4 ms·

What Interface Engineers Wish Designers Knew

4 points by timf 18y ago

ahoyhere 18y ago
The "interface engineers" are the developers, and the "designers" forget that Photoshop is static and web apps are not? The problem is that they hired the wrong people. Perhaps they'd prefer to hire "interface designers" instead. I hear they understand that Photoshop is not static, and do not use bizarre print advertising terms like "lockups." Netflix has never had a good UI. They have a great business, but the UI is fair to middling at best. If there's any doubt about this, just remember the system for reordering your queue, which involved entering arbitrary numbers into text fields.
- weaksauce 18y ago
  Or you could drag and drop them like a normal desktop application. I actually find that netflix has a pretty usable interface. Maybe it's not the best but very usable for most intents and purposes. If your only option was to use the text boxes then it would be a whole different story as that is a usability nightmare.
  - ahoyhere 18y ago
    If they added drag n drop, it was after I used it. I had the service initially when it came out, and for years, the text box was the only option.
    - weaksauce 18y ago
      They must have added it after you left. They must have hired on some usability gurus to make the site very user friendly(in my eyes, but I am not a typical user). For Example, they added a javascript hover over a movie title in the list and they "pop-in" an info box of the movie that you are interested in while your mouse is hovered over the title. This does not prevent you from clicking through but it is an easy way to decide if the link is actually worth clicking on. Another example of the UI adding instead of detracting from the overall experience is when you actually add a movie to your queue. Another pop-in happens that gives you more recommendations based on the movie that you picked. The key thing that makes it usable is that when you are done looking at the recommendations you can close the pop-in and you are back at the original list of titles without any jarring transitions. There is another subtle way in which they make the pop-in more usable by making the original page visible behind the pop-in at all times. This keeps your sense of where you are in the netflix site. I am definitely not saying that they have a great UI. Just that they have a UI that works well for most use cases.

4 points by timf 18y ago

The "interface engineers" are the developers, and the "designers" forget that Photoshop is static and web apps are not? The problem is that they hired the wrong people. Perhaps they'd prefer to hire "interface designers" instead. I hear they understand that Photoshop is not static, and do not use bizarre print advertising terms like "lockups." Netflix has never had a good UI. They have a great business, but the UI is fair to middling at best. If there's any doubt about this, just remember the system for reordering your queue, which involved entering arbitrary numbers into text fields.

weaksauce 18y ago
Or you could drag and drop them like a normal desktop application. I actually find that netflix has a pretty usable interface. Maybe it's not the best but very usable for most intents and purposes. If your only option was to use the text boxes then it would be a whole different story as that is a usability nightmare.
- ahoyhere 18y ago
  If they added drag n drop, it was after I used it. I had the service initially when it came out, and for years, the text box was the only option.
  - weaksauce 18y ago
    They must have added it after you left. They must have hired on some usability gurus to make the site very user friendly(in my eyes, but I am not a typical user). For Example, they added a javascript hover over a movie title in the list and they "pop-in" an info box of the movie that you are interested in while your mouse is hovered over the title. This does not prevent you from clicking through but it is an easy way to decide if the link is actually worth clicking on. Another example of the UI adding instead of detracting from the overall experience is when you actually add a movie to your queue. Another pop-in happens that gives you more recommendations based on the movie that you picked. The key thing that makes it usable is that when you are done looking at the recommendations you can close the pop-in and you are back at the original list of titles without any jarring transitions. There is another subtle way in which they make the pop-in more usable by making the original page visible behind the pop-in at all times. This keeps your sense of where you are in the netflix site. I am definitely not saying that they have a great UI. Just that they have a UI that works well for most use cases.