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> Many modern user interfaces have a lot of functionality hidden behind catchall elements [...] it makes it very difficult to find what functionality is availab

> Many modern user interfaces have a lot of functionality hidden behind catchall elements [...] it makes it very difficult to find what functionality is available unless you go exploring. Users still have to explore, even more so, in complex interfaces where a lot of options are presented. They don't know what each option does and there's so many of them. And even the classic desktop apps have a lot of functionality hidden under the File/Edit/View/Insert/Tools menu bar. If they are not designed carefully, they are just hamburger menus with confusing labels. I'm looking at one right now. Why is "Find" under "Edit"? I don't want to edit anything, I just want to look for something. Is this action destructive? I took a risk and I pressed it, but luckily it is indeed just a search. It's also a problem in physical interfaces like a computer keyboard. There's dozens of buttons and yet there are many hidden interactions between them. What does "Home" button do? Will it take me to my home screen? My home page? Let's press it. Oh, it just scrolls up. Unless the options are severely limited or the users are trained, exploring can't be avoided - and it's not a bad thing. > More and more designs target smartphone displays, which used to be very small and require big targets to ensure they could be mashed with normal human fingers. However, this gets reused on tablets, modern gigantic smartphones, and even desktop, where none of this makes sense. It does make sense on the gigantic smartphones and tablets. The size of the viewport doesn't matter. The size and the precision of the pointer device does - and my finger didn't shrink. > Clickable items often have simplified, highly abstracted icons with thin-line monochrome content, frequently implemented as fonts, which is less distracting from the visuals of the design but is also hard to understand what it's supposed to represent. Here's a screenshot of LibreOffice Calc with a classic skeuomorphic icon set: https://i.imgur.com/TO7mHEg.png https://i.imgur.com/TO7mHEg.png Let's ignore the poor contrast caused by the dark background for now. Can you tell me which icon is responsible for Search? It should be the one between the printer and the scissors - it has a magnifying glass after all. Turns out, it's Toggle Print Review. Search is actually in the middle of the row between Redo and Spelling, labeled as Find and Replace. It looks more like a microphone to me. > Less modality. Many modern designs will have modal interface elements that prevent access to the rest of the user interface until interacted with and/or dismissed. There's a time and place for this, especially if it's something important. For example Exit Without Saving confirmation modal in BIOS, which is several decades old. I agree with your other points. Chat apps are getting worse. Discord has even shrunk the text area where you type your message.

Kliment 5y ago
Turns out bad design isn't new. I agree with almost everything you've said - there's bad design examples from every period. There's plenty of UI design resources from the early 2000s and they all contain examples of bad UI. But that doesn't mean there's no difference between now and then. Having options split among labeled menus improves recall, even when it doesn't improve discovery (and it often does improve discovery because the labels aren't entirely arbitrary). So I definitely see this getting worse with hamburger-and-gear interfaces. Skeuomorphic colorful icons are usually easier to tell apart than font-based monochrome abstract line art, and they're much easier to remember, for non-colorblind users. Doesn't mean they can't be bad or misleading. As for the size of clickable items, I consistently see interface elements that span the full width of the screen (except some padding) on modern giant-screen smartphones and tablets. It seems the screens grow and the UI elements grow with them, rather than remaining fingertip-sized. And of course none of this has any place on desktop, but it gets reused there anyway.
- duckmysick 5y ago
  Fair points. I guess it's easier to design once and ship everywhere. Although with tools like Tailwind there's no excuse to ignore different viewports these days. There's also a related problem with text stretching the entire window, like on the Wikipedia.
dalmo3 5y ago
My pet peeve is finding the settings view. Is it under File > Preferences, or Edit? Under tools maybe? Just give me a big button with a goddamn gear icon every time.
- duckmysick 5y ago
  Oh yes! It's always fun to hunt for that one. Lately I'm a big fan of omni-search bars that search not only across the files, but also options and menus. Like the one in Sublime Text on Jetbrains products.

Kliment 5y ago

Turns out bad design isn't new. I agree with almost everything you've said - there's bad design examples from every period. There's plenty of UI design resources from the early 2000s and they all contain examples of bad UI. But that doesn't mean there's no difference between now and then. Having options split among labeled menus improves recall, even when it doesn't improve discovery (and it often does improve discovery because the labels aren't entirely arbitrary). So I definitely see this getting worse with hamburger-and-gear interfaces. Skeuomorphic colorful icons are usually easier to tell apart than font-based monochrome abstract line art, and they're much easier to remember, for non-colorblind users. Doesn't mean they can't be bad or misleading. As for the size of clickable items, I consistently see interface elements that span the full width of the screen (except some padding) on modern giant-screen smartphones and tablets. It seems the screens grow and the UI elements grow with them, rather than remaining fingertip-sized. And of course none of this has any place on desktop, but it gets reused there anyway.

duckmysick 5y ago
Fair points. I guess it's easier to design once and ship everywhere. Although with tools like Tailwind there's no excuse to ignore different viewports these days. There's also a related problem with text stretching the entire window, like on the Wikipedia.

dalmo3 5y ago

My pet peeve is finding the settings view. Is it under File > Preferences, or Edit? Under tools maybe? Just give me a big button with a goddamn gear icon every time.

duckmysick 5y ago
Oh yes! It's always fun to hunt for that one. Lately I'm a big fan of omni-search bars that search not only across the files, but also options and menus. Like the one in Sublime Text on Jetbrains products.