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Reading the comments here, I find it very distressing that people in our industry can simultaneously say the following two things: 1. Consistency is extremely

by alxlaz 7y ago

Reading the comments here, I find it very distressing that people in our industry can simultaneously say the following two things: 1. Consistency is extremely important for UX and one of the cornerstones of user-friendliness 2. Users who aren't developers probably don't care too much about "native look and fell". If users, indeed, don't care if some applications don't look and can't be handled like other applications, maybe it's time we judged designs more in terms of innovation and usability, and less in terms of compliance. I haven't seen a new icon set, application theme or website that didn't look like any other icon set, application theme or website in years. If they do actually care, then maybe let's admit that. I'm not advocating for burning all JavaScript to the ground, but it would certainly help if we'd treat inconsistencies as bugs, so that we could use frameworks like Electron to write better (i.e. more consistent) applications, rather than hand-waving them as unimportant, except in topics about UX rather than Electron, in which case they're totally important.

_fat_santa 7y ago
I think that there is a way these two points can live in the same universe. One the one hand users expect a consistent UI, especially on mobile. While apps are free to define their own user interface and style, they should follow certain patterns that other apps in the past have established. When I hear the other point that users dont care about UX what that boils down for me is they don't see all the little things that we see. They still expect a consistent user interface but seeing a menu not render exactly where it should, an animation that stutters for one frame or other small things. These are all things that we as developers scrutinize but the user doesn't notice all that often. Now we should still scrutinize those little things. I feel like the thing that makes some apps feel more "magical" than others is how polished those little details are.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  I think that makes a lot of sense. When people say users don't care about UI - that always leaves me wondering - have they tried releasing a little toy website or something to their friends that didn't have a hamburger menu on mobile? Even with all the blog posts I remember a while back about how those are suboptimal - I got question after question of "how do you navigate?" And this isn't like a rhetorical question by the way, not am I saying everyone would be like that for every app, I'm just curious if there are different social circles that react differently. My sor of laypersons intuition about UX has been that it's just about reducing cognitive effort for new adopters. For things that don't really matter to functionality, make it consistent with what they'd expect given their context so they don't have to think about it. Hamburger menus aren't "intuitive," give them to a tech naive person and they'll be confused, but they sure feel that way today because of how everyone has been thoroughly trained in how to use them to navigate them, so why not take advantage of that social training to lower the adoption activation energy? I would think that I would rather people spend effort figuring out the parts that have to be different for the new functionality. I'm curious to hear from someone with actual design training if that's a reasonable approach, or if there might actually be some reason that the opposite is actually empirically true (like a unique UX makes people feel like power users and locks then into the platform or something?)
- dmitriid 7y ago
  > They still expect a consistent user interface but seeing a menu not render exactly where it should, an animation that stutters for one frame or other small things. These are all things that we as developers scrutinize but the user doesn't notice all that often. I find it's the other way around. Quite often it's the developers who don't care if a menu is out of place or if an animation stutters. The users, however, do see these things. They might not be able to articulate it, but they will see it. And call your app slow (animation stutters), unpolished (menu not rendered where it should) etc. That's why, for example, MacOS has been getting so much flak these past years: they've stopped sweating the little details, and people noticed.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
Another way to combine those points: Consistency is good, but its value degrades gracefully. Especially in a simple app, you can mess it up a fair bit and users will tolerate it provided they can still manage the result. But following the local human interface guidelines does make the app more usable, and the more complex your app is the more that matters. Unless, of course, your application is such a big deal that it can set its own standards and users will learn it unto itself (EMACS and Photoshop come to mind); that isn't free, but as long as you're internally consistent it at least just comes to up front cost.
yobin 7y ago
I can, as a "UX" Designer (Or whatever we are called nowadays) attest to that users do not care about the native look or feel. The most important thing for a user is how pleasing it looks, not even how easy it is to use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic%E2%80%93usability_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic%E2%80%93usability_ef... The reason that icon sets are similar is probably because they are quite ingrained into our memory. The save icon, although younger people have no idea what it's supposed to represent, is evident to them to be the save function. And since icons are generally meant to guide the user, then you opt to use something they already know. After all they do not have much agency compared to the main content of an app or site.
tiborsaas 7y ago
> I haven't seen a new icon set, application theme or website that didn't look like any other icon set, application theme or website in years. Probably because you only visit mainstream sites, use mainstream software or you just don't look hard enough. That said I tend to agree that there's lots of similarity. Visit a few sites listed here: https://www.hoverstat.es https://www.hoverstat.es I also find lots of odd little programs in the music production category that are very individualistic in appearance.

by alxlaz 7y ago

_fat_santa 7y ago

I think that there is a way these two points can live in the same universe. One the one hand users expect a consistent UI, especially on mobile. While apps are free to define their own user interface and style, they should follow certain patterns that other apps in the past have established. When I hear the other point that users dont care about UX what that boils down for me is they don't see all the little things that we see. They still expect a consistent user interface but seeing a menu not render exactly where it should, an animation that stutters for one frame or other small things. These are all things that we as developers scrutinize but the user doesn't notice all that often. Now we should still scrutinize those little things. I feel like the thing that makes some apps feel more "magical" than others is how polished those little details are.

vikramkr 7y ago
I think that makes a lot of sense. When people say users don't care about UI - that always leaves me wondering - have they tried releasing a little toy website or something to their friends that didn't have a hamburger menu on mobile? Even with all the blog posts I remember a while back about how those are suboptimal - I got question after question of "how do you navigate?" And this isn't like a rhetorical question by the way, not am I saying everyone would be like that for every app, I'm just curious if there are different social circles that react differently. My sor of laypersons intuition about UX has been that it's just about reducing cognitive effort for new adopters. For things that don't really matter to functionality, make it consistent with what they'd expect given their context so they don't have to think about it. Hamburger menus aren't "intuitive," give them to a tech naive person and they'll be confused, but they sure feel that way today because of how everyone has been thoroughly trained in how to use them to navigate them, so why not take advantage of that social training to lower the adoption activation energy? I would think that I would rather people spend effort figuring out the parts that have to be different for the new functionality. I'm curious to hear from someone with actual design training if that's a reasonable approach, or if there might actually be some reason that the opposite is actually empirically true (like a unique UX makes people feel like power users and locks then into the platform or something?)
dmitriid 7y ago
> They still expect a consistent user interface but seeing a menu not render exactly where it should, an animation that stutters for one frame or other small things. These are all things that we as developers scrutinize but the user doesn't notice all that often. I find it's the other way around. Quite often it's the developers who don't care if a menu is out of place or if an animation stutters. The users, however, do see these things. They might not be able to articulate it, but they will see it. And call your app slow (animation stutters), unpolished (menu not rendered where it should) etc. That's why, for example, MacOS has been getting so much flak these past years: they've stopped sweating the little details, and people noticed.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

Another way to combine those points: Consistency is good, but its value degrades gracefully. Especially in a simple app, you can mess it up a fair bit and users will tolerate it provided they can still manage the result. But following the local human interface guidelines does make the app more usable, and the more complex your app is the more that matters. Unless, of course, your application is such a big deal that it can set its own standards and users will learn it unto itself (EMACS and Photoshop come to mind); that isn't free, but as long as you're internally consistent it at least just comes to up front cost.

yobin 7y ago

I can, as a "UX" Designer (Or whatever we are called nowadays) attest to that users do not care about the native look or feel. The most important thing for a user is how pleasing it looks, not even how easy it is to use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic%E2%80%93usability_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic%E2%80%93usability_ef... The reason that icon sets are similar is probably because they are quite ingrained into our memory. The save icon, although younger people have no idea what it's supposed to represent, is evident to them to be the save function. And since icons are generally meant to guide the user, then you opt to use something they already know. After all they do not have much agency compared to the main content of an app or site.

tiborsaas 7y ago

> I haven't seen a new icon set, application theme or website that didn't look like any other icon set, application theme or website in years. Probably because you only visit mainstream sites, use mainstream software or you just don't look hard enough. That said I tend to agree that there's lots of similarity. Visit a few sites listed here: https://www.hoverstat.es https://www.hoverstat.es I also find lots of odd little programs in the music production category that are very individualistic in appearance.