5 ms·

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

by 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.

5 ms·

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

by fallat 4y ago

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.