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1) The examples cited are valid UX/UI design criticisms. 2) The author makes quite a few important points about UI problems (I especially appreciate the point
by virgil_disgr4ce 7y ago
1) The examples cited are valid UX/UI design criticisms.
2) The author makes quite a few important points about UI problems (I especially appreciate the point about the importance of maintaining high standards for free software).
3) Concluding that "usability" is "in decline" from a handful of anecdata is an irritating, insincere, clickbaity absurdity that serves only to make the author and those who agree feel more important, that they're Older and Wiser™ for having grown up with CLIs, while the Children Today™ are ignorant fools who ought to Get Off My Lawn™. I'm so, so tired of this attitude getting in the way of sincere design critique. If the author had instead titled this "Some Problems With Various Software UI Design" I wouldn't have a problem. But then no one would click on it, I guess. (The author anticipates some of these and the following objections but doesn't actually make any satisfying argument against them.)
4) Design (among many, many other things, like art and language) are output by cultures. Cultures evolve unstoppably. Any argument that suggests that cultures should just "stop changing" are arguing the impossible.
5) Cultures CAN be steered deliberately, but generally only with massive efforts, such as civil rights in the 20th century (and even then.... :/). But saying "It's people like you and me who decide to change UI design" is completely insufficient. I understand and very much appreciate the idea, of course—be the change you want to see in the world—but insinuating that new ideas are dumb and useless is itself useless.
6) Cultural change is absolutely critical to continued survival of the culture. Many new ideas will fail. Many people will fail to learn from history. But some people will, and some new ideas will succeed wildly. Stagnating in a perpetual, rose-tinted dream of everything running on a command line doesn't help anything.
- the_af 7y agoI don't think he is arguing against new ideas. He is arguing against a trend in UI design. In some cases, he's arguing against novelty for novelty's sake. As for cultural change being a positive force: I agree. However, for a lot of people computers are mainly tools to achieve a goal, not a goal in themselves. Just like you would be annoyed if your screwdriver was deprecated, and instead all that was supported was a power screwdriver -- yes, it's useful sometimes, but don't test your newfangled ideas on me when all I needed was an old fashioned screwdriver. My metaphor is flawed because physical screwdrivers don't deprecate themselves out of existence, but you get the idea: for most people, computers are just tools. Change to see "what sticks" is annoying and they don't want to become guinea pigs. Particularly irritating is when the screwdriver manufacturer tells you that a- manual screwdrivers are no longer supported, and b- you were unscrewing screws the "wrong" way -- like desktop environment developers sometimes tell their users: "it's wrong to want icons on your desktop" ("but that's what I like and always did!" "Well, you're wrong, feature removed!")
- frenchy 7y agoI missed the part in the article where he was praising the usability of the CLI.