two varieties: Minimal and full-sized. Both offer similar features and are intended to be used with one hand. Note they didn't jumble up the keys, either, they made it as conventional and familiar as possible while still achieving usability goals.
- ksk 9y ago
  Design that can't stand up to honest scrutiny isn't good design IMO. If you feel this isn't honest scrutiny, then that is a separate issue than saying one shouldn't work on established UX paradigms.