4 ms·

Of course that's a choice for everyone to make, but I feel like in general the benefit of fitting in the platform is overrated. After all the whole webapp-ever

by obl 8y ago

Of course that's a choice for everyone to make, but I feel like in general the benefit of fitting in the platform is overrated. After all the whole webapp-everything somewhat shows that people don't care that much, they are happy to use GMail for example. Another family of examples would be the big software packages like the Adobe or Autodesk stuff, they tend to have a fairly custom look&feel. IMO it's probably sufficient for the thing to look "modern" (ie up to date wrt to UI fashion trends). Then you get the huge upside of easier maintenance and less bugs.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> Of course that's a choice for everyone to make, but I feel like in general the benefit of fitting in the platform is overrated. I disagree; the benefit isn't overrated, it's underrated because it's not realized, thanks to most apps doing their best to _not_ fit in the platform. What full platform fit enables is consistent UX and interoperability. Lack of the latter places an actual cap of what users can do (except for the small percent that can force an app to interoperate, whether it likes it or not). In my not so humble opinion, the current UX trends are based on circular reasoning - users don't demand functionality, interoperability and ergonomic design because those are rarely given to them, so they don't know they could have it. And since they're not demanding, this is used as a justification to not give it. > After all the whole webapp-everything somewhat shows that people don't care that much, they are happy to use GMail for example. It doesn't show that. It's just that people don't have much choice anyway. Crappy and bloated GMail UI vs. Thunderbird that requires a little bit of knowledge to set up. That's the choice. Most software, including webpages, isn't substitute goods. Fastmail isn't a substitute to GMail once you have an account. LibreOffice isn't a substitute for Google Docs, not once someone shares a document with you through Google's cloud. Network effects are powerful, and they reinforce the basic way normal people treat software - as magic, "gift from gods", something that works the way it works because that's how it works. I'm just pointing this out, because I hate the constant use of "the market decided" and "users voted with their wallets/eyeballs" as justification for bad engineering. It's mostly circular reasoning. > Another family of examples would be the big software packages like the Adobe or Autodesk stuff, they tend to have a fairly custom look&feel. Those are somewhat special cases, because they need so much functionality packed in the UI that they replace platform's conventions with ones better suited to the problem. (Sometimes it leads to weird stuff, like Photoshop and its dialog boxes, in which buttons change meaning when you hold down CTRL.)
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  > "...it's underrated because it's not realized, thanks to most apps doing their best to _not_ fit in the platform..." At first I did agree. But then my second thought was: this calls into question some very significant and very experienced brands. To think that many, that big, are doing it wrong naturally doesn't feel right.
  - jpetso 8y ago
    It makes sense though: The bigger the brand, the more they want to control their brand experience instead of being tied to /associated with another brand, i.e. the native platform. Businesses don't innately care about doing what's right, so optimizing for brand differentiation over a unified platform experience is what one would expect to happen in most cases.
- ViViDboarder 8y ago
  It would be great to provide platform specific implementations for projects! However if you’re a one/small developer shop, it’s just impractical to target all available platforms. We’re in a world where there are a large number of platforms asking for support, and I just don’t have time for that. If I’m able to support a single app for all, that’s a major win.
dmitriid 8y ago
What's "modern"? In no particular order (all of the below I've seen broken in numerous ways by non-native GUIs): - Does it receive proper keyboard focus? - Does it respond to keyboard input? - Does it adhere to the OS color theme? - Does it break OS accessibility features (high contrast/voice over/invert colors/grayscale/font sizes/etc. etc.)? - Does it respect scaling and resolutions? - Is font rendering consistent with the rest of the system? - Are keyboard shortcuts consistent with the rest of the system? Including input fields? Including window/app? - Does it break the principle of least astonishment? I.e. does it look and behave as other platform-native apps or not? - Does it handle multi-monitor and multiple resolutions? - Does it integrate with OS menus/trays/notification centers/what not? - Does it use and respect the OS clipboard? - Does it respect left-to-right and right-to-left settings and writing modes? - Does it integrate with OS services such as system-wide autocorrect? Screen keyboard? Symbols palette/picker? - Does it respect OS locale settings for dates, times, week numbers and week days? - Does it follow the OS' HIG and its alternatives? - Does it integrate with the OS energy management systems? - Does it integrate with OS-native file dialogs, storage permissions and requirements? the list just goes on
- FiveSquared 8y ago
  The average app today (see discord) is: Yes Yes Optional, but a nice to have No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No (but it needs to be improved) No ( it needs to improve though Same with above What is HIG? Yes Yes
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    HIG is Human Interface Guidelines [1] Electron apps often enjoy many of the things in the list for free because it's essentially a browser window disguising itself as an app. And browsers get a lot of stuff "for free" from the OS (not without issues, of course). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interface_guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interface_guidelines
  - erk__ 8y ago
    Discord breaks accessibility features though, screen readers work awfully in it. It was one of the big arguments against it when rust made an official server there, they spoke with discord about it and it got marginally better, but is still nowhere good enough.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Non-native GUIs are probably the number one reason we've fallen so far behind in control over our UIs that "dark mode" is legitimately considered a feature. It is absolutely ridiculous that, in 1995, I could completely change the font sizes and color scheme of my UI radically and it would work with the vast majority of applications, but in 2019 I have to wait for a developer to decide to add a theme or provide some kind of customization facility unique to their software.
- koboll 8y ago
  In 1995 there were far fewer platforms than there are now, and most people only had one: their own computer. Nowadays, we expect the same services to work on our laptop, our work computer, our personal iPhone, our work Android, our smart TV... the importance of parity between versions is much higher.
  - FiveSquared 8y ago
    True, and also, the fact that apps have to work everywhere because everyone’s either on Mac, Windows, Linux, or BSD. And also a lot of power users and people who except things to just work compared to the early days of the PC. Remember sound drivers?
- fnord123 8y ago
  >we've fallen so far behind in control over our UIs that "dark mode" is legitimately considered a feature In case people don't believe this, there was an update for Office THIS WEEK for Outlook to support Dark Mode on OSX Mojave.
- zach43 8y ago
  I don’t quite understand your point. macOS just recently enabled dark mode as a “feature” pretty much decades after other OSes have had this built-in To me, dark mode is the prime example of the flimsiness of relying on native GUI solutions...for years Apple ignored users and apps that wanted dark guis, despite the fact that dark mode is legitimately a lot better for a lot of people
ljm 8y ago
I don't know how good an example Adobe is. They don't visually appear to integrate with the system, but you do get some nice OS integration. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Audition/Premiere both use the force-touch trackpad on a Macbook to send haptic feedback when aligning markers, for example. Very subtle but a really nice touch. You don't get that from your typical web app in an Electron shell.

by obl 8y ago

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> Of course that's a choice for everyone to make, but I feel like in general the benefit of fitting in the platform is overrated. I disagree; the benefit isn't overrated, it's underrated because it's not realized, thanks to most apps doing their best to _not_ fit in the platform. What full platform fit enables is consistent UX and interoperability. Lack of the latter places an actual cap of what users can do (except for the small percent that can force an app to interoperate, whether it likes it or not). In my not so humble opinion, the current UX trends are based on circular reasoning - users don't demand functionality, interoperability and ergonomic design because those are rarely given to them, so they don't know they could have it. And since they're not demanding, this is used as a justification to not give it. > After all the whole webapp-everything somewhat shows that people don't care that much, they are happy to use GMail for example. It doesn't show that. It's just that people don't have much choice anyway. Crappy and bloated GMail UI vs. Thunderbird that requires a little bit of knowledge to set up. That's the choice. Most software, including webpages, isn't substitute goods. Fastmail isn't a substitute to GMail once you have an account. LibreOffice isn't a substitute for Google Docs, not once someone shares a document with you through Google's cloud. Network effects are powerful, and they reinforce the basic way normal people treat software - as magic, "gift from gods", something that works the way it works because that's how it works. I'm just pointing this out, because I hate the constant use of "the market decided" and "users voted with their wallets/eyeballs" as justification for bad engineering. It's mostly circular reasoning. > Another family of examples would be the big software packages like the Adobe or Autodesk stuff, they tend to have a fairly custom look&feel. Those are somewhat special cases, because they need so much functionality packed in the UI that they replace platform's conventions with ones better suited to the problem. (Sometimes it leads to weird stuff, like Photoshop and its dialog boxes, in which buttons change meaning when you hold down CTRL.)

chiefalchemist 8y ago
> "...it's underrated because it's not realized, thanks to most apps doing their best to _not_ fit in the platform..." At first I did agree. But then my second thought was: this calls into question some very significant and very experienced brands. To think that many, that big, are doing it wrong naturally doesn't feel right.
- jpetso 8y ago
  It makes sense though: The bigger the brand, the more they want to control their brand experience instead of being tied to /associated with another brand, i.e. the native platform. Businesses don't innately care about doing what's right, so optimizing for brand differentiation over a unified platform experience is what one would expect to happen in most cases.
ViViDboarder 8y ago
It would be great to provide platform specific implementations for projects! However if you’re a one/small developer shop, it’s just impractical to target all available platforms. We’re in a world where there are a large number of platforms asking for support, and I just don’t have time for that. If I’m able to support a single app for all, that’s a major win.

dmitriid 8y ago

What's "modern"? In no particular order (all of the below I've seen broken in numerous ways by non-native GUIs): - Does it receive proper keyboard focus? - Does it respond to keyboard input? - Does it adhere to the OS color theme? - Does it break OS accessibility features (high contrast/voice over/invert colors/grayscale/font sizes/etc. etc.)? - Does it respect scaling and resolutions? - Is font rendering consistent with the rest of the system? - Are keyboard shortcuts consistent with the rest of the system? Including input fields? Including window/app? - Does it break the principle of least astonishment? I.e. does it look and behave as other platform-native apps or not? - Does it handle multi-monitor and multiple resolutions? - Does it integrate with OS menus/trays/notification centers/what not? - Does it use and respect the OS clipboard? - Does it respect left-to-right and right-to-left settings and writing modes? - Does it integrate with OS services such as system-wide autocorrect? Screen keyboard? Symbols palette/picker? - Does it respect OS locale settings for dates, times, week numbers and week days? - Does it follow the OS' HIG and its alternatives? - Does it integrate with the OS energy management systems? - Does it integrate with OS-native file dialogs, storage permissions and requirements? the list just goes on

FiveSquared 8y ago
The average app today (see discord) is: Yes Yes Optional, but a nice to have No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No (but it needs to be improved) No ( it needs to improve though Same with above What is HIG? Yes Yes
- dmitriid 8y ago
  HIG is Human Interface Guidelines [1] Electron apps often enjoy many of the things in the list for free because it's essentially a browser window disguising itself as an app. And browsers get a lot of stuff "for free" from the OS (not without issues, of course). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interface_guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interface_guidelines
- erk__ 8y ago
  Discord breaks accessibility features though, screen readers work awfully in it. It was one of the big arguments against it when rust made an official server there, they spoke with discord about it and it got marginally better, but is still nowhere good enough.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

Non-native GUIs are probably the number one reason we've fallen so far behind in control over our UIs that "dark mode" is legitimately considered a feature. It is absolutely ridiculous that, in 1995, I could completely change the font sizes and color scheme of my UI radically and it would work with the vast majority of applications, but in 2019 I have to wait for a developer to decide to add a theme or provide some kind of customization facility unique to their software.

koboll 8y ago
In 1995 there were far fewer platforms than there are now, and most people only had one: their own computer. Nowadays, we expect the same services to work on our laptop, our work computer, our personal iPhone, our work Android, our smart TV... the importance of parity between versions is much higher.
- FiveSquared 8y ago
  True, and also, the fact that apps have to work everywhere because everyone’s either on Mac, Windows, Linux, or BSD. And also a lot of power users and people who except things to just work compared to the early days of the PC. Remember sound drivers?
fnord123 8y ago
>we've fallen so far behind in control over our UIs that "dark mode" is legitimately considered a feature In case people don't believe this, there was an update for Office THIS WEEK for Outlook to support Dark Mode on OSX Mojave.
zach43 8y ago
I don’t quite understand your point. macOS just recently enabled dark mode as a “feature” pretty much decades after other OSes have had this built-in To me, dark mode is the prime example of the flimsiness of relying on native GUI solutions...for years Apple ignored users and apps that wanted dark guis, despite the fact that dark mode is legitimately a lot better for a lot of people

ljm 8y ago

I don't know how good an example Adobe is. They don't visually appear to integrate with the system, but you do get some nice OS integration. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Audition/Premiere both use the force-touch trackpad on a Macbook to send haptic feedback when aligning markers, for example. Very subtle but a really nice touch. You don't get that from your typical web app in an Electron shell.