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I find the entire Windows/Mac/Linux desktop experience has regressed terribly, with inconsistency the primary offender. I suspect this is because usability tes

by jl6 7y ago

I find the entire Windows/Mac/Linux desktop experience has regressed terribly, with inconsistency the primary offender. I suspect this is because usability testing is only ever (a) app-specific and (b) short term. Nobody is studying the collective desktop experience across multiple applications, so every vendor thinks they have nailed it, but never notices that their version of “nailed it” is different to everybody else’s. The commercial nature of most desktop software would seem to render this problem insoluble as there is no incentive for vendors to cooperate and every incentive for them to churn their UIs to push new versions out.

int_19h 7y ago
It's even worse than that. Not only testing is app-specific, it's often feature-specific, or even worse, problem-specific. Which is fine by itself - isolating a test case to get a more meaningful measure is a reasonable approach. But the results then have to be reintegrated to get the larger picture - and they are not. Instead, the takeaway for every UX A/B test is treated separately, and the "fix" for the problem that it exposes is also implemented separately. The result often looks like it was sewn together from patches of different color and shape - even within a single app.
Frost1x 7y ago
Lack of transference is a feature for businesses. The more locked in you are to a workflow or infrastructure, the less likely you are to switch. It's a new world of lock-in. It's not in a business's interests to encourage you to jump to competitors, it is however to their advantage if the transition is difficult in any way. Consumers buy into it and a lot of new developers wanting to make their mark or do something new/different enable this. It's not sexy to implement UI concepts used for the past 20 years, I'm going to reinvent the wheel. It's perfectly fine to improve the wheel or reinvent it if you can provide increased productivity. Instead I have so many UIs now, going through what should and have been simple workflows is like stepping through a box of puzzles.
Spivak 7y ago
I mean inconsistency seems to come from the fact that every app the pet app of a company of anywhere between 20-1000 people. It's easy to take the defaults and accept the platform conventions when you want to get on with other things.

by jl6 7y ago

int_19h 7y ago

It's even worse than that. Not only testing is app-specific, it's often feature-specific, or even worse, problem-specific. Which is fine by itself - isolating a test case to get a more meaningful measure is a reasonable approach. But the results then have to be reintegrated to get the larger picture - and they are not. Instead, the takeaway for every UX A/B test is treated separately, and the "fix" for the problem that it exposes is also implemented separately. The result often looks like it was sewn together from patches of different color and shape - even within a single app.

Frost1x 7y ago

Lack of transference is a feature for businesses. The more locked in you are to a workflow or infrastructure, the less likely you are to switch. It's a new world of lock-in. It's not in a business's interests to encourage you to jump to competitors, it is however to their advantage if the transition is difficult in any way. Consumers buy into it and a lot of new developers wanting to make their mark or do something new/different enable this. It's not sexy to implement UI concepts used for the past 20 years, I'm going to reinvent the wheel. It's perfectly fine to improve the wheel or reinvent it if you can provide increased productivity. Instead I have so many UIs now, going through what should and have been simple workflows is like stepping through a box of puzzles.

Spivak 7y ago

I mean inconsistency seems to come from the fact that every app the pet app of a company of anywhere between 20-1000 people. It's easy to take the defaults and accept the platform conventions when you want to get on with other things.