3 ms·

UI designers are constantly forced to come up with new icons for crazy new features. It's a common practice to look for it on Google images, i.e. "Save Icon",

by radley 15y ago

UI designers are constantly forced to come up with new icons for crazy new features. It's a common practice to look for it on Google images, i.e. "Save Icon", and see if there's a common metaphor. If not, you look for similar use cases - something so that it's much quicker for users to grok what it does. That's the fundamental purpose after all. This was the problem with Google/Android's new icons as well as GitHub. Google got caught up with minimization and left out the telling differentiators. Githup went nuts on illustration and lost the original meanings.

DavidAbrams 15y ago
Yep, and you have supposed "leaders" like Apple that just give up and stop trying. Apple widely just throws up a button with a "gear" on it when they're too lazy to organize functions properly. And there's no telling what the gear button will do. Even worse is the Easter-egg UIs that are becoming a widespread problem: There's no icon (or even control) at all until you accidentally roll the cursor over the area. WTF? Are users supposed to sweep across every pixel on the screen now, looking for hidden goodies?
- radley 14y ago
  Not sure what the gear is you mention, but I can't think of another company that has Apple's drive for intuitive UI, which is the fundamental purpose of icons. In contrast, HN is a text-dominant application designed for text-dominant users...
  - excuse-me 14y ago
    Innovative doesn't mean intuitive - why is pinch zoom? Wouldn't it be more intuitive for pinch to close an app - after all you pinch things closed ?
    - billpatrianakos 14y ago
      Pinch isn't zoom. Unpinch in zoom. It would be intuitive for pinch to close an app, but not more intuitive, because in some apps your intent to zoom out could be confused with wanting to close the app (mobile Safari) and for other apps accidental finger brushes might cause an accidental closing of an app. The way touch gestures work now actually make a lot of sense. It seems like you're reaching.
    - cdcarter 14y ago
      Four finger pinch does close apps, though. And pinch as zoom makes sense if you ever played with newsprint transfered to silly putty!
    - aggie 14y ago
      What flat surface do you close by pinching it? Moreover, it seems you're trying to equate "intuitive gesture" with gestures people use with (non-computer) everyday objects, but I don't see why that is a requirement for intuitiveness. Pinching to zoom in and out makes a lot of sense in my mind. Place your thumb and index finger at two points on a map/image/website. Those two points are two corners of a visual area. To make that visual area larger, expand the points outward. To make the area smaller, pinch inward. This conceptual mapping is very straightforward.

by radley 15y ago

DavidAbrams 15y ago

Yep, and you have supposed "leaders" like Apple that just give up and stop trying. Apple widely just throws up a button with a "gear" on it when they're too lazy to organize functions properly. And there's no telling what the gear button will do. Even worse is the Easter-egg UIs that are becoming a widespread problem: There's no icon (or even control) at all until you accidentally roll the cursor over the area. WTF? Are users supposed to sweep across every pixel on the screen now, looking for hidden goodies?

radley 14y ago
Not sure what the gear is you mention, but I can't think of another company that has Apple's drive for intuitive UI, which is the fundamental purpose of icons. In contrast, HN is a text-dominant application designed for text-dominant users...
- excuse-me 14y ago
  Innovative doesn't mean intuitive - why is pinch zoom? Wouldn't it be more intuitive for pinch to close an app - after all you pinch things closed ?
  - billpatrianakos 14y ago
    Pinch isn't zoom. Unpinch in zoom. It would be intuitive for pinch to close an app, but not more intuitive, because in some apps your intent to zoom out could be confused with wanting to close the app (mobile Safari) and for other apps accidental finger brushes might cause an accidental closing of an app. The way touch gestures work now actually make a lot of sense. It seems like you're reaching.
  - cdcarter 14y ago
    Four finger pinch does close apps, though. And pinch as zoom makes sense if you ever played with newsprint transfered to silly putty!
  - aggie 14y ago
    What flat surface do you close by pinching it? Moreover, it seems you're trying to equate "intuitive gesture" with gestures people use with (non-computer) everyday objects, but I don't see why that is a requirement for intuitiveness. Pinching to zoom in and out makes a lot of sense in my mind. Place your thumb and index finger at two points on a map/image/website. Those two points are two corners of a visual area. To make that visual area larger, expand the points outward. To make the area smaller, pinch inward. This conceptual mapping is very straightforward.