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iPhone X: final level of UX Inferno

5 points by pcurve 9y ago

api 9y ago
Desktop UIs were once amazingly consistent and intuitive too. Anyone over 30 probably remembers the standard menu, context sensitive help, standard keyboard shortcuts, etc. This was before abominations like Office "ribbons," skins, themes, and Electron. UIs seem to be like Egyptian monuments. The greatest pyramids were built first. By the new kingdom they just bored holes in the ground. We knew how to design damn near perfect desktop UIs by 1998 and damn near perfect mobile UIs by around 2010. What happened? I think it's because tech is as much fashion as function and fashion must constantly change. It doesn't matter if a UI is excellent if it looks 5 years ago. Each new platform begins with a well thought out UI but then it must change, and change, and change. Good design principles must be thrown out if they might make your product look old.
- pcurve 9y ago
  I would agree. Been using PC and Mac since 1980s, and I liked Mac OS 7-8 and Windows 2000 the best. Windows XP was great too actually, mainly because it had system restore, but it was already treading towards too much fluff. I think Microsoft Metro on Windows mobile was probably the beginning of UI inferno, because it triggered race among major players to develop their own design language to stand apart; except it was a race to the bottom with Apple's flat UI adding to the already rubbish pile of Metro.
  - api 9y ago
    Totally agree about XP being the high water mark for desktop, though older MacOSX was good too. The other side of the equation was dev tooling. Visual Studio in the late 90s to early 2000s was a far superior GUI design system before they ripped that all out for the current XML abomination. I think the real trigger for the fall was the rise of mobile. Mobile seriously cannibalized PCs especially on the low end, so PCs entered this misguided race to try to be more superficially like mobile. Metro resulted from this, as did flat and all the rest of that trash. The new stuff does look a bit better but usability is worse.
two2two 9y ago
>At the time, I was wary–if Apple keeps adding gestures to this simple language, I wrote, “it will kill what made these devices successful in the first place.” I remember having this thought at the time as well. Then, the gestures became useful after I learned to use them. While most of these gestures (mostly on iPad) weren’t needed by the average user to do the important things, they’re nice to have if you’re a power user. That’s where I thought this UI divide was heading. Power users (gestures) and regular users (no gestures), still able to accomplish the same things but in different ways. Now, it’s gone too far. Now the ecosystem is fragmented and gestures are necessary to use the device. I decided to pass on the X because I didn’t want new gestures and muscle memory to interfere with the way I use my iPad and iPhone currently. Of course the fragmentation issue will be resolved when this language is applied across the lineup, but for now it’s not. Still, I doubt I will see an infant pick up an X and know how to use it without instruction like I’ve seen an infant use an iPad.

5 points by pcurve 9y ago

api 9y ago

Desktop UIs were once amazingly consistent and intuitive too. Anyone over 30 probably remembers the standard menu, context sensitive help, standard keyboard shortcuts, etc. This was before abominations like Office "ribbons," skins, themes, and Electron. UIs seem to be like Egyptian monuments. The greatest pyramids were built first. By the new kingdom they just bored holes in the ground. We knew how to design damn near perfect desktop UIs by 1998 and damn near perfect mobile UIs by around 2010. What happened? I think it's because tech is as much fashion as function and fashion must constantly change. It doesn't matter if a UI is excellent if it looks 5 years ago. Each new platform begins with a well thought out UI but then it must change, and change, and change. Good design principles must be thrown out if they might make your product look old.

pcurve 9y ago
I would agree. Been using PC and Mac since 1980s, and I liked Mac OS 7-8 and Windows 2000 the best. Windows XP was great too actually, mainly because it had system restore, but it was already treading towards too much fluff. I think Microsoft Metro on Windows mobile was probably the beginning of UI inferno, because it triggered race among major players to develop their own design language to stand apart; except it was a race to the bottom with Apple's flat UI adding to the already rubbish pile of Metro.
- api 9y ago
  Totally agree about XP being the high water mark for desktop, though older MacOSX was good too. The other side of the equation was dev tooling. Visual Studio in the late 90s to early 2000s was a far superior GUI design system before they ripped that all out for the current XML abomination. I think the real trigger for the fall was the rise of mobile. Mobile seriously cannibalized PCs especially on the low end, so PCs entered this misguided race to try to be more superficially like mobile. Metro resulted from this, as did flat and all the rest of that trash. The new stuff does look a bit better but usability is worse.

two2two 9y ago

>At the time, I was wary–if Apple keeps adding gestures to this simple language, I wrote, “it will kill what made these devices successful in the first place.” I remember having this thought at the time as well. Then, the gestures became useful after I learned to use them. While most of these gestures (mostly on iPad) weren’t needed by the average user to do the important things, they’re nice to have if you’re a power user. That’s where I thought this UI divide was heading. Power users (gestures) and regular users (no gestures), still able to accomplish the same things but in different ways. Now, it’s gone too far. Now the ecosystem is fragmented and gestures are necessary to use the device. I decided to pass on the X because I didn’t want new gestures and muscle memory to interfere with the way I use my iPad and iPhone currently. Of course the fragmentation issue will be resolved when this language is applied across the lineup, but for now it’s not. Still, I doubt I will see an infant pick up an X and know how to use it without instruction like I’ve seen an infant use an iPad.