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1) Just thinking out loud here, but some games have the most complex and information dense user interfaces you'll ever see. And sometimes they solve this proble

1) Just thinking out loud here, but some games have the most complex and information dense user interfaces you'll ever see. And sometimes they solve this problem by introducing new features in sort of a well-designed, first-class tutorial over the course of a few missions in a single-player campaign. Maybe Apps can try the same approach? 2) I can't help but think that many UI problems would be solved by Apps replacing meaningless icons with actual text labels. I can't remember what half the random symbols on software I use daily for hours means. If something is a sharing icon or a saving icon, I have no clue half the time. But simply having text labels on buttons and links everywhere would make all software a lot more explorable and understandable.

toyg 4y ago
> some games have the most complex and information dense user interfaces Completely different audiences and incentives. Gamers game because they want to; most people use apps because they have to, to get shit done and pay the rent. Gamers are motivated to inspect capabilities in order to get an advantage, to solve the gameplay puzzle, even just to kill time; people are motivated to get the hell out of apps as quickly as possible and go shopping. I don't care about the capabilities of MS Word, I just want to type some stuff out. I don't care that Outlook can read RSS feeds, I just want to send an email. I skip every single onboarding wizard I can skip, because I honestly don't give a shit about 90% of "features" out there. If people cared about advanced features, we'd all be using Emacs. > many UI problems would be solved by Apps replacing meaningless icons with actual text labels I don't disagree in principle, but the reality is that text takes a lot of screen real estate, scales badly, and most people think text-heavy UIs just look ugly. We could definitely have better and more meaningful icons though; the "material" anti-skeuomorphing bullshit has inflicted a lot of damage on the credibility of UX practitioners, over the last decade. The 90s in comparison were a dream.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  I don't think we really disagree on much, just having a conversation with some random points to feel out what I think about this. 1) I understand that the motivation for playing games is far different from the motivation for work. My main point is just to indicate that there's some games that basically simulate entire economies (on a planetary or even galaxy-wide scale) and a large amount of intricate detail. Using some approaches from games to display UI might help in the business world too. (and might have other benefits) 2) Text taking up more real estate than an icon can in a sense sometimes be considered a big feature rather than a bug. A big part of good UI design is picking and choosing what UI items belong on a particular screen. Icons IMO can lend themselves to bad overall practices because you can fit more junk into every single screen. If you need to fit every single possible command into one screen, the command line is the best method for that.

toyg 4y ago

> some games have the most complex and information dense user interfaces Completely different audiences and incentives. Gamers game because they want to; most people use apps because they have to, to get shit done and pay the rent. Gamers are motivated to inspect capabilities in order to get an advantage, to solve the gameplay puzzle, even just to kill time; people are motivated to get the hell out of apps as quickly as possible and go shopping. I don't care about the capabilities of MS Word, I just want to type some stuff out. I don't care that Outlook can read RSS feeds, I just want to send an email. I skip every single onboarding wizard I can skip, because I honestly don't give a shit about 90% of "features" out there. If people cared about advanced features, we'd all be using Emacs. > many UI problems would be solved by Apps replacing meaningless icons with actual text labels I don't disagree in principle, but the reality is that text takes a lot of screen real estate, scales badly, and most people think text-heavy UIs just look ugly. We could definitely have better and more meaningful icons though; the "material" anti-skeuomorphing bullshit has inflicted a lot of damage on the credibility of UX practitioners, over the last decade. The 90s in comparison were a dream.

logicalmonster 4y ago
I don't think we really disagree on much, just having a conversation with some random points to feel out what I think about this. 1) I understand that the motivation for playing games is far different from the motivation for work. My main point is just to indicate that there's some games that basically simulate entire economies (on a planetary or even galaxy-wide scale) and a large amount of intricate detail. Using some approaches from games to display UI might help in the business world too. (and might have other benefits) 2) Text taking up more real estate than an icon can in a sense sometimes be considered a big feature rather than a bug. A big part of good UI design is picking and choosing what UI items belong on a particular screen. Icons IMO can lend themselves to bad overall practices because you can fit more junk into every single screen. If you need to fit every single possible command into one screen, the command line is the best method for that.