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I discussed the whitespace issue with a Google engineer some years back, when Material UI was the hot new thing and lowering UI density became trendy. He remar

I discussed the whitespace issue with a Google engineer some years back, when Material UI was the hot new thing and lowering UI density became trendy. He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, while technical people have developed the skill of sifting through lots of on-screen information and controls.

seydor 3y ago
> high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, did he give any references?
- Alupis 3y ago
  These types of people are the reference. They make decisions, deploy it to millions of devices, and collect data. Doesn't' mean they're right, of course.
  - seydor 3y ago
    Yeap, and what did the data say
    - Narishma 3y ago
      The data says whatever you interpret it to say.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
I get that, but I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way. And as I mentioned, the flat style hides discoverability, so I think it offsets the usability gains from making the UI appear less cluttered. So sure, maybe extra real estate means we can allow UI elements to breathe a bit, but keep the 3D look on elements that can be interacted with. Buttons should still be buttons. Text should be text. Interactable buttons should not be merely an icon or text.
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  Right, I remember an Apple keynote back in the OS X 10.1 era where the presenters were proud of the drop shadows because they provided a sense of depth, contrast, and clarity. You never hear that kind of talk anymore.
bityard 3y ago
> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, Ah, this is the phrase I see most often when one UX person or team wants to justify throwing out the previous UX person or team's design in order to replace it with their own. On top of that, it is of course very condescending to the users. Especially those who have invested significant amounts of their own time in leaning how to effectively use the existing UI.
- marisnom 3y ago
  Additionally, doesn't changing UIs every few years mess with older and less tech literate users? They have to relearn how to use software they've used for years
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    I liken it to a housesitter rearranging all of the contents of your drawers and closets without your permission.
    - pmontra 3y ago
      This is what gets housesitters fired. Unfortunately we can't fire UX designers, only complain and maybe switch to another tool. The worst is when we selected a tool specifically for its UX and they eventually replace it with a different one we don't like and we wouldn't have selected that tool if it had that UX to start with (cough, K-9, cough.)
      - ant6n 3y ago
        I can keep using the 2003 version of your favorite software, rather than keep updating to the new versions.
        franga2000 3y ago
        2003 maybe, but genuine advancements have been made since then that you probably want. Good luck trying to use the 2016 version of Figma/GDocs/[insert SaaS here] or even desktop software like Adobe CC or MS Office!
acuozzo 3y ago
> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people Except the Japanese?
- housemusicfan 3y ago
  This is so true. I love going on an internet journey and ending up on some present-day Japanese website that looks like it was created in 1997. The modern UI/UX cancer hasn't metastasized over there yet.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    Language barriers, man. You can't defend against bad memes without them.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Seeing Hitoshi Doi's anime information web site, exactly like it was in the 90s, <TABLE> layout and all, is so refreshing: http://www.usagi.org/doi/ http://www.usagi.org/doi/
- userbinator 3y ago
  Or Chinese, which is even denser. If Latin-based languages are the equivalent of the C family, then Chinese and Japanese would be like the APL family.
  - raincole 3y ago
    I'm a native speaker and I find those dense website hard to read. Harder than English (my second language) ones. I think it's a "grass is greener" case. I appreciate the trend of adding extra padding around the English internet a lot. If they're designed like their Chinese counterparts they'll be barely readable for me.
marcus_holmes 3y ago
I think this is true, if we also allow that people who have been using the UI for a while also aren't confused and overwhelmed by it. So the whole UI is being optimised for non-technical new users. Which does make sense commercially - you don't want your product reviews all about how the UI is too complex. But it would be nice to be able to flip a switch and tell the thing "I know what I'm doing now, can I have my pixels back please?"
beachy 3y ago
> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people Not buying it. Most people can deal just fine with spreadsheets, which are the epitome of high density UI. What people don't deal with well are badly designed UIs which present illogical controls and information. And yes, high whitespace UIs results in people seeing less confusing shit on the page, but only because it's now spread across 3 pages, not 1.
- willdr 3y ago
  As someone who works side-by-side with creatives, I think you're being generous with "people can deal just fine with spreadsheets". I've seen multiple creative directors responsible for million-dollar-ad campaigns have to be walked through a simple spreadsheet. Probably time to re-evaluate that prior.
- karaterobot 3y ago
  > Not buying it. Most people can deal just fine with spreadsheets, which are the epitome of high density UI. I bet you're thinking about people who have used spreadsheets before. You might even be thinking of people who use spreadsheets weekly or daily. Try putting them in front of a new user, and you will be shocked. As someone who has performed many usability tests, I can only think of one person who said "I wish this was more dense and complicated", and that fellow sticks out because he is the exception who proves the rule that almost everyone wants it to be simple and above all clear. Most of the time, people just want to know what they should be doing next, and everything else is a potential source of confusion.
  - CraigJPerry 3y ago
    >> Most of the time, people just want to know what they should be doing next, and everything else is a potential source of confusion. I’m kind of upset with myself that i find this statement so profound. I mean it’s such an obvious framing (sadly only in retrospect in my case).
- rahoulb 3y ago
  It depends entirely on your audience. If you're dealing with a hundred people in an office, then the vast majority can probably deal with a high-density UI. Because they are there for work and the UI - and more importantly the concepts underneath that UI and the mental model it requires - will be related to the stuff they already know. But if you're dealing with an audience of millions who are trying to pass the time, or using apps or parts of the system that they rarely interact with, or have no real interest in the device, then a high-density UI will be extremely intimidating. They have no mental model of what is being represented on-screen - and if it's casual usage, they have no desire to spend the energy to learn that mental model. What they will want is the device to have two big buttons saying "do this" or "do that". Which is why the iPhone's grid of icons endures - "I want a bus ticket", "I want the camera", "I want to watch a video". Personally I think the hardest part of UX design is ensuring the model presented on-screen matches the model that the user is expecting. Which has two implications - firstly, it's entirely audience dependent and secondly, the further the UX model and the actual underlying model diverge, the more cracks will appear while people are using it - so you have to design from the bottom up for that given audience.
wolpoli 3y ago
> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people Yet he doesn't seem concerned that the Flat Design part of Material UI is confusing to those same people.
myaccountonhn 3y ago
People also have different navigational patterns. Some will navigate to try to accomplish the task as quick as possible whereas others try to understand every option available to them (I.E. learn the tool holistically) before attempting the task they set out to do.
mendigou 3y ago
But then you look at Japanese (and other far east) websites and they're full of info, buttons, links, etc. Like old western websites! I've always wondered why we diverged so much on UIs between eastern and western countries. Chinese characters pack information in a way that our alphabet doesn't, but that can't be the only reason, can it?
p1necone 3y ago
Optimizing for new users over experienced users in productivity UX design is a big pet peeve for me. You're building software for people to use 5 days a week for their job, make it as easy to use as possible assuming they've spent some time learning how to use it. Don't sacrifice that to optimize for the tiny fraction of time where they're beginners. See also: basing your entire design on usability testing performed with people who are using it for the first time.
- safety1st 3y ago
  It's obvious why they would do this though. They already have your money. You're already locked in. Why would they design the UI for you? They are looking at people who aren't veteran users of the product because those are the ones who will buy it. If someone new to the product can't understand it quickly, they won't buy. Does it suck yes but it's very logical. I gave up on GUIs years ago and just do as much as I can via the terminal. The terminal is the ultimate power user experience.
- rvba 3y ago
  Sharepoint is killing Excel since you cannot link spreadsheets anymore. The shared spreadsheet model is killing productivity. Same for Windows not allowing to sort programs in taskbar the way they were opened. Tons of office workers have multiple documents opened and dont even know how to try to unfuck their taskabar (that is still bad in Windows 10/11).
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  The UI is designed for potential new customers that might give them money, not existing customers that are already giving them money and will continue to give them money no matter what they do.
gmoot 3y ago
Years ago we were re-skinning a product to use Material UI. The launch coincided with a big public announcement. We joked that our VP was going to announce that he was giving everyone in attendance a 32-inch monitor to accommodate all the new whitespace (This was closer to the time when I/O was famous for giving out free stuff).
bmitc 3y ago
Was that an opinion based upon design trends or actual research and studies? And I wonder if any such research ruled out bias that "old" was hard to use and "modern" is easy to use.
troupo 3y ago
I wouldn't trust anyone on the Material UI team to know what they are talking about. They had to do a user research with 600 people to realize that text input fields have to look like text input fields: https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-designs-text-fields-603688b3fe03 https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-d... In their latest iteration they don't even understand the concept of aligning things visually: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643607965935476737.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643607965935476737.html etc. etc.
OliveMate 3y ago
> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, while technical people have developed the skill of sifting through lots of on-screen information and controls. Meanwhile every day I see people struggle to work with the more minimalist UI designs we see today. A lot of options are obfuscated and hidden away under the guise of keeping it clean, when instead the focus ought to be on laying out tools in a way that makes sense and remains in people's memory. And of course every bit of software has different ideas about what minimalist and clean is, so you have to remember multiple ways how to do the same tasks.
nirimda 3y ago
> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, while technical people have developed the skill of sifting through lots of on-screen information and controls. I think part of the problem here is that "high-density UIs" gets used in multiple ways. Some designers, perhaps not those with ready access to users, take high-density UIs to refer to the markings on the screen. A button with borders next to a text field with borders is considered to be higher density than a button without borders next to a text field without borders, because the borders visually divide the field up. And if the border lines provide an affordance (e.g. a button pushed up), then that's complexity (because the lines have different colors, which is more complex than a design where lines all have the same color). But such an interpretation goes against the research of the 80s and 90s. I have never been directed to evidence that "complexity" and "density" refer specifically to visual complexity and visual density as distinct from conceptual complexity and conceptual density or widget complexity and widget density - all the evidence I've ever come across (as in the old evidence, or the medium post by another descendant comment of my parent comment) suggests that visual complexity and density actually operate to clarify conceptual/widget complexity/density. So I think the claims made by practitioners need to inspected and made more precise. What kind of complexity and density are they trying to resolve? And what evidence do they have that this specific kind of complexity and density is problematic, rather than clarifying?
septune 3y ago
Would love a « power user mode » OS level global toggle

seydor 3y ago

> high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, did he give any references?

Alupis 3y ago
These types of people are the reference. They make decisions, deploy it to millions of devices, and collect data. Doesn't' mean they're right, of course.
- seydor 3y ago
  Yeap, and what did the data say
  - Narishma 3y ago
    The data says whatever you interpret it to say.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

I get that, but I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way. And as I mentioned, the flat style hides discoverability, so I think it offsets the usability gains from making the UI appear less cluttered. So sure, maybe extra real estate means we can allow UI elements to breathe a bit, but keep the 3D look on elements that can be interacted with. Buttons should still be buttons. Text should be text. Interactable buttons should not be merely an icon or text.

wildrhythms 3y ago
Right, I remember an Apple keynote back in the OS X 10.1 era where the presenters were proud of the drop shadows because they provided a sense of depth, contrast, and clarity. You never hear that kind of talk anymore.

bityard 3y ago

> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, Ah, this is the phrase I see most often when one UX person or team wants to justify throwing out the previous UX person or team's design in order to replace it with their own. On top of that, it is of course very condescending to the users. Especially those who have invested significant amounts of their own time in leaning how to effectively use the existing UI.

marisnom 3y ago
Additionally, doesn't changing UIs every few years mess with older and less tech literate users? They have to relearn how to use software they've used for years
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  I liken it to a housesitter rearranging all of the contents of your drawers and closets without your permission.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    This is what gets housesitters fired. Unfortunately we can't fire UX designers, only complain and maybe switch to another tool. The worst is when we selected a tool specifically for its UX and they eventually replace it with a different one we don't like and we wouldn't have selected that tool if it had that UX to start with (cough, K-9, cough.)
    - ant6n 3y ago
      I can keep using the 2003 version of your favorite software, rather than keep updating to the new versions.
      - franga2000 3y ago
        2003 maybe, but genuine advancements have been made since then that you probably want. Good luck trying to use the 2016 version of Figma/GDocs/[insert SaaS here] or even desktop software like Adobe CC or MS Office!

acuozzo 3y ago

> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people Except the Japanese?

housemusicfan 3y ago
This is so true. I love going on an internet journey and ending up on some present-day Japanese website that looks like it was created in 1997. The modern UI/UX cancer hasn't metastasized over there yet.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  Language barriers, man. You can't defend against bad memes without them.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Seeing Hitoshi Doi's anime information web site, exactly like it was in the 90s, <TABLE> layout and all, is so refreshing: http://www.usagi.org/doi/ http://www.usagi.org/doi/
userbinator 3y ago
Or Chinese, which is even denser. If Latin-based languages are the equivalent of the C family, then Chinese and Japanese would be like the APL family.
- raincole 3y ago
  I'm a native speaker and I find those dense website hard to read. Harder than English (my second language) ones. I think it's a "grass is greener" case. I appreciate the trend of adding extra padding around the English internet a lot. If they're designed like their Chinese counterparts they'll be barely readable for me.

marcus_holmes 3y ago

I think this is true, if we also allow that people who have been using the UI for a while also aren't confused and overwhelmed by it. So the whole UI is being optimised for non-technical new users. Which does make sense commercially - you don't want your product reviews all about how the UI is too complex. But it would be nice to be able to flip a switch and tell the thing "I know what I'm doing now, can I have my pixels back please?"

beachy 3y ago

> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people Not buying it. Most people can deal just fine with spreadsheets, which are the epitome of high density UI. What people don't deal with well are badly designed UIs which present illogical controls and information. And yes, high whitespace UIs results in people seeing less confusing shit on the page, but only because it's now spread across 3 pages, not 1.

willdr 3y ago
As someone who works side-by-side with creatives, I think you're being generous with "people can deal just fine with spreadsheets". I've seen multiple creative directors responsible for million-dollar-ad campaigns have to be walked through a simple spreadsheet. Probably time to re-evaluate that prior.
karaterobot 3y ago
> Not buying it. Most people can deal just fine with spreadsheets, which are the epitome of high density UI. I bet you're thinking about people who have used spreadsheets before. You might even be thinking of people who use spreadsheets weekly or daily. Try putting them in front of a new user, and you will be shocked. As someone who has performed many usability tests, I can only think of one person who said "I wish this was more dense and complicated", and that fellow sticks out because he is the exception who proves the rule that almost everyone wants it to be simple and above all clear. Most of the time, people just want to know what they should be doing next, and everything else is a potential source of confusion.
- CraigJPerry 3y ago
  >> Most of the time, people just want to know what they should be doing next, and everything else is a potential source of confusion. I’m kind of upset with myself that i find this statement so profound. I mean it’s such an obvious framing (sadly only in retrospect in my case).
rahoulb 3y ago
It depends entirely on your audience. If you're dealing with a hundred people in an office, then the vast majority can probably deal with a high-density UI. Because they are there for work and the UI - and more importantly the concepts underneath that UI and the mental model it requires - will be related to the stuff they already know. But if you're dealing with an audience of millions who are trying to pass the time, or using apps or parts of the system that they rarely interact with, or have no real interest in the device, then a high-density UI will be extremely intimidating. They have no mental model of what is being represented on-screen - and if it's casual usage, they have no desire to spend the energy to learn that mental model. What they will want is the device to have two big buttons saying "do this" or "do that". Which is why the iPhone's grid of icons endures - "I want a bus ticket", "I want the camera", "I want to watch a video". Personally I think the hardest part of UX design is ensuring the model presented on-screen matches the model that the user is expecting. Which has two implications - firstly, it's entirely audience dependent and secondly, the further the UX model and the actual underlying model diverge, the more cracks will appear while people are using it - so you have to design from the bottom up for that given audience.

wolpoli 3y ago

> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people Yet he doesn't seem concerned that the Flat Design part of Material UI is confusing to those same people.

myaccountonhn 3y ago

People also have different navigational patterns. Some will navigate to try to accomplish the task as quick as possible whereas others try to understand every option available to them (I.E. learn the tool holistically) before attempting the task they set out to do.

mendigou 3y ago

But then you look at Japanese (and other far east) websites and they're full of info, buttons, links, etc. Like old western websites! I've always wondered why we diverged so much on UIs between eastern and western countries. Chinese characters pack information in a way that our alphabet doesn't, but that can't be the only reason, can it?

p1necone 3y ago

Optimizing for new users over experienced users in productivity UX design is a big pet peeve for me. You're building software for people to use 5 days a week for their job, make it as easy to use as possible assuming they've spent some time learning how to use it. Don't sacrifice that to optimize for the tiny fraction of time where they're beginners. See also: basing your entire design on usability testing performed with people who are using it for the first time.

safety1st 3y ago
It's obvious why they would do this though. They already have your money. You're already locked in. Why would they design the UI for you? They are looking at people who aren't veteran users of the product because those are the ones who will buy it. If someone new to the product can't understand it quickly, they won't buy. Does it suck yes but it's very logical. I gave up on GUIs years ago and just do as much as I can via the terminal. The terminal is the ultimate power user experience.
rvba 3y ago
Sharepoint is killing Excel since you cannot link spreadsheets anymore. The shared spreadsheet model is killing productivity. Same for Windows not allowing to sort programs in taskbar the way they were opened. Tons of office workers have multiple documents opened and dont even know how to try to unfuck their taskabar (that is still bad in Windows 10/11).
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
The UI is designed for potential new customers that might give them money, not existing customers that are already giving them money and will continue to give them money no matter what they do.

gmoot 3y ago

Years ago we were re-skinning a product to use Material UI. The launch coincided with a big public announcement. We joked that our VP was going to announce that he was giving everyone in attendance a 32-inch monitor to accommodate all the new whitespace (This was closer to the time when I/O was famous for giving out free stuff).

bmitc 3y ago

Was that an opinion based upon design trends or actual research and studies? And I wonder if any such research ruled out bias that "old" was hard to use and "modern" is easy to use.

troupo 3y ago

I wouldn't trust anyone on the Material UI team to know what they are talking about. They had to do a user research with 600 people to realize that text input fields have to look like text input fields: https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-designs-text-fields-603688b3fe03 https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-d... In their latest iteration they don't even understand the concept of aligning things visually: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643607965935476737.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643607965935476737.html etc. etc.

OliveMate 3y ago

> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, while technical people have developed the skill of sifting through lots of on-screen information and controls. Meanwhile every day I see people struggle to work with the more minimalist UI designs we see today. A lot of options are obfuscated and hidden away under the guise of keeping it clean, when instead the focus ought to be on laying out tools in a way that makes sense and remains in people's memory. And of course every bit of software has different ideas about what minimalist and clean is, so you have to remember multiple ways how to do the same tasks.

nirimda 3y ago

> He remarked that high-density UIs confuse and overwhelm most people, while technical people have developed the skill of sifting through lots of on-screen information and controls. I think part of the problem here is that "high-density UIs" gets used in multiple ways. Some designers, perhaps not those with ready access to users, take high-density UIs to refer to the markings on the screen. A button with borders next to a text field with borders is considered to be higher density than a button without borders next to a text field without borders, because the borders visually divide the field up. And if the border lines provide an affordance (e.g. a button pushed up), then that's complexity (because the lines have different colors, which is more complex than a design where lines all have the same color). But such an interpretation goes against the research of the 80s and 90s. I have never been directed to evidence that "complexity" and "density" refer specifically to visual complexity and visual density as distinct from conceptual complexity and conceptual density or widget complexity and widget density - all the evidence I've ever come across (as in the old evidence, or the medium post by another descendant comment of my parent comment) suggests that visual complexity and density actually operate to clarify conceptual/widget complexity/density. So I think the claims made by practitioners need to inspected and made more precise. What kind of complexity and density are they trying to resolve? And what evidence do they have that this specific kind of complexity and density is problematic, rather than clarifying?

septune 3y ago

Would love a « power user mode » OS level global toggle