4 ms·

The basics: you are not your users. Just because it’s easy for you, doesn’t mean it’s easy for others. That is the entire basis of usability work. I cannot beli

The basics: you are not your users. Just because it’s easy for you, doesn’t mean it’s easy for others. That is the entire basis of usability work. I cannot believe how resistant the tech community, like above, is to the very basics of human cognition. It’s your comment that’s the rant. OP has actual data from decades of research they are applying. Quoting myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303387

josephg 2y ago
Thankyou. I’ve been using computers for 35 years (I grew up using xtree to navigate folders on DOS). It would never have occurred to me that both sides of that view options dropdown do different things. Perhaps it’s intuitive for others, but I’ve never seen that before in my life. I’m increasingly of the opinion that I hate almost all novel interaction patterns in user interfaces. UI components and flows should stick as close to common patterns / system defaults as possible - and no, your app, whatever it is, is not an exception
- lbschenkel 2y ago
  Exactly. The traditional design language is that an arrow besides a button indicates that the button will show a drop-down when pressed (traditionally without a line separating the two), or that clicking on the button will do the default action while clicking on the arrow will show all the actions (traditionally with a thin line separating the two). Reusing that design language but making the button and the arrow two completely different buttons with their own actions sets wrong expectations for no good reason.
kaba0 2y ago
What data does he have? OP wrote a basic opinion-piece on what they dislike. It’s just as valuable as the parent commenter’s opinion, so we can only say that one user found some feature hard to find. There is no ultimate design, and striving for 100% of users knowing everything immediately is just unrealistic. If we are at opinions, I really dislike this absolutely tone-deaf attacking of GNOME that is always happening under these threads. There is criticism, and there is blind hate. There is definitely places to improve, though, but the style of writing matters.
- imtringued 2y ago
  I enjoy GNOME and would prefer a gtk4/libadwaita based UI for e.g. FreeCAD. I brought this up as a counter example to the frequent negativity in GNOME related discussions.
- savolai 2y ago
  This should help you trace the argumentation to cited research that is certainly not ”tone deaf”: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ 1. *Consistency and Standards* Claim: "The 'View Options' dropdown didn't contain view options, but rather sort options, and I didn't realize it was a split button with two completely different functions." Violation: This breaks Consistency and Standards. The user expects consistent terminology and functionality, but the dropdown name doesn't match what it actually does, leading to confusion. 2. *Visibility of System Status* Claim: "Hidden scroll bars... hides information not only about what I can do with the GUI itself, but also about where I'm currently positioned." Violation: Violates Visibility of System Status. Hidden scrollbars prevent the user from knowing their position in the list or file system, making it difficult to navigate. 3. *User Control and Freedom* Claim: "I miss a button for going one level up, to the parent directory. There are buttons for going back and forward in the navigation history, but that's not the same thing." Violation: Violates User Control and Freedom. Not having an obvious way to go up a directory removes essential control, forcing users to rely on less intuitive navigation methods. 4. *Recognition Rather Than Recall* Claim: "It seems this editing mode can only be activated using a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-L, which isn’t immediately apparent—or, to be frank, very logical." Violation: Violates Recognition Rather than Recall. The user should not need to remember specific keyboard shortcuts to access common functionality. The UI should present these options visibly. 5. *Error Prevention* Claim: "Moving windows by clicking on icons that already have a specific function feels unintuitive and introduces an unnecessary risk of misclicking." Violation: Violates Error Prevention. The user can easily move the window unintentionally when trying to interact with icons, which increases the chance of errors. 6. *Help and Documentation* Claim: "Searching and then browsing the built-in help for 'list view' didn’t actually help me find out how to enable the list view." Violation: Violates Help and Documentation. The help system fails to guide users to solutions for basic tasks, which defeats its purpose. 7. *Aesthetic and Minimalist Design* Claim: "Tooltips are either misleading, or comically uninformative and thus annoyingly distracting." Violation: Violates Aesthetic and Minimalist Design. Tooltips should convey useful information without being intrusive. Redundant and irrelevant tooltips clutter the interface. 8. *Flexibility and Efficiency of Use* Claim: "In Gnome Files, we’re instead given a handful of features scattered across the UI. Hidden features (accessible solely through keyboard shortcuts) can only be learned by browsing what is best described as a non-interactive menu." Violation: Violates Flexibility and Efficiency of Use. Hidden shortcuts reduce the efficiency for experienced users and make the interface less discoverable. 9. *Match Between System and the Real World* Claim: "Menu names and their contents are confusing, with 'View Options' actually being sort options." Violation: Violates Match Between System and the Real World. The system should use terminology and design elements that align with user expectations, but here the names contradict their function. 10. *Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors* Claim: "Context-clicking in the top part of the window gives spurious and unpredictable results." Violation: Violates Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors. Inconsistent behavior in the context-click menus makes it difficult for users to understand or recover from unexpected results.
627467 2y ago
One problem I see of "usability professionals" here and elsewhere is how arguments go little beyond: 1. "you are not the users" - certainly when talking about many apps like a file explorer any user is a user - not all users. 2. "Disheartened by tech community dismissal of basic human cognition" and "decades of research" without actually citing and ideally elaborating on research that many times is targetting very narrow scopes.
- savolai 2y ago
  1. Users have plenty of individual characteristics. If even ordinarily capable user’s can’t deduce what button does what, forget people with disbilities. It’s obvious you need to usability test this stuff. Gnome has neglected their basic duties. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/ 2. Human-Computer Interaction is a scientific field within Computer Science, and this is stuff from any 101 course. Do we really need to cite belief in gravity each time just because self-appointed ”developers” haven’t done the work of learning the basics? Start here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
  - 627467 2y ago
    ...and here is my missing point 3. "Citing Norman heuristics like gospel"
    - savolai 2y ago
      The citations you asked for are on those pages. If you can actually dispute them, I’d be more than willing to hear about it.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

josephg 2y ago

Thankyou. I’ve been using computers for 35 years (I grew up using xtree to navigate folders on DOS). It would never have occurred to me that both sides of that view options dropdown do different things. Perhaps it’s intuitive for others, but I’ve never seen that before in my life. I’m increasingly of the opinion that I hate almost all novel interaction patterns in user interfaces. UI components and flows should stick as close to common patterns / system defaults as possible - and no, your app, whatever it is, is not an exception

lbschenkel 2y ago
Exactly. The traditional design language is that an arrow besides a button indicates that the button will show a drop-down when pressed (traditionally without a line separating the two), or that clicking on the button will do the default action while clicking on the arrow will show all the actions (traditionally with a thin line separating the two). Reusing that design language but making the button and the arrow two completely different buttons with their own actions sets wrong expectations for no good reason.

kaba0 2y ago

What data does he have? OP wrote a basic opinion-piece on what they dislike. It’s just as valuable as the parent commenter’s opinion, so we can only say that one user found some feature hard to find. There is no ultimate design, and striving for 100% of users knowing everything immediately is just unrealistic. If we are at opinions, I really dislike this absolutely tone-deaf attacking of GNOME that is always happening under these threads. There is criticism, and there is blind hate. There is definitely places to improve, though, but the style of writing matters.

imtringued 2y ago
I enjoy GNOME and would prefer a gtk4/libadwaita based UI for e.g. FreeCAD. I brought this up as a counter example to the frequent negativity in GNOME related discussions.
savolai 2y ago
This should help you trace the argumentation to cited research that is certainly not ”tone deaf”: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ 1. *Consistency and Standards* Claim: "The 'View Options' dropdown didn't contain view options, but rather sort options, and I didn't realize it was a split button with two completely different functions." Violation: This breaks Consistency and Standards. The user expects consistent terminology and functionality, but the dropdown name doesn't match what it actually does, leading to confusion. 2. *Visibility of System Status* Claim: "Hidden scroll bars... hides information not only about what I can do with the GUI itself, but also about where I'm currently positioned." Violation: Violates Visibility of System Status. Hidden scrollbars prevent the user from knowing their position in the list or file system, making it difficult to navigate. 3. *User Control and Freedom* Claim: "I miss a button for going one level up, to the parent directory. There are buttons for going back and forward in the navigation history, but that's not the same thing." Violation: Violates User Control and Freedom. Not having an obvious way to go up a directory removes essential control, forcing users to rely on less intuitive navigation methods. 4. *Recognition Rather Than Recall* Claim: "It seems this editing mode can only be activated using a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-L, which isn’t immediately apparent—or, to be frank, very logical." Violation: Violates Recognition Rather than Recall. The user should not need to remember specific keyboard shortcuts to access common functionality. The UI should present these options visibly. 5. *Error Prevention* Claim: "Moving windows by clicking on icons that already have a specific function feels unintuitive and introduces an unnecessary risk of misclicking." Violation: Violates Error Prevention. The user can easily move the window unintentionally when trying to interact with icons, which increases the chance of errors. 6. *Help and Documentation* Claim: "Searching and then browsing the built-in help for 'list view' didn’t actually help me find out how to enable the list view." Violation: Violates Help and Documentation. The help system fails to guide users to solutions for basic tasks, which defeats its purpose. 7. *Aesthetic and Minimalist Design* Claim: "Tooltips are either misleading, or comically uninformative and thus annoyingly distracting." Violation: Violates Aesthetic and Minimalist Design. Tooltips should convey useful information without being intrusive. Redundant and irrelevant tooltips clutter the interface. 8. *Flexibility and Efficiency of Use* Claim: "In Gnome Files, we’re instead given a handful of features scattered across the UI. Hidden features (accessible solely through keyboard shortcuts) can only be learned by browsing what is best described as a non-interactive menu." Violation: Violates Flexibility and Efficiency of Use. Hidden shortcuts reduce the efficiency for experienced users and make the interface less discoverable. 9. *Match Between System and the Real World* Claim: "Menu names and their contents are confusing, with 'View Options' actually being sort options." Violation: Violates Match Between System and the Real World. The system should use terminology and design elements that align with user expectations, but here the names contradict their function. 10. *Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors* Claim: "Context-clicking in the top part of the window gives spurious and unpredictable results." Violation: Violates Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors. Inconsistent behavior in the context-click menus makes it difficult for users to understand or recover from unexpected results.

627467 2y ago

One problem I see of "usability professionals" here and elsewhere is how arguments go little beyond: 1. "you are not the users" - certainly when talking about many apps like a file explorer any user is a user - not all users. 2. "Disheartened by tech community dismissal of basic human cognition" and "decades of research" without actually citing and ideally elaborating on research that many times is targetting very narrow scopes.

savolai 2y ago
1. Users have plenty of individual characteristics. If even ordinarily capable user’s can’t deduce what button does what, forget people with disbilities. It’s obvious you need to usability test this stuff. Gnome has neglected their basic duties. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/ 2. Human-Computer Interaction is a scientific field within Computer Science, and this is stuff from any 101 course. Do we really need to cite belief in gravity each time just because self-appointed ”developers” haven’t done the work of learning the basics? Start here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
- 627467 2y ago
  ...and here is my missing point 3. "Citing Norman heuristics like gospel"
  - savolai 2y ago
    The citations you asked for are on those pages. If you can actually dispute them, I’d be more than willing to hear about it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]