11 ms·

Redesigning an app, one day a week at a time

76 points by pketh 5y ago

meagher 5y ago
Interesting to see. A lot of this looks like pretty novel interface (not something you can easily copy from other apps). How did you find inspiration for some of these designs/direction?
- pketh 5y ago
  Thanks meagher, I actually have another blog post all about inspiration https://pketh.org/decade-of-inspiration.html https://pketh.org/decade-of-inspiration.html but tldr, I find a couple key things from outside software to revolve around for every product (like old computers, music synthesizers, etc.)
tannedNerd 5y ago
Cool article, have you done any other apps? Ps OP your site is lacking https
- pketh 5y ago
  Thanks :) So besides https://kinopio.club https://kinopio.club (which I work on now), I was the co-creator of glitch.com (it's changed a lot now though, this post captures my work on it https://pketh.org/the-first-four-years-of-glitch.html https://pketh.org/the-first-four-years-of-glitch.html) The blog does have https, but I accidentally added the non https url to HN. Not sure if I can change it though
  - kthejoker2 5y ago
    Oh man I love Kinopio, it's not exactly what I wanted out of it, but it's a very delightful interface
    - pketh 4y ago
      > it's not exactly what I wanted out of it would love to hear more about that so I can improve it for you
      - kthejoker2 4y ago
        In all seriousness, don't, what I wanted was more like a Hypercard / process flow mapping tool with "choose your own adventure" diverging paths .. I ended up using Twine and it was ... fine, a bit complicated, Hypercard was awesome ... But I ended up using Kinopio for converting standing meeting threads into fun little mindmaps.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
I do like the idea of using colors to indicate function, but I would be concerned that they draw attention to themselves. Sometimes that is a good thing, but sometimes it's really distracting from the content. I think Reddit's redesign if a good example of this going wrong. It's like a they hired Jackson Pollock to do the design, with colored buttons and doodads everywhere. It's something I think about a lot with my crappy-ass web design efforts. As an accessibility thing, I have fairly large hands, and really struggle with the sort of tiny buttons shown in this GUI. I semi-frequently have to use websites in desktop mode so I can zoom in to actually press buttons. Not a great experience, and also not something app designers seem to consider. > Sometimes feeling fast, is more important than actually being fast. This is especially the case when publishing a new post or comment. > When publishing content on FL, you had to wait until the server successfully responded before you were allowed to do something else. Whether consciously or not, these sorts of penalties for interaction naturally discourage future interactions. I think when submitting things is one of the times actually taking a moment can feel satisfactory. Returning immediately can feel flimsy and unreliable, like "did it really happen?" and then you refresh and don't see your content.
- pketh 5y ago
  > I do like the idea of using colors to indicate function, but I would be concerned that they draw attention to themselves > with colored buttons and doodads everywhere I agree, functional colors are not a solution that work for everyone, and also requires a lot of diligence and restraint to not turn into a birthday cake mess (something harder for large corps like reddit) > really struggle with the sort of tiny buttons shown in this GUI It's hard to develop a UI that works for touch and doesn't look clumsy when you've got a mouse. The solution we use here is to visually size the buttons for desktop, but have an invisible padding around them be clickable > Returning immediately can feel flimsy and unreliable, like "did it really happen?" The way we address this is to show your comment appended to the comments list, or to show your post added to your journal. In this case we're optimizing for the joy that comes from the immediate feedback of I pushed submit and now my content is real. There's def room for more fun florishes in some apps like confetti etc when you do something, but those are a better fit for games or for rarer interactions imo (ideally leaving comments is a common action that some will do multiple times a day)
xenodium 5y ago
Nice to see. In https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com I also arrived to a similar presentation of today vs not today (for me, today vs all habits). For a habits app, I was ruthlessly simplifying things to remove friction and distractions from the tracking process. Either of these can easily throw you off, resulting in a bigger problem (giving up on your habits).
- pketh 5y ago
  That totally makes sense. I think there's a place for both the one click 'i did the thing today' like flathabits, and a higher friction but more expressive 'here's what I thought about the thing I did today'
- mwint 5y ago
  Just downloaded this, I love the concept. Does it have any support for iCloud sync between devices? I installed it on my iPhone and Mac, doesn't look like it's syncing. I saw this line in the description that made me think it might: > Share/sync file with your Mac or other iPhone apps ... but it's in the context of plain text file export, so maybe not.
  - xenodium 5y ago
    It's suported (experimental). Try importing an empty .org text file from an iCloud location and select "in place".

76 points by pketh 5y ago

Interesting to see. A lot of this looks like pretty novel interface (not something you can easily copy from other apps). How did you find inspiration for some of these designs/direction?

pketh 5y ago
Thanks meagher, I actually have another blog post all about inspiration https://pketh.org/decade-of-inspiration.html https://pketh.org/decade-of-inspiration.html but tldr, I find a couple key things from outside software to revolve around for every product (like old computers, music synthesizers, etc.)

tannedNerd 5y ago

Cool article, have you done any other apps? Ps OP your site is lacking https

pketh 5y ago
Thanks :) So besides https://kinopio.club https://kinopio.club (which I work on now), I was the co-creator of glitch.com (it's changed a lot now though, this post captures my work on it https://pketh.org/the-first-four-years-of-glitch.html https://pketh.org/the-first-four-years-of-glitch.html) The blog does have https, but I accidentally added the non https url to HN. Not sure if I can change it though
- kthejoker2 5y ago
  Oh man I love Kinopio, it's not exactly what I wanted out of it, but it's a very delightful interface
  - pketh 4y ago
    > it's not exactly what I wanted out of it would love to hear more about that so I can improve it for you
    - kthejoker2 4y ago
      In all seriousness, don't, what I wanted was more like a Hypercard / process flow mapping tool with "choose your own adventure" diverging paths .. I ended up using Twine and it was ... fine, a bit complicated, Hypercard was awesome ... But I ended up using Kinopio for converting standing meeting threads into fun little mindmaps.

marginalia_nu 5y ago

I do like the idea of using colors to indicate function, but I would be concerned that they draw attention to themselves. Sometimes that is a good thing, but sometimes it's really distracting from the content. I think Reddit's redesign if a good example of this going wrong. It's like a they hired Jackson Pollock to do the design, with colored buttons and doodads everywhere. It's something I think about a lot with my crappy-ass web design efforts. As an accessibility thing, I have fairly large hands, and really struggle with the sort of tiny buttons shown in this GUI. I semi-frequently have to use websites in desktop mode so I can zoom in to actually press buttons. Not a great experience, and also not something app designers seem to consider. > Sometimes feeling fast, is more important than actually being fast. This is especially the case when publishing a new post or comment. > When publishing content on FL, you had to wait until the server successfully responded before you were allowed to do something else. Whether consciously or not, these sorts of penalties for interaction naturally discourage future interactions. I think when submitting things is one of the times actually taking a moment can feel satisfactory. Returning immediately can feel flimsy and unreliable, like "did it really happen?" and then you refresh and don't see your content.

pketh 5y ago
> I do like the idea of using colors to indicate function, but I would be concerned that they draw attention to themselves > with colored buttons and doodads everywhere I agree, functional colors are not a solution that work for everyone, and also requires a lot of diligence and restraint to not turn into a birthday cake mess (something harder for large corps like reddit) > really struggle with the sort of tiny buttons shown in this GUI It's hard to develop a UI that works for touch and doesn't look clumsy when you've got a mouse. The solution we use here is to visually size the buttons for desktop, but have an invisible padding around them be clickable > Returning immediately can feel flimsy and unreliable, like "did it really happen?" The way we address this is to show your comment appended to the comments list, or to show your post added to your journal. In this case we're optimizing for the joy that comes from the immediate feedback of I pushed submit and now my content is real. There's def room for more fun florishes in some apps like confetti etc when you do something, but those are a better fit for games or for rarer interactions imo (ideally leaving comments is a common action that some will do multiple times a day)

xenodium 5y ago

Nice to see. In https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com I also arrived to a similar presentation of today vs not today (for me, today vs all habits). For a habits app, I was ruthlessly simplifying things to remove friction and distractions from the tracking process. Either of these can easily throw you off, resulting in a bigger problem (giving up on your habits).

pketh 5y ago
That totally makes sense. I think there's a place for both the one click 'i did the thing today' like flathabits, and a higher friction but more expressive 'here's what I thought about the thing I did today'
mwint 5y ago
Just downloaded this, I love the concept. Does it have any support for iCloud sync between devices? I installed it on my iPhone and Mac, doesn't look like it's syncing. I saw this line in the description that made me think it might: > Share/sync file with your Mac or other iPhone apps ... but it's in the context of plain text file export, so maybe not.
- xenodium 5y ago
  It's suported (experimental). Try importing an empty .org text file from an iCloud location and select "in place".