8 ms·

Apple design often prioritizes "slick, stylish and minimal" over straightforward, obvious and pragmatic utility. It's definitely gotten worse as demonstrated w

by soup10 7y ago

Apple design often prioritizes "slick, stylish and minimal" over straightforward, obvious and pragmatic utility. It's definitely gotten worse as demonstrated with the iPhone X, but they've always had things like hidden gestures and timed presses for basic functionality. Android designers aren't doing much better though.

rescbr 7y ago
I remember "right clicking" with a long press back on Windows CE and Windows XP Tablets. If you had experienced this era of mobile devices, it is natural. How to delete an app? Right click on the icon, delete. Kind of the same action on iOS as on Windows 95.
- oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
  I just tried this on iPadOS. It’s not quite as simple as you suggest; the steps are: 1. Hold down (long press? 3D Touch? I’ve never quite understood the difference) on the icon until a context menu appears. This is analogous to right-click. 2. Select “Rearrange Apps” from the menu - you need to know/guess that deleting is a sub-action of rearranging. 3. Click the familiar close icon that now appears. Step 2. is the new one, and it introduces quite a lot of friction. On the other side of the analogy, I think there was an easier (more discoverable) alternative to the right-click in win95 - certainly OSX - which was to drag the application to the recycle bin / trashcan.
K0SM0S 7y ago
Agreed, on both accounts. I'd like to interject that 15-10 years ago, Apple was stellar at this, I only noticed their general UX/UI out-of-this-world-excellence slipping down (slightly, still among the best-in-class, just not the unrivaled best) as of 2014 or so for the very first "little things", and by 2016-17 it had become a true UX issue for me. I frequently support my mother for all digital things, and everytime I need to fix something on her iPad (or formerly her iMac, since then I put her on Windows), I too often spend several frustrating hours with a 50/50 chance of success. Android for my SO is the same, my god, it's a misery of UX, the absence of thought into human cognitive flow reminds me of old Windows sometimes. To be fair I think we're seeing one downside of an agile ecosystem where things are much less holistic, much more disjointed than with previous waterfall, major version box paradigm. It'll take time before we collectively learn how to address these issues under the (relatively) new DevOps model. Things are moving fast, faster than ever; UX requires time. There's a fundamental tension here, it's not an easy problem.
- johnzim 7y ago
  Jonny Ive took control of software design about 7-8 years ago which I think caused a fall in usability even as things got prettier. Sometimes look back at MacOS 9, even with its numerous issues and marvel at how good a lot of the UI/UX was.
  - K0SM0S 7y ago
    > Jonny Ive Ah, this would explain that. I seem to remember that he did not want to deal with software design, but pretty much had to to fill the gap after Jobs passed away. something along those lines. I'll cut him some slack for the monumental achievements in his career, but Apple as a company should re-think their UX strategy for the 2020's imho. And thank you for a nice trip via MacOS 9 memory lane!
    - tres 7y ago
      I think what really changed was the departure of Scott Forstall after the death of Jobs & the decision to put Tim Cook in charge. Remove that someone who didn't just look at software as an accoutrement to hardware -- but as a necessary, functional part of that hardware (skeuomorphism was the natural outcome of this worldview), then replace them with someone who reveres form over function and we end up where we are. Still missing Scott Forstall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Forstall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Forstall
      - K0SM0S 7y ago
        I too revere this man as far as design goes. It is my understanding that he's not the best at managing whole products the likes of what Apple sells; my intuition is that he should have joined Google —a true engineering temple of software-first, imho. But apparently he's taking a (probably much-deserved) time off from tech, so more power to him.
  - ninkendo 7y ago
    Jony was only doing iOS design for a year or so, around the release of iOS 7.
gowld 7y ago
As Apple's first human-interface designer puts it, Apple optmizes for looks good in a demo. Apple targets computer shoppers, not computer users. https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/ https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  That's tough. I think it's becoming more and more true these days; but I very much disagree if we look at a long story of best-in-class UX that truly set the tone for the entire industry and beyond. Apple used to be much, much more than marketing; in fact the very smugness of their image and marketing comes from their unprecedented domination over computer-user satisfaction, superior design language that contributed as much to art as it did to tech, and so on and so forth. Even typography, one of Job's first huge intuitions and success, is a true user's benefit well beyond the looks. I'm particularly harsh with Apple these days when I criticize their choices (UX, UI, manufacturing quality, product design, pricing, whatever), but that's because I hold one of the world's biggest company to much higher standards than what they're currently outputting; and I did not set those standards — they did for themselves over their own history. That has been their true gift to the world.

by soup10 7y ago

rescbr 7y ago

I remember "right clicking" with a long press back on Windows CE and Windows XP Tablets. If you had experienced this era of mobile devices, it is natural. How to delete an app? Right click on the icon, delete. Kind of the same action on iOS as on Windows 95.

oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
I just tried this on iPadOS. It’s not quite as simple as you suggest; the steps are: 1. Hold down (long press? 3D Touch? I’ve never quite understood the difference) on the icon until a context menu appears. This is analogous to right-click. 2. Select “Rearrange Apps” from the menu - you need to know/guess that deleting is a sub-action of rearranging. 3. Click the familiar close icon that now appears. Step 2. is the new one, and it introduces quite a lot of friction. On the other side of the analogy, I think there was an easier (more discoverable) alternative to the right-click in win95 - certainly OSX - which was to drag the application to the recycle bin / trashcan.

K0SM0S 7y ago

Agreed, on both accounts. I'd like to interject that 15-10 years ago, Apple was stellar at this, I only noticed their general UX/UI out-of-this-world-excellence slipping down (slightly, still among the best-in-class, just not the unrivaled best) as of 2014 or so for the very first "little things", and by 2016-17 it had become a true UX issue for me. I frequently support my mother for all digital things, and everytime I need to fix something on her iPad (or formerly her iMac, since then I put her on Windows), I too often spend several frustrating hours with a 50/50 chance of success. Android for my SO is the same, my god, it's a misery of UX, the absence of thought into human cognitive flow reminds me of old Windows sometimes. To be fair I think we're seeing one downside of an agile ecosystem where things are much less holistic, much more disjointed than with previous waterfall, major version box paradigm. It'll take time before we collectively learn how to address these issues under the (relatively) new DevOps model. Things are moving fast, faster than ever; UX requires time. There's a fundamental tension here, it's not an easy problem.

johnzim 7y ago
Jonny Ive took control of software design about 7-8 years ago which I think caused a fall in usability even as things got prettier. Sometimes look back at MacOS 9, even with its numerous issues and marvel at how good a lot of the UI/UX was.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  > Jonny Ive Ah, this would explain that. I seem to remember that he did not want to deal with software design, but pretty much had to to fill the gap after Jobs passed away. something along those lines. I'll cut him some slack for the monumental achievements in his career, but Apple as a company should re-think their UX strategy for the 2020's imho. And thank you for a nice trip via MacOS 9 memory lane!
  - tres 7y ago
    I think what really changed was the departure of Scott Forstall after the death of Jobs & the decision to put Tim Cook in charge. Remove that someone who didn't just look at software as an accoutrement to hardware -- but as a necessary, functional part of that hardware (skeuomorphism was the natural outcome of this worldview), then replace them with someone who reveres form over function and we end up where we are. Still missing Scott Forstall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Forstall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Forstall
    - K0SM0S 7y ago
      I too revere this man as far as design goes. It is my understanding that he's not the best at managing whole products the likes of what Apple sells; my intuition is that he should have joined Google —a true engineering temple of software-first, imho. But apparently he's taking a (probably much-deserved) time off from tech, so more power to him.
- ninkendo 7y ago
  Jony was only doing iOS design for a year or so, around the release of iOS 7.

gowld 7y ago

As Apple's first human-interface designer puts it, Apple optmizes for looks good in a demo. Apple targets computer shoppers, not computer users. https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/ https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/

K0SM0S 7y ago
That's tough. I think it's becoming more and more true these days; but I very much disagree if we look at a long story of best-in-class UX that truly set the tone for the entire industry and beyond. Apple used to be much, much more than marketing; in fact the very smugness of their image and marketing comes from their unprecedented domination over computer-user satisfaction, superior design language that contributed as much to art as it did to tech, and so on and so forth. Even typography, one of Job's first huge intuitions and success, is a true user's benefit well beyond the looks. I'm particularly harsh with Apple these days when I criticize their choices (UX, UI, manufacturing quality, product design, pricing, whatever), but that's because I hold one of the world's biggest company to much higher standards than what they're currently outputting; and I did not set those standards — they did for themselves over their own history. That has been their true gift to the world.