7 ms·

I recently watched a 65 year old woman use an iPad for the first time. One thing I noticed right away about her interaction was she struggled to realize that ma

by mbesto 12y ago

I recently watched a 65 year old woman use an iPad for the first time. One thing I noticed right away about her interaction was she struggled to realize that many blue text words were actually buttons (see the Send button in this screenshot[0]). IMO, this has been one of the biggest design failures of recent Apple software. [0] - http://313e5987718b346aaf83-f5e825270f29a84f7881423410384342.r78.cf1.rackcdn.com/1401762828-messages_hero.jpg http://313e5987718b346aaf83-f5e825270f29a84f7881423410384342...

skywhopper 12y ago
I definitely agree that the UI of buttons in iOS is broken now. The blue is only a useful hint if you are 1) a long-time web user, and 2) not color-blind.
cja 12y ago
I'm an Android user since v2 and have watched it become so much less usable over time. The average person has no idea what is clickable and what is not in v5. This causes fear and confusion. My wife (aged 30 and intelligent) cannot reliably send SMSs on her Nexus 5.
- JTon 12y ago
  I haven't used v5 so I cannot comment on that transition. However I was around for the transition from v3 to v4 and I'm pretty sure the common sentiment was it was strides more usable. Also, without malice, I find it pretty shocking your wife cannot reliably send an SMS.
- brianclements 12y ago
  IMO, Android 4 was the pinnacle of stability and usability in their lineage. I had a Moto X and 2012 Nexus 7. The upgrade to Android 5 on my Nexus was saddening; it was different for the sake of being different, and it fixed problems that didn't exist (and introduced many new ones).
  - worklogin 12y ago
    Even 4.1 was much better than 4.4 - all the migration from text and contoured buttons to symbols. an open eye for "turn off snooze" on the alarm is indicative of what I think is really poor design.
- sogen 12y ago
  Agreed, I loved the old iPhone 3 UI, since then, it has gone to hell. Android is also in that hell, with the "Flat UI", and my brain hurts trying to find what's clickable. Damn you flat ui!
  - phkahler 12y ago
    >> Agreed, I loved the old iPhone 3 UI, since then, it has gone to hell. Android is also in that hell, with the "Flat UI", and my brain hurts trying to find what's clickable. The whole point of going with raised buttons and such was to provide a visual cue as to what was clickable. It seems UI people who missed the early 90's are getting to relearn this lesson. When I saw flat I just shook my head.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      It really seems to go in cycles. We've gone from flat UIs (think ncurses-based) to using texture and shadow (90's - mid 2000s), and now all the way back to flat again. I'll never understand why these designer types think that discarding all of that context is a good thing.
      - Loughla 12y ago
        It happens in all areas of everything. I'm convinced. It comes in cycles, because of generational retirements/career transitions. Younger/newer folks don't have the experience to know what the older/more experienced folks do. The older/more experienced folks do a bad job of documenting their experiences for the next group. I'm thoroughly convinced I'm correct, but have no data to back it up.
        sogen 12y ago
        We should do a head-to-head competition between two Grandmothers, one armed with an iPad2 using iOs6 and another one using iOs8 and let them do the same tasks, and measure the time it takes to do those tasks. Count me in!
gschrader 12y ago
I just noticed, the "Button Shapes" accessibility option helps a bit.
csixty4 12y ago
I agree 100%. But I also remember posts on different forums about how button shapes are a skeuomorphic anachronism that nobody needs anymore. So if Apple didn't address that audience, they'd still be screaming about Apple's backwards design.
- csixty4 12y ago
  I've been looking for a particular quote about this, and just found it. I thought it was a random forum poster, but it was actually John Gruber from Daring Fireball: "The design of the iPhone software was entirely informed by the fact that this was a new experience, it was nothing like using an existing smartphone, nor anything like using a Mac or Windows PC. It needed training wheels to get people up to speed. Thus, to name one small example, why iOS buttons have tended to look so very button-y. To inform the user, as clearly as possible, that this is a button that can be tapped. Look around you. Any street corner. Any office. Any shopping mall. Any restaurant. You will see people tapping on touchscreens. We all get it now. iOS-style computing is no longer novel; it is now the standard interaction model for personal computing. The primary problem Apple faced with the iPhone in 2007 was building familiarity with a new way of using computers. That problem has now been solved. It is time to solve new problems."
  - graeme 12y ago
    I remember a few years ago here there were lots of front page posts criticism skeumorphism, and commentors criticized it as well. Flat design was all the rage.
smacktoward 12y ago
This is one of my pet peeves -- designers hate styling links so they're underlined, but the underline provides a valuable UI cue to the user that the text is clickable/tappable/whatever. So stripping it out makes a site actively less usable. (You can try to invent your own UI cue to take the place of the underline, of course, but then the user has to learn a new cue for each separate site, whereas the underline is still common enough for people to have already learned it somewhere else.)
- dhimes 12y ago
  Stackoverflow was one of the biggest offenders to me. They would state that something was a duplicate of something else, with no link to the other thing. Except there was a link. I just couldn't find it without 'view source.' I must confess I've been guilty of it too. I 'invented' a style of link whereby the link has a border on all four sides and is filled with a transparent pastel. I've even seen this around some (apparently it is kind of an obvious idea). But all in all, I've gotten away from trying to invent my own UI.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  At work they introduced a page once with links that were not only not underlined but also the same color as the regular text. I sent them a hoary old Nielsen article or two describing why that's a bad idea and people don't want to play Minesweeper with text but they dismissed the article as "too old" and no longer relevant to today's tech-savvy users. Then they had to change it within a couple weeks because no one could find the links.
  - pixl97 12y ago
    "We're going to make a door that's perfectly flat and seamless, and we're going to paint it white just like the walls. It's going to be the most awesome door ever and people will love using it." If web designers could actually stop and think about the virtual things they do in physical terms they might be able to see how foolish they're being, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
juliangregorian 12y ago
The backlash against skeuomorphism has really led to some serious regression in design affordances. In a similar vein, there are text inputs in the latest OS X that are indistinguishable from labels. I'm not anti-fad but these are real usability issues.
rcthompson 12y ago
Apparently the relevant design/usability term is "affordances", which are the "sensory characteristics [of an object that] intuitively imply its functionality and use"[1]. Affordances in UI design have evidently gone out of style, which effectively means that people are just expected to learn the arbitrary (and ever-changing) rules of how to interacting with computers (and other computing devices), instead of having the computing devices cater to how people expect them to work. I think this also leads back to the idea that the touchscreen as a user interface is absolutely awful in every way except for the one huge advantage of its reconfigurability. (I forget the source for this, but there's a specific article I'm thinking of.) [1] http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/affordance/ http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/affordance/
- nothrabannosir 12y ago
  Was it this? http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
  - rcthompson 12y ago
    Yep, that's the one.
  - vlunkr 12y ago
    What a great article. Our culture does seem to believe that touch screens are the ultimate interface and must be installed everywhere.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  What kills me is how car radios are getting touchscreens now. What good is a touchscreen in a car radio? The whole beauty of the traditional design is you can operate it without taking your eyes off the road.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    Are they getting touch screens mainly to support CarPlay and Android Auto? That's a big feature IMHO. My use of the car radio is essentially to toggle it from AUX to BT. Integration of my phone would be even nicer.
flatline 12y ago
When my daughter was two and a half she could use the iPad pretty efficiently, because it was always pretty obvious where you should click. At nearly four she now struggles to click things or to even know what to click. It's a terrible regression for a debatably minor improvement in overall appaearance.
- dhimes 12y ago
  I'm glad it's not just me. Somebody made one of my websites beautiful, but with 'flat' buttons. People became confused on how it worked, and I had to go back and give the buttons depth.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- justsid 12y ago
  Not to excuse or justify the design decision, but you can in fact re-enable highlighting for buttons. It’s in the accesibility settings. Edit: Just realized we are talking about websites here. Sorry, forget what I said!
  - flatline 12y ago
    Huh, thanks - I found the option, and enabled it for her iPad. At a glance, nothing much changed, there are just too many flat button-like things throughout the UI for this to help, but we will see.
igorgue 12y ago
You don't have to be 65 to have that problem, at first I couldn't tell, flat UI isn't accessible in any way, is definitely a step backwards in accessibility.
guelo 12y ago
Designers seem to hate data. At most they might do some brief user testing but they'll laugh you out of the room if you suggest AB testing their designs. They love the Henry Ford quote about people wanting faster horses because it justifies their dismisiveness of users. The regrettable thing about Apple's ascendancy is that businesses are letting designers run products unchecked while designers all imagine themselves as arrogant Steve Jobs type who's vision can't be questioned.
ilyvak 12y ago
...or that there are buttons at all. Have watched countless seniors struggle with interfaces because to them it's all just a 2D space.
nicwolff 12y ago
Settings ▸ General ▸ Accessibility ▸ Button Shapes ▸ On
vlunkr 12y ago
Apple seems to rely on long term user training sometimes. I knew that was a send button because I have used previous versions of iOS, it's never even occurred to me that it doesn't look like a button at all. Similarly, I was late to the iOS party, I joined around iOS4-ish, and there were features I discovered completely on accident. Like double clicking the home button on the lock screen to bring up audio controls. Great feature, but I had no idea it was there. People joining in the next few years probably won't know to swipe from the top or bottom until they do it by accident.
- graeme 12y ago
  >People joining in the next few years probably won't know to swipe from the top or bottom until they do it by accident. This happened to me, I went from ios 5 to 8. I had to google "where is spotlight ios 8" to learn to swipe down. What would I have done if I were a novice user who didn't know spotlight existed? I might not have found it for months.
BrandonMarc 12y ago
THIS! "What is clickable" is one of the first things the mind wonders when presented a new page. If the true answers aren't obvious in 0.3 seconds, it's a bad design. The latest UI trends to remove "button style" and go to "flat" and just text is a prime example of how we've gone the wrong direction.

by mbesto 12y ago

skywhopper 12y ago

I definitely agree that the UI of buttons in iOS is broken now. The blue is only a useful hint if you are 1) a long-time web user, and 2) not color-blind.

cja 12y ago

I'm an Android user since v2 and have watched it become so much less usable over time. The average person has no idea what is clickable and what is not in v5. This causes fear and confusion. My wife (aged 30 and intelligent) cannot reliably send SMSs on her Nexus 5.

JTon 12y ago
I haven't used v5 so I cannot comment on that transition. However I was around for the transition from v3 to v4 and I'm pretty sure the common sentiment was it was strides more usable. Also, without malice, I find it pretty shocking your wife cannot reliably send an SMS.
brianclements 12y ago
IMO, Android 4 was the pinnacle of stability and usability in their lineage. I had a Moto X and 2012 Nexus 7. The upgrade to Android 5 on my Nexus was saddening; it was different for the sake of being different, and it fixed problems that didn't exist (and introduced many new ones).
- worklogin 12y ago
  Even 4.1 was much better than 4.4 - all the migration from text and contoured buttons to symbols. an open eye for "turn off snooze" on the alarm is indicative of what I think is really poor design.
sogen 12y ago
Agreed, I loved the old iPhone 3 UI, since then, it has gone to hell. Android is also in that hell, with the "Flat UI", and my brain hurts trying to find what's clickable. Damn you flat ui!
- phkahler 12y ago
  >> Agreed, I loved the old iPhone 3 UI, since then, it has gone to hell. Android is also in that hell, with the "Flat UI", and my brain hurts trying to find what's clickable. The whole point of going with raised buttons and such was to provide a visual cue as to what was clickable. It seems UI people who missed the early 90's are getting to relearn this lesson. When I saw flat I just shook my head.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    It really seems to go in cycles. We've gone from flat UIs (think ncurses-based) to using texture and shadow (90's - mid 2000s), and now all the way back to flat again. I'll never understand why these designer types think that discarding all of that context is a good thing.
    - Loughla 12y ago
      It happens in all areas of everything. I'm convinced. It comes in cycles, because of generational retirements/career transitions. Younger/newer folks don't have the experience to know what the older/more experienced folks do. The older/more experienced folks do a bad job of documenting their experiences for the next group. I'm thoroughly convinced I'm correct, but have no data to back it up.
      - sogen 12y ago
        We should do a head-to-head competition between two Grandmothers, one armed with an iPad2 using iOs6 and another one using iOs8 and let them do the same tasks, and measure the time it takes to do those tasks. Count me in!

gschrader 12y ago

I just noticed, the "Button Shapes" accessibility option helps a bit.

csixty4 12y ago

I agree 100%. But I also remember posts on different forums about how button shapes are a skeuomorphic anachronism that nobody needs anymore. So if Apple didn't address that audience, they'd still be screaming about Apple's backwards design.

csixty4 12y ago
I've been looking for a particular quote about this, and just found it. I thought it was a random forum poster, but it was actually John Gruber from Daring Fireball: "The design of the iPhone software was entirely informed by the fact that this was a new experience, it was nothing like using an existing smartphone, nor anything like using a Mac or Windows PC. It needed training wheels to get people up to speed. Thus, to name one small example, why iOS buttons have tended to look so very button-y. To inform the user, as clearly as possible, that this is a button that can be tapped. Look around you. Any street corner. Any office. Any shopping mall. Any restaurant. You will see people tapping on touchscreens. We all get it now. iOS-style computing is no longer novel; it is now the standard interaction model for personal computing. The primary problem Apple faced with the iPhone in 2007 was building familiarity with a new way of using computers. That problem has now been solved. It is time to solve new problems."
- graeme 12y ago
  I remember a few years ago here there were lots of front page posts criticism skeumorphism, and commentors criticized it as well. Flat design was all the rage.

smacktoward 12y ago

This is one of my pet peeves -- designers hate styling links so they're underlined, but the underline provides a valuable UI cue to the user that the text is clickable/tappable/whatever. So stripping it out makes a site actively less usable. (You can try to invent your own UI cue to take the place of the underline, of course, but then the user has to learn a new cue for each separate site, whereas the underline is still common enough for people to have already learned it somewhere else.)

dhimes 12y ago
Stackoverflow was one of the biggest offenders to me. They would state that something was a duplicate of something else, with no link to the other thing. Except there was a link. I just couldn't find it without 'view source.' I must confess I've been guilty of it too. I 'invented' a style of link whereby the link has a border on all four sides and is filled with a transparent pastel. I've even seen this around some (apparently it is kind of an obvious idea). But all in all, I've gotten away from trying to invent my own UI.
emodendroket 12y ago
At work they introduced a page once with links that were not only not underlined but also the same color as the regular text. I sent them a hoary old Nielsen article or two describing why that's a bad idea and people don't want to play Minesweeper with text but they dismissed the article as "too old" and no longer relevant to today's tech-savvy users. Then they had to change it within a couple weeks because no one could find the links.
- pixl97 12y ago
  "We're going to make a door that's perfectly flat and seamless, and we're going to paint it white just like the walls. It's going to be the most awesome door ever and people will love using it." If web designers could actually stop and think about the virtual things they do in physical terms they might be able to see how foolish they're being, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

juliangregorian 12y ago

The backlash against skeuomorphism has really led to some serious regression in design affordances. In a similar vein, there are text inputs in the latest OS X that are indistinguishable from labels. I'm not anti-fad but these are real usability issues.

rcthompson 12y ago

Apparently the relevant design/usability term is "affordances", which are the "sensory characteristics [of an object that] intuitively imply its functionality and use"[1]. Affordances in UI design have evidently gone out of style, which effectively means that people are just expected to learn the arbitrary (and ever-changing) rules of how to interacting with computers (and other computing devices), instead of having the computing devices cater to how people expect them to work. I think this also leads back to the idea that the touchscreen as a user interface is absolutely awful in every way except for the one huge advantage of its reconfigurability. (I forget the source for this, but there's a specific article I'm thinking of.) [1] http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/affordance/ http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/affordance/

nothrabannosir 12y ago
Was it this? http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
- rcthompson 12y ago
  Yep, that's the one.
- vlunkr 12y ago
  What a great article. Our culture does seem to believe that touch screens are the ultimate interface and must be installed everywhere.
emodendroket 12y ago
What kills me is how car radios are getting touchscreens now. What good is a touchscreen in a car radio? The whole beauty of the traditional design is you can operate it without taking your eyes off the road.
- r00fus 12y ago
  Are they getting touch screens mainly to support CarPlay and Android Auto? That's a big feature IMHO. My use of the car radio is essentially to toggle it from AUX to BT. Integration of my phone would be even nicer.

flatline 12y ago

When my daughter was two and a half she could use the iPad pretty efficiently, because it was always pretty obvious where you should click. At nearly four she now struggles to click things or to even know what to click. It's a terrible regression for a debatably minor improvement in overall appaearance.

dhimes 12y ago
I'm glad it's not just me. Somebody made one of my websites beautiful, but with 'flat' buttons. People became confused on how it worked, and I had to go back and give the buttons depth.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
justsid 12y ago
Not to excuse or justify the design decision, but you can in fact re-enable highlighting for buttons. It’s in the accesibility settings. Edit: Just realized we are talking about websites here. Sorry, forget what I said!
- flatline 12y ago
  Huh, thanks - I found the option, and enabled it for her iPad. At a glance, nothing much changed, there are just too many flat button-like things throughout the UI for this to help, but we will see.

igorgue 12y ago

You don't have to be 65 to have that problem, at first I couldn't tell, flat UI isn't accessible in any way, is definitely a step backwards in accessibility.

guelo 12y ago

Designers seem to hate data. At most they might do some brief user testing but they'll laugh you out of the room if you suggest AB testing their designs. They love the Henry Ford quote about people wanting faster horses because it justifies their dismisiveness of users. The regrettable thing about Apple's ascendancy is that businesses are letting designers run products unchecked while designers all imagine themselves as arrogant Steve Jobs type who's vision can't be questioned.

ilyvak 12y ago

...or that there are buttons at all. Have watched countless seniors struggle with interfaces because to them it's all just a 2D space.

nicwolff 12y ago

Settings ▸ General ▸ Accessibility ▸ Button Shapes ▸ On

vlunkr 12y ago

Apple seems to rely on long term user training sometimes. I knew that was a send button because I have used previous versions of iOS, it's never even occurred to me that it doesn't look like a button at all. Similarly, I was late to the iOS party, I joined around iOS4-ish, and there were features I discovered completely on accident. Like double clicking the home button on the lock screen to bring up audio controls. Great feature, but I had no idea it was there. People joining in the next few years probably won't know to swipe from the top or bottom until they do it by accident.

graeme 12y ago
>People joining in the next few years probably won't know to swipe from the top or bottom until they do it by accident. This happened to me, I went from ios 5 to 8. I had to google "where is spotlight ios 8" to learn to swipe down. What would I have done if I were a novice user who didn't know spotlight existed? I might not have found it for months.

BrandonMarc 12y ago

THIS! "What is clickable" is one of the first things the mind wonders when presented a new page. If the true answers aren't obvious in 0.3 seconds, it's a bad design. The latest UI trends to remove "button style" and go to "flat" and just text is a prime example of how we've gone the wrong direction.