3 ms·

It's like entire industry at one point decide to optimize UIs for the first 30 minutes of usage and not the years of users using apps once they get familiar wit

by ilyt 4y ago

It's like entire industry at one point decide to optimize UIs for the first 30 minutes of usage and not the years of users using apps once they get familiar with them. "oooh let's not put too many buttons to scare users away", "they got 22 inch screens, let's just waste space for no good reason, it looks modern and airy"

fallat 4y ago
Yes. What we see in UI design today is a consequence of game theory at work. It's to optimize business. In fairness you don't want to scare users away. I think though many people equated it all to "clean looking", without realizing removing micro-interactions is a net negative....
- zozbot234 4y ago
  I think touch screens are a bigger factor. You can't have small buttons in a touch-screen UI, because they must be targets for your finger. (OTOH, swipes in a touch UI are a lot easier than mouse drag-and-drop. So the optimal touch UX probably has lots of drag-activated pie menus. And confirmation flows for potentially destructive actions, to cope with the lower accuracy of touch interactions.)
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Yes, and that is one of the reasons why your touchscreen UI must be radically different from your mouse and keyboard UI.
  - hansworst 4y ago
    Yeah, if my memory serves a lot of UI design started to get more airy around the time smartphones became more popular. Even on desktops, which I think may just be because large buttons and text became trendy and although some may deny it, I think a lot of ui design is just following trends. It takes a good designer to not just blindly copy things because they look cool.
    - rhn_mk1 4y ago
      Large buttons and text were trendy already in the 20th century. There's only so small you can go on an 800x600 14' screen. The crucial difference between then and now is the amount of whitespace.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    The problem is these "designers" bring those touch-optimised UIs to desktop. And so you end up with hamburger menus on 4k-screens, tall narrow alert dialogs on MacOS etc.
- Izkata 4y ago
  One of the early attempts to balance those two goals was an option in the settings to switch between Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced mode. Never really see that anymore.
squarefoot 4y ago
Spot on. And I would add "let's make every GUI either web based or mobile based just to further annoy PC users".
dkarl 4y ago
That's the discipline of data-driven business. If 20 people use your app and despise it and are depressed by it, that's better than 19 people using it and loving it. No sentimentality allowed.
- sosborn 4y ago
  How could anyone possibly measure that an app is despised and depresses people (or vice versa)? Usage can't be it, because I use a ton of software that I despise and get depressed by, but only because I get paid to do so, or the app is so niche there isn't a viable replacement.
  - layer8 4y ago
    They don’t. They just measure that the more “modern” design gets 5% more users, so clearly it must be better.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > How could anyone possibly measure that an app is despised and depresses people (or vice versa)? You'd have to actually talk to your users. But that requires genuine human investment, so it doesn't scale. It doesn't come in the form of a third-party SaaS with a pretty dashboard, generous free plan, and integration via single <script> tag. In short: they could measure this, they just don't bother to.
yamtaddle 4y ago
UI is now optimized for PowerPoint. The #1 goal of all UI work is so the designer and/or product manager can get an "oh, that looks nice!" showing off screenshots to an interviewer or to someone higher-up who'll help them get a promotion. Trendy (you don't want to look outdated, do you?) and pretty are what matter, not usability. I seriously think that's what's going on.

by ilyt 4y ago

fallat 4y ago

Yes. What we see in UI design today is a consequence of game theory at work. It's to optimize business. In fairness you don't want to scare users away. I think though many people equated it all to "clean looking", without realizing removing micro-interactions is a net negative....

zozbot234 4y ago
I think touch screens are a bigger factor. You can't have small buttons in a touch-screen UI, because they must be targets for your finger. (OTOH, swipes in a touch UI are a lot easier than mouse drag-and-drop. So the optimal touch UX probably has lots of drag-activated pie menus. And confirmation flows for potentially destructive actions, to cope with the lower accuracy of touch interactions.)
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Yes, and that is one of the reasons why your touchscreen UI must be radically different from your mouse and keyboard UI.
- hansworst 4y ago
  Yeah, if my memory serves a lot of UI design started to get more airy around the time smartphones became more popular. Even on desktops, which I think may just be because large buttons and text became trendy and although some may deny it, I think a lot of ui design is just following trends. It takes a good designer to not just blindly copy things because they look cool.
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    Large buttons and text were trendy already in the 20th century. There's only so small you can go on an 800x600 14' screen. The crucial difference between then and now is the amount of whitespace.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  The problem is these "designers" bring those touch-optimised UIs to desktop. And so you end up with hamburger menus on 4k-screens, tall narrow alert dialogs on MacOS etc.
Izkata 4y ago
One of the early attempts to balance those two goals was an option in the settings to switch between Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced mode. Never really see that anymore.

squarefoot 4y ago

Spot on. And I would add "let's make every GUI either web based or mobile based just to further annoy PC users".

dkarl 4y ago

That's the discipline of data-driven business. If 20 people use your app and despise it and are depressed by it, that's better than 19 people using it and loving it. No sentimentality allowed.

sosborn 4y ago
How could anyone possibly measure that an app is despised and depresses people (or vice versa)? Usage can't be it, because I use a ton of software that I despise and get depressed by, but only because I get paid to do so, or the app is so niche there isn't a viable replacement.
- layer8 4y ago
  They don’t. They just measure that the more “modern” design gets 5% more users, so clearly it must be better.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > How could anyone possibly measure that an app is despised and depresses people (or vice versa)? You'd have to actually talk to your users. But that requires genuine human investment, so it doesn't scale. It doesn't come in the form of a third-party SaaS with a pretty dashboard, generous free plan, and integration via single <script> tag. In short: they could measure this, they just don't bother to.

yamtaddle 4y ago

UI is now optimized for PowerPoint. The #1 goal of all UI work is so the designer and/or product manager can get an "oh, that looks nice!" showing off screenshots to an interviewer or to someone higher-up who'll help them get a promotion. Trendy (you don't want to look outdated, do you?) and pretty are what matter, not usability. I seriously think that's what's going on.