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> The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers It's backwards. It's for the UI designers to justify the money spent on

by esafak 1y ago

> The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers It's backwards. It's for the UI designers to justify the money spent on them. They can't just sit there and do nothing. Designing is their job! It's the same with every position.

wtallis 1y ago
It's a management failure. Either management is directly approving gratuitous UI redesigns, or they're making the mistake of giving designers unrestrained freedom to decide what UI changes ship.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  Or they needed some kind of glossy faux-development to headline the marketing year when Apple AI tanked, and this was the best they could cobble together at relatively short notice. Meanwhile I get regular connection issues on Facetime on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, even though bandwidth isn't a problem here.
diegof79 1y ago
Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s? I see many angry comments because it's a change without a practical reason, and it's meant to make things more "new" or "fresh" at the cost of CPU and GPU resources. That's a valid complaint since making old devices obsolete is a design choice. However, it's good to see it from a humane perspective. Fashion trends change because they are associated with identity, novelty, status, self-expression, etc. Companies make fashion changes to appeal to those things. For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion; however, everybody uses the same phone every day, just as they do with a pair of shoes. For us, working on programming or software design, the phone is just a tool, but for most people, the phone is a form of self-expression (like using single or double quotes in code, or tabs vs spaces). And every few years, tech companies undergo a fashion refresh. So, even if Apple fires all the visual designers and keeps the same design for many years, people will likely grow bored with their UIs, which will push them toward competitors offering more stylish options.
- esafak 1y ago
  I agree! The problem is that in software users don't have to option of retaining the old UI while updating the rest of the product, so there's always a fuss when some people prefer the old UI but are unwillingly forced to use the new one.
- wtallis 1y ago
  The problem is this mindset that constant UI churn chasing "fashion" could ever be purely superficial and harmless. You say people would grow bored with a UI that never changes, but on the other hand, people learn to use a UI that doesn't constantly change. Changing UI layout obviously breaks muscle memory, but even just reskinning the same layout with a new color scheme that changes the relative visual prominence of different UI elements brings usability penalties. It's rare that any UI change is purely beneficial or has no effect on usability. Unless proven otherwise, any UI change should be assumed to impose some usability harm on existing users, and the potential usability benefits of the change need to be weighed against that harm. Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real.
  - RandomBacon 1y ago
    The downsides are enormous for older people. We are increasingly making everything digital, and it's leaving the older generations that cannot constantly adapt and relearn as their memory gets worse, in trouble.
  - diegof79 1y ago
    > Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real. Wow, you are barking at the wrong tree. In my comment, I didn't say that the UI style changes were good or bad for usability. The comment thread had two postures: either these design changes have a business reason, or they are there to justify the designer's salary. I wanted to highlight a third plausible reason: people crave experiencing something new, which is why businesses reflect that. For example, I love the classic Mac OS B&W style, but if Apple maintains the same style from 1984 to the present, many people will perceive it as outdated. (In fact, I remember reading MacOS 9 reviews pre-Aqua, that many comments highlighted how MacOS looked legacy compared to Windows 95.) I'm not defending poor style changes or implying that they don't affect usability.

by esafak 1y ago

wtallis 1y ago

It's a management failure. Either management is directly approving gratuitous UI redesigns, or they're making the mistake of giving designers unrestrained freedom to decide what UI changes ship.

TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
Or they needed some kind of glossy faux-development to headline the marketing year when Apple AI tanked, and this was the best they could cobble together at relatively short notice. Meanwhile I get regular connection issues on Facetime on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, even though bandwidth isn't a problem here.

diegof79 1y ago

Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s? I see many angry comments because it's a change without a practical reason, and it's meant to make things more "new" or "fresh" at the cost of CPU and GPU resources. That's a valid complaint since making old devices obsolete is a design choice. However, it's good to see it from a humane perspective. Fashion trends change because they are associated with identity, novelty, status, self-expression, etc. Companies make fashion changes to appeal to those things. For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion; however, everybody uses the same phone every day, just as they do with a pair of shoes. For us, working on programming or software design, the phone is just a tool, but for most people, the phone is a form of self-expression (like using single or double quotes in code, or tabs vs spaces). And every few years, tech companies undergo a fashion refresh. So, even if Apple fires all the visual designers and keeps the same design for many years, people will likely grow bored with their UIs, which will push them toward competitors offering more stylish options.

esafak 1y ago
I agree! The problem is that in software users don't have to option of retaining the old UI while updating the rest of the product, so there's always a fuss when some people prefer the old UI but are unwillingly forced to use the new one.
wtallis 1y ago
The problem is this mindset that constant UI churn chasing "fashion" could ever be purely superficial and harmless. You say people would grow bored with a UI that never changes, but on the other hand, people learn to use a UI that doesn't constantly change. Changing UI layout obviously breaks muscle memory, but even just reskinning the same layout with a new color scheme that changes the relative visual prominence of different UI elements brings usability penalties. It's rare that any UI change is purely beneficial or has no effect on usability. Unless proven otherwise, any UI change should be assumed to impose some usability harm on existing users, and the potential usability benefits of the change need to be weighed against that harm. Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real.
- RandomBacon 1y ago
  The downsides are enormous for older people. We are increasingly making everything digital, and it's leaving the older generations that cannot constantly adapt and relearn as their memory gets worse, in trouble.
- diegof79 1y ago
  > Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real. Wow, you are barking at the wrong tree. In my comment, I didn't say that the UI style changes were good or bad for usability. The comment thread had two postures: either these design changes have a business reason, or they are there to justify the designer's salary. I wanted to highlight a third plausible reason: people crave experiencing something new, which is why businesses reflect that. For example, I love the classic Mac OS B&W style, but if Apple maintains the same style from 1984 to the present, many people will perceive it as outdated. (In fact, I remember reading MacOS 9 reviews pre-Aqua, that many comments highlighted how MacOS looked legacy compared to Windows 95.) I'm not defending poor style changes or implying that they don't affect usability.