6 ms·

This! It's very far from being 1:1 clone of Slack UI, it's closer to a child's drawing of Slack UI. A mockup. See, this is what I meant, some people just don't

This! It's very far from being 1:1 clone of Slack UI, it's closer to a child's drawing of Slack UI. A mockup. See, this is what I meant, some people just don't see it!

ux-app 9y ago
> See, this is what I meant, some people just don't see it! i'd say most people don't see it. maybe it's not very important then?
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  People won't see it when looking at you app with blinders on. However, they will feel the difference when using the competition's app. They won't be able to tell you why they prefer the one with more time invested in the UX/UI, but they will almost always choose that one. There are universal rules in design and everyone is using them. We are actively training the users into feeling those rules as superior. (This is also why huge paradigm changes feel so refreshing. Breaking the rules on purpose is very strong.)
  - ux-app 9y ago
    > They won't be able to tell you why they prefer the one with more time invested in the UX/UI, but they will almost always choose that one. do you really believe that or does your job depending on you and others, believing that? I get UX is important, where UX is defined by such things like "number of clicks to achieve a task", but the OP was talking about margins and padding etc which just are a lot less important than designers like to think. It's probably an uncomfortable truth for people who spend all day tweaking things 1px at a time, but I think it's largely true. A case in point is the new Reddit design being tested (https://media.wired.com/photos/5abed25228f0c90b2647ac08/master/w_1132,c_limit/Reddit_Redesign_Classic.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5abed25228f0c90b2647ac08/mast...) It's prettier, I can see that. If it was a painting I'd rather hang the new one than the old one on my wall, but when it comes to pure functionality (read a list of links) the current (ugly) design is better (imho).
    - TuringTest 9y ago
      >do you really believe that or does your job depending on you and others, believing that? It's not a question of believing; the job exists because there's a real need to optimize the visuals. The brain has its own API (see [1], [2]) and if you don't optimize the "visual code" to it, the interface may work, but in sub-optimal ways and causing a discomfort to the user. It's like having a C program that leaks memory. It may perform the expected task, but you wouldn't say it's "right". Margin and padding, alignment, contrast and relative positions define the structure of the interface - in the same way that you use Layout objects behind the curtain to program where every widget is placed, you should use the visual properties of separation, visual weight and rhythm to tell the user which parts are related and what is the hierarchy of the elements. If you fail to convey the structure to the user, their mental model will be wrong and the interface will be hard to use. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#Pr%C3%A4gnanz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#Pr%C3%A4gna... [2] http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Gestalt_principles http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Gestalt_principles
    - Raphmedia 9y ago
      There are no glaring mistakes when it comes to Reddit's new design. Nobody is saying that the use of white space is wrong or that having margins and padding is wrong. The issue is when it's not respecting anything and is simply thrown together randomly. If OP's app were to copy the same padding and margins as Reddit's new sidebar, I would have nothing to say against it. Yes, your app will do fine with minor design issues. It won't drives all of your users away. However, they might start to notice that your main competitor's app feels better and slowly trickle that way. There is a reason that all top brands have such strong design and user experience/graphic design teams. One or two small issues is fine, but they pile in really quickly. Nobody wants to complete a checkout when the entire page looks like the content of a 1995 website in a iframe. My personal philosophy is "why do anything if you are not going to do it beautifuly?". As a full-stack developer, it's easy for me to see both side of the medal. It would be very straightforward for me to simply throw components on the screen and call it a day. By the time I've programmed and integrated them in, I'm tired and only want to close the task. I have to remind myself of my motto and it always results in a better experience for everyone involved with the end product. Most of those design decisions can be done in a few minutes if you take the time (and if you have received proper training to spot the issues) and those few minutes can results in a big leap in quality.
  - mygo 9y ago
    > We are actively training the users into feeling those rules as superior. I would wager that we are not necessarily training users into feeling those rules as superior, but the absolute opposite — people tend to feel more at ease / comfortable when those rules are in place, and we want people to feel that way when they use our products, and so we use those rules. Ubiquity/familiarity is one reason why someone may feel at ease with a design, but it’s absolutely not the only reason. There are other more fundamental reasons why some designs are pleasant and others are unsettling / frustrating. For example we can’t explain why harmony sounds pleasant and why dissonance is unsettling. We can explain how they are different from each other and describe these differences with rules, but not necessarily why one makes us feel good and why another makes us feel bad. But the musician knows these things— that certain arrangements make people feel a certain way. And using this knowledge, the musician can compose music that falls in line with the effects that he wants it to have on people. Still, you don’t need to be a musician to know when a song sounds horrible. You don’t need to be a chef to know that the food tastes horrible. You don’t need to be a designer to know that it’s unpleasant. We can feel an unsettling interface even if we don’t necessarily know why it’s bad. Good designers are just more in tune to these feelings and also are able to identify and implement the technicalities as to how to make the design feel the way they want it to. We generally don’t want people to feel uncomfortable when using our interfaces (although maybe sometimes we do), so we tend to settle on some rules of thumb that we know make people more comfortable like “visual heierarchy” “vertical rhythm” “line length not more than 60 characters” “not having to make 6 clicks for something you do fairly often” “context (such as breadcrumb navigation)” etc. And, I mean, when you put a lot of these rules together you end up with a lot of interfaces that converge to look and feel the same. Doesn’t necessarily mean we are actively training people to feel that these things are better. At a fundamental level people already do. Good design is more of a discovery of human nature / an applied science.. than a conspiracy to make people like things. We don’t like food that tastes like crap. If everyone’s food tastes like crap, well, we’re going to be eating food that tastes like crap. Because we still need to eat. But the moment someone puts out food that tastes less like crap, people are going to want to eat that person’s food more than others’. And maybe that chef proclaims a rule that “when you include X in your recipe, or when you don’t do Y, your food tastes less like crap and more people want it.” And now more chefs who want to sell food are putting out food that follows that rule. And now more food on the market taste a little less like crap. That’s pretty much how design works as an industry.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    > There are universal rules in design and everyone is using them. We are actively training the users into feeling those rules as superior. If the rules are universal, then why would users have to be trained to consider them superior?
    - Raphmedia 9y ago
      Dissonance and consonance are universal. You still have classical music, rock & roll, metal, techno, pop, etc. Even in the world of classical music, there are different waves and composers stretching the limits of the framework around them. We are training the users into enjoying very rigid and professional looking websites. Anything amateur looks jarring these days. This wasn't true in the 90's - we trained the eyes of the users into disliking amateur looking websites.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - khedoros1 9y ago
        OK. If you say so. It doesn't make much sense to me.
bdcravens 9y ago
You could also argue that with the Slack app's memory usage, it's closer to how a child would build professional app, and is more of a prototype than a shipping product. (No disrespect to Slack developers: I understand the tradeoffs of using Electron). My point is that if design shortcuts were taken, that's because development priorities were elsewhere (ostensibly, focusing on performance)
- seba_dos1 9y ago
  I absolutely agree with you, my observation is strictly limited to the design. I think Slack's devs are way more to blame than Wey's, we're just not talking about memory usage in this thread :)

This! It's very far from being 1:1 clone of Slack UI, it's closer to a child's drawing of Slack UI. A mockup. See, this is what I meant, some people just don't see it!

ux-app 9y ago

> See, this is what I meant, some people just don't see it! i'd say most people don't see it. maybe it's not very important then?

Raphmedia 9y ago
People won't see it when looking at you app with blinders on. However, they will feel the difference when using the competition's app. They won't be able to tell you why they prefer the one with more time invested in the UX/UI, but they will almost always choose that one. There are universal rules in design and everyone is using them. We are actively training the users into feeling those rules as superior. (This is also why huge paradigm changes feel so refreshing. Breaking the rules on purpose is very strong.)
- ux-app 9y ago
  > They won't be able to tell you why they prefer the one with more time invested in the UX/UI, but they will almost always choose that one. do you really believe that or does your job depending on you and others, believing that? I get UX is important, where UX is defined by such things like "number of clicks to achieve a task", but the OP was talking about margins and padding etc which just are a lot less important than designers like to think. It's probably an uncomfortable truth for people who spend all day tweaking things 1px at a time, but I think it's largely true. A case in point is the new Reddit design being tested (https://media.wired.com/photos/5abed25228f0c90b2647ac08/master/w_1132,c_limit/Reddit_Redesign_Classic.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5abed25228f0c90b2647ac08/mast...) It's prettier, I can see that. If it was a painting I'd rather hang the new one than the old one on my wall, but when it comes to pure functionality (read a list of links) the current (ugly) design is better (imho).
  - TuringTest 9y ago
    >do you really believe that or does your job depending on you and others, believing that? It's not a question of believing; the job exists because there's a real need to optimize the visuals. The brain has its own API (see [1], [2]) and if you don't optimize the "visual code" to it, the interface may work, but in sub-optimal ways and causing a discomfort to the user. It's like having a C program that leaks memory. It may perform the expected task, but you wouldn't say it's "right". Margin and padding, alignment, contrast and relative positions define the structure of the interface - in the same way that you use Layout objects behind the curtain to program where every widget is placed, you should use the visual properties of separation, visual weight and rhythm to tell the user which parts are related and what is the hierarchy of the elements. If you fail to convey the structure to the user, their mental model will be wrong and the interface will be hard to use. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#Pr%C3%A4gnanz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#Pr%C3%A4gna... [2] http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Gestalt_principles http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Gestalt_principles
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    There are no glaring mistakes when it comes to Reddit's new design. Nobody is saying that the use of white space is wrong or that having margins and padding is wrong. The issue is when it's not respecting anything and is simply thrown together randomly. If OP's app were to copy the same padding and margins as Reddit's new sidebar, I would have nothing to say against it. Yes, your app will do fine with minor design issues. It won't drives all of your users away. However, they might start to notice that your main competitor's app feels better and slowly trickle that way. There is a reason that all top brands have such strong design and user experience/graphic design teams. One or two small issues is fine, but they pile in really quickly. Nobody wants to complete a checkout when the entire page looks like the content of a 1995 website in a iframe. My personal philosophy is "why do anything if you are not going to do it beautifuly?". As a full-stack developer, it's easy for me to see both side of the medal. It would be very straightforward for me to simply throw components on the screen and call it a day. By the time I've programmed and integrated them in, I'm tired and only want to close the task. I have to remind myself of my motto and it always results in a better experience for everyone involved with the end product. Most of those design decisions can be done in a few minutes if you take the time (and if you have received proper training to spot the issues) and those few minutes can results in a big leap in quality.
- mygo 9y ago
  > We are actively training the users into feeling those rules as superior. I would wager that we are not necessarily training users into feeling those rules as superior, but the absolute opposite — people tend to feel more at ease / comfortable when those rules are in place, and we want people to feel that way when they use our products, and so we use those rules. Ubiquity/familiarity is one reason why someone may feel at ease with a design, but it’s absolutely not the only reason. There are other more fundamental reasons why some designs are pleasant and others are unsettling / frustrating. For example we can’t explain why harmony sounds pleasant and why dissonance is unsettling. We can explain how they are different from each other and describe these differences with rules, but not necessarily why one makes us feel good and why another makes us feel bad. But the musician knows these things— that certain arrangements make people feel a certain way. And using this knowledge, the musician can compose music that falls in line with the effects that he wants it to have on people. Still, you don’t need to be a musician to know when a song sounds horrible. You don’t need to be a chef to know that the food tastes horrible. You don’t need to be a designer to know that it’s unpleasant. We can feel an unsettling interface even if we don’t necessarily know why it’s bad. Good designers are just more in tune to these feelings and also are able to identify and implement the technicalities as to how to make the design feel the way they want it to. We generally don’t want people to feel uncomfortable when using our interfaces (although maybe sometimes we do), so we tend to settle on some rules of thumb that we know make people more comfortable like “visual heierarchy” “vertical rhythm” “line length not more than 60 characters” “not having to make 6 clicks for something you do fairly often” “context (such as breadcrumb navigation)” etc. And, I mean, when you put a lot of these rules together you end up with a lot of interfaces that converge to look and feel the same. Doesn’t necessarily mean we are actively training people to feel that these things are better. At a fundamental level people already do. Good design is more of a discovery of human nature / an applied science.. than a conspiracy to make people like things. We don’t like food that tastes like crap. If everyone’s food tastes like crap, well, we’re going to be eating food that tastes like crap. Because we still need to eat. But the moment someone puts out food that tastes less like crap, people are going to want to eat that person’s food more than others’. And maybe that chef proclaims a rule that “when you include X in your recipe, or when you don’t do Y, your food tastes less like crap and more people want it.” And now more chefs who want to sell food are putting out food that follows that rule. And now more food on the market taste a little less like crap. That’s pretty much how design works as an industry.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > There are universal rules in design and everyone is using them. We are actively training the users into feeling those rules as superior. If the rules are universal, then why would users have to be trained to consider them superior?
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    Dissonance and consonance are universal. You still have classical music, rock & roll, metal, techno, pop, etc. Even in the world of classical music, there are different waves and composers stretching the limits of the framework around them. We are training the users into enjoying very rigid and professional looking websites. Anything amateur looks jarring these days. This wasn't true in the 90's - we trained the eyes of the users into disliking amateur looking websites.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      OK. If you say so. It doesn't make much sense to me.

bdcravens 9y ago

You could also argue that with the Slack app's memory usage, it's closer to how a child would build professional app, and is more of a prototype than a shipping product. (No disrespect to Slack developers: I understand the tradeoffs of using Electron). My point is that if design shortcuts were taken, that's because development priorities were elsewhere (ostensibly, focusing on performance)

seba_dos1 9y ago
I absolutely agree with you, my observation is strictly limited to the design. I think Slack's devs are way more to blame than Wey's, we're just not talking about memory usage in this thread :)