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> being friendly to a beginner (e.g. a kid) My child seems to intuitively get modern UI design, and doesn't seem to need many affordances to understand what to

> being friendly to a beginner (e.g. a kid) My child seems to intuitively get modern UI design, and doesn't seem to need many affordances to understand what to interact with or not. I think people who say older designs are better for beginners may be applying some retrospective thinking.

chongli 5y ago
Let's not underestimate neuroplasticity. Children can figure out almost anything. If you want a true test of UI intuitiveness then you ought to give the computer to an elderly parent or grandparent. Anecdotally, my 70-year-old father and several of my elderly uncles & aunts had a much easier time figuring out Classic Mac OS. Modern macOS and iOS are much more complicated. While they still use these systems, they do so in a much more superficial way and they tend to exhibit what (for lack of a better term) I would call a "fear response." That is, when attempting to do a novel task they refuse to experiment and instead resort to asking for help immediately. Classic Mac OS was much better designed to encourage experimentation and avoided surprising the user (in a negative way) as much as possible.
- srvmshr 5y ago
  Here is a screenshot from my MBP which used to run 10.7 until two years ago :). I would anyday prefer these over the flatter icons. https://imgur.com/a/e6AEdwR https://imgur.com/a/e6AEdwR
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    But is that just based on what you're used to rather than what is intuitively better?
    - nine_k 5y ago
      Yes, it refers to well-recognizable imagery from outside the computer world.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        But kids pick it up fine without these clues.
        jjoonathan 5y ago
        Hamburgers and hieroglyphs: this does not bring joy. Pretty objects: this activates the neurons.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        I don't really know what you're trying to say, but my child seems absolutely able to pick up modern UI design, including the hamburger icon and others, and use it very happily and with joy.
        jjoonathan 5y ago
        I bet your kid could pick up on UI even worse than hamburgers & heiroglyphs and use it happily. Kids are amazing. Hamburgers and Heiroglyphs are not.
        wruza 5y ago
        Kids would be able to pickup CLI if that were the only way to start their favorite game. Kids also share knowledge even when your attention is away. We had a drive to learn MK combos and used that to win fights, but as adults, barely anyone in a random-100 group knows how to :q Vim. Give your kid a phone with zero interesting activities in it compared to other toys, and he/she would “pick” nothing out of it.
        pxc 5y ago
        > Kids would be able to pickup CLI if that were the only way to start their favorite game This is not merely hypothetical! Like many on HN, no doubt, I learned at least how to launch and close my favorite toy programs from the DOS command line before I went to kindergarten.
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      You'll find a lot of people, myself included, that point to the 10.6 era as peak OSX aesthetics. I personally prefer "steel and grass," some people prefer space, the specifics vary person-to-person but a lot of people agree on the trend. Skeuomorphism has an uncomfortably high skill floor, but it has an astronomical skill ceiling. With Apple, it shows. It really shows. In contrast, flat design has a skill ceiling so low that it can turn the most creatively bankrupt troglodyte of a non-artist into a hunchback.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > a lot of people, myself included, that point to the 10.6 era as peak OSX aesthetics Just guessing... is that what you grew up with?
        jjoonathan 5y ago
        No, growing up was OS9 with lime green highlights on a lime green iMac playing Bugdom. I'd argue that it was still better than flat design, but I would have to concede that nostalgia goggles might play a role in blinding me to how garish it all was. In contrast, the "I love 10.6" crowd extends considerably beyond my cohort in both directions. It's pretty clearly a skeuomorphism thing. One thing I'll give flat design: it's better than the Fischer Price design that happened between the era of skeuomorphism and present day. Also, it brought dark mode mainstream.
        wruza 5y ago
        I also prefer 10.6, growing up with DOS 3.0 and then a list of OSes and apps too large to fit in the margin.
    - labster 5y ago
      No, the old icons are objectively better. I’ve used iPhones since the iPhone 1 and I still keep the original as a music player. I have to hunt down apps on current iOS but astonishingly they all look somewhat different in the old days, which means they are easier to find. It’s easier to find my way around an old iOS I use once a month than one I use every hour.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > No, the old icons are objectively better. Do you mean you're used to the old icons? My seven-year-old wouldn't recognise them.
        labster 5y ago
        No, I mean I’m used to the new icons because I use them constantly and yet the old ones provide far superior UX. Of course your seven year old wouldn’t recognize icons on a ten year old OS. What are you, twelve? Seriously, go put the iOS icons for Phone, FaceTime, Messages, and Numbers in your bottom dock in a random order, and see how easy it is to use.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        laputan_machine 5y ago
        Are you a UI Researcher? If you are, your approach to gathering research by rebuking everyone else's opinions seems less than optimal. FWIW I prefer skeumorphic design. Flat design won because it made scaling everything easier. It doesn't need to be this way now that SVG support has become widespread
        KptMarchewa 5y ago
        Tons of people below 40 don't have the same instincts as you do.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > If you want a true test of UI intuitiveness then you ought to give the computer to an elderly parent or grandparent. A second ago the test for intuitiveness was 'a kid'.
  - chongli 5y ago
    You can take my post as disagreeing with the GP as well on the kid test. Kids have been the ones figuring out computers and doing tech support for their older relatives essentially since the dawn of home computing. If a kid can’t figure out how to use your computer then it’s probably irreparably broken (kids figure out how to fix computers too).
- srvmshr 5y ago
  Classic designs were touted as "something you could give to a grandma and a professional alike" in magazines of heydays :)
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 5y ago
  I’m not sure that giving the UI to the elderly is a truer test. Whatever difficulty they encounter, it’s just as likely that it could be because a previous experience with a different OS is shaping their expectations, or many other factors. It does seem that “time from 0 to successfully performing a novel task” is a good metric among many.

chongli 5y ago

Let's not underestimate neuroplasticity. Children can figure out almost anything. If you want a true test of UI intuitiveness then you ought to give the computer to an elderly parent or grandparent. Anecdotally, my 70-year-old father and several of my elderly uncles & aunts had a much easier time figuring out Classic Mac OS. Modern macOS and iOS are much more complicated. While they still use these systems, they do so in a much more superficial way and they tend to exhibit what (for lack of a better term) I would call a "fear response." That is, when attempting to do a novel task they refuse to experiment and instead resort to asking for help immediately. Classic Mac OS was much better designed to encourage experimentation and avoided surprising the user (in a negative way) as much as possible.

srvmshr 5y ago
Here is a screenshot from my MBP which used to run 10.7 until two years ago :). I would anyday prefer these over the flatter icons. https://imgur.com/a/e6AEdwR https://imgur.com/a/e6AEdwR
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  But is that just based on what you're used to rather than what is intuitively better?
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Yes, it refers to well-recognizable imagery from outside the computer world.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      But kids pick it up fine without these clues.
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        Hamburgers and hieroglyphs: this does not bring joy. Pretty objects: this activates the neurons.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        I don't really know what you're trying to say, but my child seems absolutely able to pick up modern UI design, including the hamburger icon and others, and use it very happily and with joy.
        jjoonathan 5y ago
        I bet your kid could pick up on UI even worse than hamburgers & heiroglyphs and use it happily. Kids are amazing. Hamburgers and Heiroglyphs are not.
        wruza 5y ago
        Kids would be able to pickup CLI if that were the only way to start their favorite game. Kids also share knowledge even when your attention is away. We had a drive to learn MK combos and used that to win fights, but as adults, barely anyone in a random-100 group knows how to :q Vim. Give your kid a phone with zero interesting activities in it compared to other toys, and he/she would “pick” nothing out of it.
        pxc 5y ago
        > Kids would be able to pickup CLI if that were the only way to start their favorite game This is not merely hypothetical! Like many on HN, no doubt, I learned at least how to launch and close my favorite toy programs from the DOS command line before I went to kindergarten.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    You'll find a lot of people, myself included, that point to the 10.6 era as peak OSX aesthetics. I personally prefer "steel and grass," some people prefer space, the specifics vary person-to-person but a lot of people agree on the trend. Skeuomorphism has an uncomfortably high skill floor, but it has an astronomical skill ceiling. With Apple, it shows. It really shows. In contrast, flat design has a skill ceiling so low that it can turn the most creatively bankrupt troglodyte of a non-artist into a hunchback.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > a lot of people, myself included, that point to the 10.6 era as peak OSX aesthetics Just guessing... is that what you grew up with?
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        No, growing up was OS9 with lime green highlights on a lime green iMac playing Bugdom. I'd argue that it was still better than flat design, but I would have to concede that nostalgia goggles might play a role in blinding me to how garish it all was. In contrast, the "I love 10.6" crowd extends considerably beyond my cohort in both directions. It's pretty clearly a skeuomorphism thing. One thing I'll give flat design: it's better than the Fischer Price design that happened between the era of skeuomorphism and present day. Also, it brought dark mode mainstream.
      - wruza 5y ago
        I also prefer 10.6, growing up with DOS 3.0 and then a list of OSes and apps too large to fit in the margin.
  - labster 5y ago
    No, the old icons are objectively better. I’ve used iPhones since the iPhone 1 and I still keep the original as a music player. I have to hunt down apps on current iOS but astonishingly they all look somewhat different in the old days, which means they are easier to find. It’s easier to find my way around an old iOS I use once a month than one I use every hour.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > No, the old icons are objectively better. Do you mean you're used to the old icons? My seven-year-old wouldn't recognise them.
      - labster 5y ago
        No, I mean I’m used to the new icons because I use them constantly and yet the old ones provide far superior UX. Of course your seven year old wouldn’t recognize icons on a ten year old OS. What are you, twelve? Seriously, go put the iOS icons for Phone, FaceTime, Messages, and Numbers in your bottom dock in a random order, and see how easy it is to use.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - laputan_machine 5y ago
        Are you a UI Researcher? If you are, your approach to gathering research by rebuking everyone else's opinions seems less than optimal. FWIW I prefer skeumorphic design. Flat design won because it made scaling everything easier. It doesn't need to be this way now that SVG support has become widespread
        KptMarchewa 5y ago
        Tons of people below 40 don't have the same instincts as you do.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> If you want a true test of UI intuitiveness then you ought to give the computer to an elderly parent or grandparent. A second ago the test for intuitiveness was 'a kid'.
- chongli 5y ago
  You can take my post as disagreeing with the GP as well on the kid test. Kids have been the ones figuring out computers and doing tech support for their older relatives essentially since the dawn of home computing. If a kid can’t figure out how to use your computer then it’s probably irreparably broken (kids figure out how to fix computers too).
srvmshr 5y ago
Classic designs were touted as "something you could give to a grandma and a professional alike" in magazines of heydays :)
rTX5CMRXIfFG 5y ago
I’m not sure that giving the UI to the elderly is a truer test. Whatever difficulty they encounter, it’s just as likely that it could be because a previous experience with a different OS is shaping their expectations, or many other factors. It does seem that “time from 0 to successfully performing a novel task” is a good metric among many.