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"Which explains things like android’s less-than-beautiful UI". They have improved their UI a lot in version 4 and above. I really like new artifacts they introd

by um304 14y ago

"Which explains things like android’s less-than-beautiful UI". They have improved their UI a lot in version 4 and above. I really like new artifacts they introduced such as ActionBars. You can see them implemented in GMail app and you can't label it "less-than-beautiful".

myko 14y ago
Android looks so much better than iOS in 4.0+ (on Nexus devices at least) that I'm surprised to hear people still say this. It's at least close (though to me it's no competition as to which OS is more aesthetically pleasing). That's not to say a lot of 3rd party apps on Android aren't horrendous looking, because that is true.
securingsincity 14y ago
Perhaps it is because he spent more on the source control process that I feel like this portion of the piece was really lacking. I would have liked to have heard a little bit more about google's design process.
scorpion032 14y ago
They have improved a lot under Matias, who clearly has more than just a very good design sense (the ability to get it done.): https://plus.google.com/114892667463719782631/posts https://plus.google.com/114892667463719782631/posts
lnanek2 14y ago
I think they've been going the wrong way lately, personally. I have trouble figuring out all the unlabeled icons myself whenever I use an app I don't use every day. Took me a while to even figure out what happened to the foursquare check in button when it became a small tiny unlabeled icon. I know I can tap and hold, but I've never seen any one else do that, never seen a user do that in a user study, and it's a pain in the ass doing it for a ton of glyphs in an interface. I'm more likely to just assume functionality doesn't exist then go tap and hold on half a dozen icons. My users in apps I launch with the new style guidelines have horrendous times due to not noticing the main action is often an unlabeled icon with no chrome in the top right action bar, etc.. Often they flounder around in the app doing what they can tapping on content directly and never even try or notice the action bar icons. Do flat, chromeless, unlabeled icons look good? Yes, but they are about as unusable as possible. The worst thing is that we are forced to follow Google guidelines if we want to get featured, and their design guide is a piece of crap not backed up by user studies. So we developers end up implementing all these stupid work arounds, like a tutorial overlay the first time any screen is shown with a big freaking white arrow and some text pointing to the otherwise unnoticeable corner icons...

by um304 14y ago

myko 14y ago

Android looks so much better than iOS in 4.0+ (on Nexus devices at least) that I'm surprised to hear people still say this. It's at least close (though to me it's no competition as to which OS is more aesthetically pleasing). That's not to say a lot of 3rd party apps on Android aren't horrendous looking, because that is true.

securingsincity 14y ago

Perhaps it is because he spent more on the source control process that I feel like this portion of the piece was really lacking. I would have liked to have heard a little bit more about google's design process.

scorpion032 14y ago

They have improved a lot under Matias, who clearly has more than just a very good design sense (the ability to get it done.): https://plus.google.com/114892667463719782631/posts https://plus.google.com/114892667463719782631/posts

lnanek2 14y ago

I think they've been going the wrong way lately, personally. I have trouble figuring out all the unlabeled icons myself whenever I use an app I don't use every day. Took me a while to even figure out what happened to the foursquare check in button when it became a small tiny unlabeled icon. I know I can tap and hold, but I've never seen any one else do that, never seen a user do that in a user study, and it's a pain in the ass doing it for a ton of glyphs in an interface. I'm more likely to just assume functionality doesn't exist then go tap and hold on half a dozen icons. My users in apps I launch with the new style guidelines have horrendous times due to not noticing the main action is often an unlabeled icon with no chrome in the top right action bar, etc.. Often they flounder around in the app doing what they can tapping on content directly and never even try or notice the action bar icons. Do flat, chromeless, unlabeled icons look good? Yes, but they are about as unusable as possible. The worst thing is that we are forced to follow Google guidelines if we want to get featured, and their design guide is a piece of crap not backed up by user studies. So we developers end up implementing all these stupid work arounds, like a tutorial overlay the first time any screen is shown with a big freaking white arrow and some text pointing to the otherwise unnoticeable corner icons...