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I'd also like to meet all these mythical users that have devices from every platform and want all their apps to look the same across all platforms. 99% of peopl

by milch 2y ago

I'd also like to meet all these mythical users that have devices from every platform and want all their apps to look the same across all platforms. 99% of people I know IRL are in one ecosystem, with the exception of some that have an iPhone/iPad + Windows PC

basilgohar 2y ago
It's not the end users that care about the uniformity but the fact the corporate design team wants there to be uniformity across all their platforms they support. This is part of branding and user experience. I'm not arguing for or against, just stating that is where the push for this comes from. It would make support, for example, easier, if all versions of your app user experience were similar.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  I'm not quite sure why this was downvoted. It's true.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    It's because while it's true on the company side, this comment is making it seem as if the company is doing this against their users' will, while in reality, most users genuinely want a unified experience across platforms for their apps, as seen by some of the comments here.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      It doesn't seem to mention it being done against anyone's will. It's definitely true that a company can save money by only needing to maintain one set of help instruction screenshots, for example.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      Right, but you continually conflate "unified experience" with "using custom UI controls".
      - satvikpendem 2y ago
        I never said they must be custom, merely that custom makes it easier to implement.
- dickersnoodle 2y ago
  This is very true, and it's a PITA when the corporate design team doesn't know anything about mobile design and thinks mobile apps are just "Honey, I shrunk the web app" with some Figma plugins to help. It can be an uphill battle to get them to compromise.
zdragnar 2y ago
Hello! I use three platforms on a daily basis. I vastly prefer my apps to be reasonably consistent with themselves rather than trying too hard to adhere to the platform. My wife is on two. Most of my friends are on either two or three. In fact, I'm pretty sure my parents and a few coworkers are the only people I know who are exclusively on one platform. Many (most?) people don't have a clue as to what the particulars of any given platform even are. They know how to get around in each app they use, and maybe the web browser, and that's it. Lots of gestures go completely unused.
maeil 2y ago
Ever since the release of the M1, the number of Android users who now use Macbooks as their laptop has sharply increased. Even moreso for work purposes.
nl 2y ago
I use MacOS, iOS and desktop Linux regularly and much prefer apps that act the same on them all. Maybe 40% of the developers I know use MacOS + Android.
satvikpendem 2y ago
In a previous company when we were looking at precisely this problem, building out multiple platform support, we did UX studies where this question in particular came up. The vast majority of people said they wanted apps to act consistently across devices. Most people on the planet use Windows with Android, statistically speaking, which are not similar devices at all, at least on Apple platforms you can use Swift for desktop and phone but not so for Windows and Android, so you have to make a choice at that point.
- Someone 2y ago
  > The vast majority of people said they wanted apps to act consistently across devices You shouldn’t trust what users say they want. It many times doesn’t correlate with what they want. Certainly, I would try and figure out what they mean with “act consistently”. My suspicion (for which I have zero evidence) is that they’re more talking about high-level similarity than about nitty-gritty details such as how many milliseconds to hold your finger down to select and edit text, how scrolling works, etc. Also, I suspect they want devices to act constantly across apps, too: copy-paste should work, text editing should behave identically, sharing controls should be the same, etc. In the current world (and, I think, in any world where there is competition in any form between platforms), they cannot get both, so then, it boils down to what is more important. For me, that’s platform consistency. For example, I find it easier to get used to text editing being different on a phone and on a laptop than to get used to a zillion minor inconveniences/annoyances in typing and editing behavior between apps. I also find it less of a problem if text and emoji look slightly different on a different device than when they look slightly different between apps.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    > You shouldn’t trust what users say they want. How should I interpret the following four paragraphs where you say what you want?
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    If you have zero evidence against the mountains of evidence I do have, why should I be convinced of your argument. It seems like it is you who are talking subjectively about what you want and then applying that to everyone else.
naasking 2y ago
> I'd also like to meet all these mythical users that have devices from every platform and want all their apps to look the same across all platforms. It's not even a single person that has them, but I think we have all had the experience of family or friends that need assistance with something but they have a different type of phone whose organization and workflow is completely different because it's native. You literally can't help in this scenario without having physical access to the device.

by milch 2y ago

basilgohar 2y ago

It's not the end users that care about the uniformity but the fact the corporate design team wants there to be uniformity across all their platforms they support. This is part of branding and user experience. I'm not arguing for or against, just stating that is where the push for this comes from. It would make support, for example, easier, if all versions of your app user experience were similar.

robertlagrant 2y ago
I'm not quite sure why this was downvoted. It's true.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  It's because while it's true on the company side, this comment is making it seem as if the company is doing this against their users' will, while in reality, most users genuinely want a unified experience across platforms for their apps, as seen by some of the comments here.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    It doesn't seem to mention it being done against anyone's will. It's definitely true that a company can save money by only needing to maintain one set of help instruction screenshots, for example.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Right, but you continually conflate "unified experience" with "using custom UI controls".
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      I never said they must be custom, merely that custom makes it easier to implement.
dickersnoodle 2y ago
This is very true, and it's a PITA when the corporate design team doesn't know anything about mobile design and thinks mobile apps are just "Honey, I shrunk the web app" with some Figma plugins to help. It can be an uphill battle to get them to compromise.

zdragnar 2y ago

Hello! I use three platforms on a daily basis. I vastly prefer my apps to be reasonably consistent with themselves rather than trying too hard to adhere to the platform. My wife is on two. Most of my friends are on either two or three. In fact, I'm pretty sure my parents and a few coworkers are the only people I know who are exclusively on one platform. Many (most?) people don't have a clue as to what the particulars of any given platform even are. They know how to get around in each app they use, and maybe the web browser, and that's it. Lots of gestures go completely unused.

maeil 2y ago

Ever since the release of the M1, the number of Android users who now use Macbooks as their laptop has sharply increased. Even moreso for work purposes.

nl 2y ago

I use MacOS, iOS and desktop Linux regularly and much prefer apps that act the same on them all. Maybe 40% of the developers I know use MacOS + Android.

satvikpendem 2y ago

In a previous company when we were looking at precisely this problem, building out multiple platform support, we did UX studies where this question in particular came up. The vast majority of people said they wanted apps to act consistently across devices. Most people on the planet use Windows with Android, statistically speaking, which are not similar devices at all, at least on Apple platforms you can use Swift for desktop and phone but not so for Windows and Android, so you have to make a choice at that point.

Someone 2y ago
> The vast majority of people said they wanted apps to act consistently across devices You shouldn’t trust what users say they want. It many times doesn’t correlate with what they want. Certainly, I would try and figure out what they mean with “act consistently”. My suspicion (for which I have zero evidence) is that they’re more talking about high-level similarity than about nitty-gritty details such as how many milliseconds to hold your finger down to select and edit text, how scrolling works, etc. Also, I suspect they want devices to act constantly across apps, too: copy-paste should work, text editing should behave identically, sharing controls should be the same, etc. In the current world (and, I think, in any world where there is competition in any form between platforms), they cannot get both, so then, it boils down to what is more important. For me, that’s platform consistency. For example, I find it easier to get used to text editing being different on a phone and on a laptop than to get used to a zillion minor inconveniences/annoyances in typing and editing behavior between apps. I also find it less of a problem if text and emoji look slightly different on a different device than when they look slightly different between apps.
- kibwen 2y ago
  > You shouldn’t trust what users say they want. How should I interpret the following four paragraphs where you say what you want?
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  If you have zero evidence against the mountains of evidence I do have, why should I be convinced of your argument. It seems like it is you who are talking subjectively about what you want and then applying that to everyone else.

naasking 2y ago

> I'd also like to meet all these mythical users that have devices from every platform and want all their apps to look the same across all platforms. It's not even a single person that has them, but I think we have all had the experience of family or friends that need assistance with something but they have a different type of phone whose organization and workflow is completely different because it's native. You literally can't help in this scenario without having physical access to the device.