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Am I the only one who hates graphics on t-shirts? If the design doesn't serve a clear purpose in signalling something about the user, I want it gone. I'm not co

by hbosch 7y ago

Am I the only one who hates graphics on t-shirts? If the design doesn't serve a clear purpose in signalling something about the user, I want it gone. I'm not convinced that we've seen any meaningful advance in t-shirt design since Windows 95. Ok, ok, I'm being dumb. And yeah, I tend to agree, but as a counterpoint: sometimes it's also just cool to have cool stuff. There is certainly a modernist fetish for superminimalism – HN being a locally favored example of a great social media website with no unnecessary frills – but I think your qualifier "serve a clear purpose" is not objective enough to be a good rule. What you and I think is a clear purpose are bound to be very different. I think a fade in/scaling animation for windows to appear and disappear is a better experience than just flickering them on and off – I think the clear purpose there is that it's cognitively less demanding when a window appears over the course of 200ms rather than 1ms. But hey, that's me. What is the "clear purpose" of MacOS UI to have rounded corners, or the status bar to be translucent, or for the "genie" effect of minimizing an app. The truth is, animations have almost zero impact on the usability of an app or experience and only add to the perception of quality. Much like contrast stitching on the leather seat of your BMW, the reason it's there is simply because people think it's kinda nice to have and doesn't hurt anyone. Otherwise the only pants we'd be able to buy would be cargo pants... and no one likes cargo pants. It's OK for stuff to exist that is "just neat".

chadlavi 7y ago
try staring at some dude's graphic tee for 8 hours trying to do some work. This is not a good analogy.
homonculus1 7y ago
It's not almost zero impact. It's a clear negative impact to anyone who's mindful of things like latency, workflow, muscle memory, gaze patterns, information density, attention, special recall, and working memory. These design patterns are nothing but a frustrating, dazzling interruption designed to hijack your emotional faculties instead of providing you with a useful tool. They turn real concentration into mush. Nothing comes for free and if you're optimizing for "just neat" then you're paying in usability.
cycloptic 7y ago
The genie animation is actually important. It illustrates to the user that the window is being physically relocated somewhere else. This matters for a new user who doesn't know what "minimize" is and could accidentally click it wondering how to get the window back. The animation shows you exactly where it went and what you need to click to get it back.
carlinmack 7y ago
the genie animation has a very clear UX purpose - where did my app just go?
- pgcj_poster 7y ago
  Of course, the app didn't actually "go" anywhere. Minimizing it just tells the windowing system to stop drawing it. But humans aren't used to thinking about things that pop in and out of existence, so it's easier to understand the application as a physical thing that goes somewhere when hidden.
0xffff2 7y ago
>Am I the only one who hates graphics on t-shirts? If the design doesn't serve a clear purpose in signalling something about the user, I want it gone. I'm not convinced that we've seen any meaningful advance in t-shirt design since Windows 95. I don't know if this helps or hurts your point, but I do in fact also hate graphical T's. All of my T-shirts are solid colors and most of them are black. >What is the "clear purpose" of MacOS UI to have rounded corners, or the status bar to be translucent, or for the "genie" effect of minimizing an app. Thankfully I don't have to use macOS very often, but I don't think any of those serve a purpose and they constantly (but mildly) annoy me when I do have to boot up my mac. The minimization effect is important, but it should still be fast.
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  Me too. I dislike both t-shirts with useless text on them and apps with useless animations in them.

by hbosch 7y ago

chadlavi 7y ago

try staring at some dude's graphic tee for 8 hours trying to do some work. This is not a good analogy.

homonculus1 7y ago

It's not almost zero impact. It's a clear negative impact to anyone who's mindful of things like latency, workflow, muscle memory, gaze patterns, information density, attention, special recall, and working memory. These design patterns are nothing but a frustrating, dazzling interruption designed to hijack your emotional faculties instead of providing you with a useful tool. They turn real concentration into mush. Nothing comes for free and if you're optimizing for "just neat" then you're paying in usability.

cycloptic 7y ago

The genie animation is actually important. It illustrates to the user that the window is being physically relocated somewhere else. This matters for a new user who doesn't know what "minimize" is and could accidentally click it wondering how to get the window back. The animation shows you exactly where it went and what you need to click to get it back.

carlinmack 7y ago

the genie animation has a very clear UX purpose - where did my app just go?

pgcj_poster 7y ago
Of course, the app didn't actually "go" anywhere. Minimizing it just tells the windowing system to stop drawing it. But humans aren't used to thinking about things that pop in and out of existence, so it's easier to understand the application as a physical thing that goes somewhere when hidden.

0xffff2 7y ago

>Am I the only one who hates graphics on t-shirts? If the design doesn't serve a clear purpose in signalling something about the user, I want it gone. I'm not convinced that we've seen any meaningful advance in t-shirt design since Windows 95. I don't know if this helps or hurts your point, but I do in fact also hate graphical T's. All of my T-shirts are solid colors and most of them are black. >What is the "clear purpose" of MacOS UI to have rounded corners, or the status bar to be translucent, or for the "genie" effect of minimizing an app. Thankfully I don't have to use macOS very often, but I don't think any of those serve a purpose and they constantly (but mildly) annoy me when I do have to boot up my mac. The minimization effect is important, but it should still be fast.

fxtentacle 7y ago
Me too. I dislike both t-shirts with useless text on them and apps with useless animations in them.