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Our mainstream iOS app has tons of these kind of issues. Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on ar

Our mainstream iOS app has tons of these kind of issues. Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. I did UI design back in the 80's when it was actually a programmer duty more than an art thing. Of course back then were no phone sized screens and the UIs were much simpler in desktop apps. But the concept of making a UI usable for all sorts of people is still the same. Apple traditionally does not use user lab testing (which is not terrible in itself, often I've gotten mostly useless feedback when I watched them) but sometimes you work in an environment that has too many people who know the app too well to notice issues.

Crinus 7y ago
I seriously believe that the last time any real thought went into usability in UI was with Windows 95 - and even that wasn't free from form-over-function issues. In Windows 3.0 it was meant that only elements you could interact with the mouse would have a beveled 3D appearance, so people would know just by looking at a screen what they would be able to interact with. However it wasn't fully followed - checkboxes, radio buttons and input boxes were flat. Instead of addressing that Windows 95 made everything 3D. Still, every time i hear one of those issues with "modern" UIs, it always gives me the impression that these are issues that wouldn't exist with a Win95-styled UI. Sometimes i fantasize about working on something like that for Linux (not out of any special Linux love, just it is the only OS where thanks to X11 you can make fully custom UIs and still be practical), but fix all these inconsistencies.
- cwilby 7y ago
  What are your thoughts on KDE in regards to an accessible Linux distro?
  - Crinus 7y ago
    I haven't really thought much about accessibility TBH, especially around KDE. At least not outside some basic stuff, like color schemes and the like. I haven't used KDE much but from my little use i found it better than GNOME - mainly thanks to Qt - but still leans a bit too much into the flat trend (especially some newer things that use QML instead of Qt Widgets). Still, if i absolutely had to choose between the KDE and GNOME i'd choose KDE. Fortunately there are more choices and if i had to go with a desktop environment that currently exists (as opposed to my fantasy one :-P) i'd go with XFCE. Though in practice i use Window Maker, but that is mainly out of habit as it doesn't exactly match what i'm talking about. But I do use Thunar as a file manager and Mousepad as my notepad-like text editor.
- nine_k 7y ago
  There are a few good GTK themes imitating Windows UI style. You can take one of them and improve.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    Themes are not enough (f.e. there isn't much you can do from a theme when it comes to an application using a header bar instead of a menu bar) and i wasn't talking about imitating Windows' style (as i said it is inconsistent). The way i see it, things that can be interacted with the mouse should have specific styling rules (not necessarily 100% the same), things where you can input text with the keyboard should have their own styling rules that make them distinguishable and things that are static should also have their own rules. Things that group other things (group boxes, tabs, etc) should have their own rules, things that represent multiple options that are visible at the same time should have their own styling rules that clearly show the selected/unselected state. Some of these rules should not interfere with others since some elements may need to mix them (e.g. tabs can be interacted with the mouse, group elements and show multiple options that are visible at the same time). There also other cases that may be helpful, e.g., things that you can navigate to using the Tab key (buttons in a dialog) may be styled differently than things that you can only navigate via clicking (buttons in a toolbar). Similarly with shortcut keys - Windows made the Alt+<key> letter not be underlined unless you press alt, which i always found a bad idea. On the contrary, i'd like to see not just Alt+<key> be visible in a dialog but also other keys that would affect the dialog, like placing a small graphic for Return and Escape in buttons that are equivalent to these keys (nextstep had the return graphic, but AFAIK not the escape thing). Of course i have not a clear idea of exactly what i'd do, these are just rough ideas. It is something i'd explore if i ever worked on such a thing :-). And yeah, some of it might be information overload and/or look ugly but i think it is better than the information underload we get with current looks-over-anything-else approach :-P.
- dls2016 7y ago
  > I seriously believe that the last time any real thought went into usability in UI was with Windows 95 Way to throw Bob under the bus...
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    You know, speaking of Bob, one thing I've been meaning to experiment with is a Minecraft-based desktop UI. I'm completely serious. Minecraft is relatively intuitive, the space is completely malleable, human minds are already tuned to navigating such spaces... There's even some precedent in Bob and PSDoom, among others.
    - mumblemumble 7y ago
      A couple months ago, after 5-6 years of not playing it, I installed Minecraft again fiddled around for a week or so. It took me a good day or two to get a solid grasp on all the UI changes that had happened since I stopped playing. I had to get on Google just to figure out how to eat. I agree that it's relatively intuitive. Emphasis on the "relatively" part - I'm thinking here that it's intuitive compared to the UX changes and kippleization that iOS, Google web apps, things like that have undergone over the same time period. That's not exactly a high bar to clear.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        I'm specifically talking about moving around and building things in the space, not so much the specific "game ui" elements.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Wait, does one even have throw it? I though it was done before release.
- rkagerer 7y ago
  I miss good old fashioned menus. It's one reason I liked the PalmOS UX so much better than iOS and Android. Menus are so wonderfully discoverable. The first thing I did when opening a new app (on PDA or desktop) was drop each one down to find out what tools I have available. Like a pilot looking over his cockpit or a craftsman laying out his toolbox. It seems a lot of the last 10 years of UI "progress" has been about burying things in order to "simplify" (aka dumb down) interfaces for audiences developers think of as kindergartners. Zen of Palm showed us streamlined, clutter-free minimalism is possible to achieve without making your app stupid.
lonelappde 7y ago
When programmers get too distract by having their own fun, we get hard to maintain complex code base. But hand designers do it, it directly harms users.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
We, as an industry, used to do a lot of UX research. Today's designers ignore all of it because they don't like what it says. Spacial file managers? Global menu bars? 3D buttons? Ew. Let's just make shit up.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Today's designers, just like kids these days. In reality, most design work these days is shifting to research and usability testing. Any designer who doesn't consider these things is just not a great designer and has much to learn.
  - suzzer99 7y ago
    From my experience today's designers just chase whatever Apple is doing. The second Apple moves away from something it becomes instantly dated.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      Well I can assure you that despite your experience, that is not generally considered good design methodology in the greater world of design. I don't doubt that it happens though. This link is a great example of bad design, though. They don't even have to design for infinite viewport sides like you would on the web, there's a limited number of screen sizes this UI will appear on. In my work it's common practice to view your design at numerous different sizes and in the past issues like this were something we would specifically look out for when you have content of dynamic height that includes calls to action. The solution is usually to programmatically ensure it is never perfectly cropped or, ideally, include hints there's more content or you can scroll.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Nearest I can figure, all the tuning is based on "engagement", which is a metric of how long a user spends on a thing. That's a useful metric to tune for if you only care about shoving ads at people, but is pretty much exactly the opposite of what you want if you're trying to help people get shit done.
achow 7y ago
>Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. This stereotyping of a profession is becoming a cliché and is being rude towards a profession who has contributed so much to make technology accessible. The example in the blog would not have been intention of the design spec, it looks like more of a failure of test pass when a new device (with different form factor) got slapped with bits designed and tested for another one. This is perhaps a good example of how 'fragmentation devil' is coming back to bite iOS now - which probably is not factored in Apple's product development process.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Designers deserve every bit of this stereotyping. There was a time when designers were taught to value fitness for use. Now "design" seems to be exclusively about aesthetics. This may be rooted in how designers are taught or simply in how they now practice. Or it could be that managers insist on aesthetics-only, in which case designers need to push back hard. Whatever the cause it's a failure on the part of designers and their profession, and they deserve criticism for it.
  - achow 7y ago
    > This may be rooted in how designers are taught or simply in how they now practice No course or degree on interaction design - free online to ivy leagues across the world - teaches 'design for aesthetics' and neither do designers in design departments of startups or of big corporates have design sprints where designs are shortlisted because one is more beautiful than others. Infact 'Design Sprint' [0] 'Design Thinking' [1] are things because design is about problem solving. I understand majority in HN are engineers/developers but that is no reason to make this is a tech echo chamber. [0] https://www.gv.com/sprint/ https://www.gv.com/sprint/ [1] https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/what-is-design-thinking https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/what-is-design-think...
    - dreamcompiler 7y ago
_jal 7y ago
It is a serious decline - Apple was literally the best there was at this in the past. I noticed their design attitudes towards affordances and contextual clues changing around the time Ives made some claim about how phone users have been educated about touch UI sufficiently to start dropping them. That seems to have become an general excuse to lean towards 'pretty' over 'functional'. And worse are third party apps. They always have been more variable, of course, but the old HCI guidelines were actually really good, so much so that people followed them because they were convincing. UI decay isn't the only reason I use my phone and Ipad less, but it is one of them. (Current Screen Time: 24 minutes a day. That's mostly checking email while standing in line and mashing 2FA buttons.) The dynamic lists of recent activities and such mean I have to stare for a while to see what the options are this time, and generally be careful not to make mistakes. I've turned off autocorrect, because it makes enough enough mistakes that it is slower (and really irritating) to use. I like my laptop a lot more these days.
suzzer99 7y ago
Exactly. It's the same concept with buttons that give no visual indication they've been pressed, then 3 seconds later something happens. But depressed button state looks so dated!
- sixothree 7y ago
  I've learned to just wait. That list that appeared to have rendered completely is going to refresh half a second later causing you to click the wrong item. That button did something, you just don't know it yet.

Crinus 7y ago

I seriously believe that the last time any real thought went into usability in UI was with Windows 95 - and even that wasn't free from form-over-function issues. In Windows 3.0 it was meant that only elements you could interact with the mouse would have a beveled 3D appearance, so people would know just by looking at a screen what they would be able to interact with. However it wasn't fully followed - checkboxes, radio buttons and input boxes were flat. Instead of addressing that Windows 95 made everything 3D. Still, every time i hear one of those issues with "modern" UIs, it always gives me the impression that these are issues that wouldn't exist with a Win95-styled UI. Sometimes i fantasize about working on something like that for Linux (not out of any special Linux love, just it is the only OS where thanks to X11 you can make fully custom UIs and still be practical), but fix all these inconsistencies.

cwilby 7y ago
What are your thoughts on KDE in regards to an accessible Linux distro?
- Crinus 7y ago
  I haven't really thought much about accessibility TBH, especially around KDE. At least not outside some basic stuff, like color schemes and the like. I haven't used KDE much but from my little use i found it better than GNOME - mainly thanks to Qt - but still leans a bit too much into the flat trend (especially some newer things that use QML instead of Qt Widgets). Still, if i absolutely had to choose between the KDE and GNOME i'd choose KDE. Fortunately there are more choices and if i had to go with a desktop environment that currently exists (as opposed to my fantasy one :-P) i'd go with XFCE. Though in practice i use Window Maker, but that is mainly out of habit as it doesn't exactly match what i'm talking about. But I do use Thunar as a file manager and Mousepad as my notepad-like text editor.
nine_k 7y ago
There are a few good GTK themes imitating Windows UI style. You can take one of them and improve.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Themes are not enough (f.e. there isn't much you can do from a theme when it comes to an application using a header bar instead of a menu bar) and i wasn't talking about imitating Windows' style (as i said it is inconsistent). The way i see it, things that can be interacted with the mouse should have specific styling rules (not necessarily 100% the same), things where you can input text with the keyboard should have their own styling rules that make them distinguishable and things that are static should also have their own rules. Things that group other things (group boxes, tabs, etc) should have their own rules, things that represent multiple options that are visible at the same time should have their own styling rules that clearly show the selected/unselected state. Some of these rules should not interfere with others since some elements may need to mix them (e.g. tabs can be interacted with the mouse, group elements and show multiple options that are visible at the same time). There also other cases that may be helpful, e.g., things that you can navigate to using the Tab key (buttons in a dialog) may be styled differently than things that you can only navigate via clicking (buttons in a toolbar). Similarly with shortcut keys - Windows made the Alt+<key> letter not be underlined unless you press alt, which i always found a bad idea. On the contrary, i'd like to see not just Alt+<key> be visible in a dialog but also other keys that would affect the dialog, like placing a small graphic for Return and Escape in buttons that are equivalent to these keys (nextstep had the return graphic, but AFAIK not the escape thing). Of course i have not a clear idea of exactly what i'd do, these are just rough ideas. It is something i'd explore if i ever worked on such a thing :-). And yeah, some of it might be information overload and/or look ugly but i think it is better than the information underload we get with current looks-over-anything-else approach :-P.
dls2016 7y ago
> I seriously believe that the last time any real thought went into usability in UI was with Windows 95 Way to throw Bob under the bus...
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  You know, speaking of Bob, one thing I've been meaning to experiment with is a Minecraft-based desktop UI. I'm completely serious. Minecraft is relatively intuitive, the space is completely malleable, human minds are already tuned to navigating such spaces... There's even some precedent in Bob and PSDoom, among others.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    A couple months ago, after 5-6 years of not playing it, I installed Minecraft again fiddled around for a week or so. It took me a good day or two to get a solid grasp on all the UI changes that had happened since I stopped playing. I had to get on Google just to figure out how to eat. I agree that it's relatively intuitive. Emphasis on the "relatively" part - I'm thinking here that it's intuitive compared to the UX changes and kippleization that iOS, Google web apps, things like that have undergone over the same time period. That's not exactly a high bar to clear.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      I'm specifically talking about moving around and building things in the space, not so much the specific "game ui" elements.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Wait, does one even have throw it? I though it was done before release.
rkagerer 7y ago
I miss good old fashioned menus. It's one reason I liked the PalmOS UX so much better than iOS and Android. Menus are so wonderfully discoverable. The first thing I did when opening a new app (on PDA or desktop) was drop each one down to find out what tools I have available. Like a pilot looking over his cockpit or a craftsman laying out his toolbox. It seems a lot of the last 10 years of UI "progress" has been about burying things in order to "simplify" (aka dumb down) interfaces for audiences developers think of as kindergartners. Zen of Palm showed us streamlined, clutter-free minimalism is possible to achieve without making your app stupid.

lonelappde 7y ago

When programmers get too distract by having their own fun, we get hard to maintain complex code base. But hand designers do it, it directly harms users.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

We, as an industry, used to do a lot of UX research. Today's designers ignore all of it because they don't like what it says. Spacial file managers? Global menu bars? 3D buttons? Ew. Let's just make shit up.

nkrisc 7y ago
Today's designers, just like kids these days. In reality, most design work these days is shifting to research and usability testing. Any designer who doesn't consider these things is just not a great designer and has much to learn.
- suzzer99 7y ago
  From my experience today's designers just chase whatever Apple is doing. The second Apple moves away from something it becomes instantly dated.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    Well I can assure you that despite your experience, that is not generally considered good design methodology in the greater world of design. I don't doubt that it happens though. This link is a great example of bad design, though. They don't even have to design for infinite viewport sides like you would on the web, there's a limited number of screen sizes this UI will appear on. In my work it's common practice to view your design at numerous different sizes and in the past issues like this were something we would specifically look out for when you have content of dynamic height that includes calls to action. The solution is usually to programmatically ensure it is never perfectly cropped or, ideally, include hints there's more content or you can scroll.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Nearest I can figure, all the tuning is based on "engagement", which is a metric of how long a user spends on a thing. That's a useful metric to tune for if you only care about shoving ads at people, but is pretty much exactly the opposite of what you want if you're trying to help people get shit done.

achow 7y ago

>Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. This stereotyping of a profession is becoming a cliché and is being rude towards a profession who has contributed so much to make technology accessible. The example in the blog would not have been intention of the design spec, it looks like more of a failure of test pass when a new device (with different form factor) got slapped with bits designed and tested for another one. This is perhaps a good example of how 'fragmentation devil' is coming back to bite iOS now - which probably is not factored in Apple's product development process.

dreamcompiler 7y ago
Designers deserve every bit of this stereotyping. There was a time when designers were taught to value fitness for use. Now "design" seems to be exclusively about aesthetics. This may be rooted in how designers are taught or simply in how they now practice. Or it could be that managers insist on aesthetics-only, in which case designers need to push back hard. Whatever the cause it's a failure on the part of designers and their profession, and they deserve criticism for it.
- achow 7y ago
  > This may be rooted in how designers are taught or simply in how they now practice No course or degree on interaction design - free online to ivy leagues across the world - teaches 'design for aesthetics' and neither do designers in design departments of startups or of big corporates have design sprints where designs are shortlisted because one is more beautiful than others. Infact 'Design Sprint' [0] 'Design Thinking' [1] are things because design is about problem solving. I understand majority in HN are engineers/developers but that is no reason to make this is a tech echo chamber. [0] https://www.gv.com/sprint/ https://www.gv.com/sprint/ [1] https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/what-is-design-thinking https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/what-is-design-think...
  - dreamcompiler 7y ago

_jal 7y ago

It is a serious decline - Apple was literally the best there was at this in the past. I noticed their design attitudes towards affordances and contextual clues changing around the time Ives made some claim about how phone users have been educated about touch UI sufficiently to start dropping them. That seems to have become an general excuse to lean towards 'pretty' over 'functional'. And worse are third party apps. They always have been more variable, of course, but the old HCI guidelines were actually really good, so much so that people followed them because they were convincing. UI decay isn't the only reason I use my phone and Ipad less, but it is one of them. (Current Screen Time: 24 minutes a day. That's mostly checking email while standing in line and mashing 2FA buttons.) The dynamic lists of recent activities and such mean I have to stare for a while to see what the options are this time, and generally be careful not to make mistakes. I've turned off autocorrect, because it makes enough enough mistakes that it is slower (and really irritating) to use. I like my laptop a lot more these days.

suzzer99 7y ago

Exactly. It's the same concept with buttons that give no visual indication they've been pressed, then 3 seconds later something happens. But depressed button state looks so dated!

sixothree 7y ago
I've learned to just wait. That list that appeared to have rendered completely is going to refresh half a second later causing you to click the wrong item. That button did something, you just don't know it yet.