7 ms·

I think I would describe this as an example of hysteresis. Neat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis

by hurrell 1mo ago

xg15 1mo ago
Interestingly, there are more use cases for hysteresis in UI design, e.g. it was famously used in nested menus in Windows: https://www.mackido.com/Interface/hysteresis.html https://www.mackido.com/Interface/hysteresis.html I think there was also an article about it on The Old New Thing, but I can't seem to find it anymore.
- lelandfe 1mo ago
  Like the HN post we're commenting on, so too does this example also get regurgitated every few years. Find modern examples by Googling "menu safe triangle." Here's one from 5 days ago https://www.framer.com/blog/cursor-trajectory/ https://www.framer.com/blog/cursor-trajectory/ > I asked the Framer Agent to fix it, and within minutes it had built and applied what I now call trajectory-based menu aim
- anonymars 1mo ago
  Is this the one? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080619-00/?p=21903/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080619-00/?p=21...
thaumasiotes 1mo ago
>> Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. How is this different from the observation that, say, a non-magnetic iron ball may have more than one possible velocity in a given gravitional field, depending on whether it was recently thrown upward or dropped from above?
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- womble2 1mo ago
  A ball dropped near the earth's surface will always fall towards the centre of the earth at ~9.81m/s^2 no matter what it has done previously. A chunk of iron put into a 1μT magnetic field will behave differently depending on what other magnetic fields it has been in recently.
  - thaumasiotes 1mo ago
    > A ball dropped near the earth's surface will always fall towards the centre of the earth How exactly does this address "whether it was recently thrown upward or dropped from above"? A ball in a given location will do something unpredictable if you have no information about its past. Is that hysteresis?
    - ErroneousBosh 1mo ago
      If it was recently thrown upward, it is either still travelling upwards away from the centre of the Earth, or it is falling downwards towards the centre of the Earth. So its past is kind of irrelevant. At some point if nothing is supporting it, it will fall towards the centre of the Earth. This is just high school physics.
    - nkrisc 1mo ago
      You don’t need information about its past. Everything you need to know to predict its future state is contained in its current position and velocity at the moment you measure it.
      - yummybrainz 1mo ago
        Is there no measurable quantity in the current state of a magnetized ball that would predict its behavior in a magnetic field then? I'd be surprised if that were the case: seems like it'd violate some sort of "locality", where the future should depend entirely on the present state. Is it just that there's unidentified present state that's perhaps more easily characterized by knowing the history? Or is it somehow unidentifiable in principle?
skrebbel 1mo ago
Umm, either I'm misunderstanding or this holds for nearly every UI everywhere, no? Like if I click "reply" on HN I'm moved to the screen I now type this comment in. That means my current state depends on history, too, no?
- anonymars 1mo ago
  If you click "reply" and copy the resulting link, there is no difference in behavior if you go straight to that link vs clicking "reply" to get there instead Think of a state diagram: "you are at the reply screen" is one and only one state. "The tooltip is shown" is a behavior of more than one state, with different paths to get to those states
amelius 1mo ago
More like Schmitt trigger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger

I think I would describe this as an example of hysteresis. Neat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis

by hurrell 1mo ago

I think I would describe this as an example of hysteresis. Neat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis

xg15 1mo ago

Interestingly, there are more use cases for hysteresis in UI design, e.g. it was famously used in nested menus in Windows: https://www.mackido.com/Interface/hysteresis.html https://www.mackido.com/Interface/hysteresis.html I think there was also an article about it on The Old New Thing, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

lelandfe 1mo ago
Like the HN post we're commenting on, so too does this example also get regurgitated every few years. Find modern examples by Googling "menu safe triangle." Here's one from 5 days ago https://www.framer.com/blog/cursor-trajectory/ https://www.framer.com/blog/cursor-trajectory/ > I asked the Framer Agent to fix it, and within minutes it had built and applied what I now call trajectory-based menu aim
anonymars 1mo ago
Is this the one? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080619-00/?p=21903/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080619-00/?p=21...

thaumasiotes 1mo ago

>> Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. How is this different from the observation that, say, a non-magnetic iron ball may have more than one possible velocity in a given gravitional field, depending on whether it was recently thrown upward or dropped from above?

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
womble2 1mo ago
A ball dropped near the earth's surface will always fall towards the centre of the earth at ~9.81m/s^2 no matter what it has done previously. A chunk of iron put into a 1μT magnetic field will behave differently depending on what other magnetic fields it has been in recently.
- thaumasiotes 1mo ago
  > A ball dropped near the earth's surface will always fall towards the centre of the earth How exactly does this address "whether it was recently thrown upward or dropped from above"? A ball in a given location will do something unpredictable if you have no information about its past. Is that hysteresis?
  - ErroneousBosh 1mo ago
    If it was recently thrown upward, it is either still travelling upwards away from the centre of the Earth, or it is falling downwards towards the centre of the Earth. So its past is kind of irrelevant. At some point if nothing is supporting it, it will fall towards the centre of the Earth. This is just high school physics.
  - nkrisc 1mo ago
    You don’t need information about its past. Everything you need to know to predict its future state is contained in its current position and velocity at the moment you measure it.
    - yummybrainz 1mo ago
      Is there no measurable quantity in the current state of a magnetized ball that would predict its behavior in a magnetic field then? I'd be surprised if that were the case: seems like it'd violate some sort of "locality", where the future should depend entirely on the present state. Is it just that there's unidentified present state that's perhaps more easily characterized by knowing the history? Or is it somehow unidentifiable in principle?

skrebbel 1mo ago

Umm, either I'm misunderstanding or this holds for nearly every UI everywhere, no? Like if I click "reply" on HN I'm moved to the screen I now type this comment in. That means my current state depends on history, too, no?

anonymars 1mo ago
If you click "reply" and copy the resulting link, there is no difference in behavior if you go straight to that link vs clicking "reply" to get there instead Think of a state diagram: "you are at the reply screen" is one and only one state. "The tooltip is shown" is a behavior of more than one state, with different paths to get to those states

amelius 1mo ago

More like Schmitt trigger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger