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The best icon is a text label

thomasbyttebier.be

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Re: The best icon is a text label

#151

Post by aptwebapps »

Animats wrote: post #98
jcrawfordor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, I went to log into Evernote on the web. My password manager fills out the registration form, of course, but it won't submit because it wants an email address, not a username. So I go hunting for the "log in" option. Is it one of these attractive green buttons? oh, no, those are also sign up buttons. Is it in some weird corner like Tumblr for some reason? Nope. Maybe it's after this sales junk? Nope, just scrol…

"My password manager fills out the registration form, of course, but it won't submit because it wants an email address, not a username." Big UI pain: sites that are not compatible with browser-stored login info.

My bank just broke compatibility with my password manager (could be the plugin's fault, I suppose) and another financial institution specifically told me that their site was not compatible with password managers. They have this 'nifty' feature which turns all but the last few chars of your username into stars on blur and I suspect they just didn't want to bother to do their js event handlers properly. Fortunately, it turns out I can make it work with the right sequence of clicking inside and outside the input boxes.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#152

Post by aptwebapps »

Tideflat wrote: post #99
sandGorgon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 This is a huge issue with open source software - everything seems to be named Libre- these days and I haven't found many Americans who can pronounce it...let alone people in China or India.

There is a tendency to make names that are okay for print but hard to pronounce like X.org or XFCE.

IMO, NGINX has taken the blue ribbon from GNU for stupid free software name (I say this as someone who loves both). How many people here actually know that NGINX is supposed to be pronounced engine-X?

Re: The best icon is a text label

#153

Post by on_and_off »

frik wrote: post #130
ploxiln wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is "zero empathy for the end-user", I think this is desperation. As companies and "product managers" get more statistical data on real-world clicks and usage and do more usability studies, they see that 90% of users don't know how to do anything. And they get desperate to "fix" that. They go for drastic re-designs, get rid of all the text because "nobody" reads it, hide all the features because the…

UI usage statistics are often biased (power user deactivate tracking). A/B testing and watching real end users using your product is better.

>power user deactivate tracking

Is that a thing ? I can't speak in general but I know that for the large mobile app I am working on, we are slowly migrating to our own solution and I highly doubt that users could deactivate it.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#154

Post by js8 »

I think we forgot many of the lessons from the 90s, in naive attempt to emulate Apple. Here's list of standard things that every application in the 90s had, that are frequently missing from the current UIs:

- Menu - Typically at the top of the screen or window, you can go there and find everything you can do with the application, at the consistent place; moreover, as you go over menu entries, an helpful explanation what does what will appear at the bottom of the screen.

- Toolbar - A place which has most commonly used tools. They are represented by icons, text, or both (and you can actually make a choice in settings). Typically, you can configure the toolbar to your heart's content. Toolbars can also depend on the context.

- Context menu - Right clicking on some object will give you menu of things that you can do with that object. Again, explanation of what each of these actions does appears helpfully at the bottom of the screen.

- Tooltips - As you mouse over any UI element, it will helpfully explain you what it's purpose.

- Buttons - Things that are clickable look visually differently than other things that are not. For example, they have different shading. Buttons may also give feedback that they are clickable when you mouse over them. Also, if you click thing that is clickable, it will give a feedback that it was clicked by changing the shading.

I think the big problem here is that UX/UI people want to be artists and so create art, not useful application for end users (which often means follow some standard!). So the end result is even more disastrous when programmers design UI (at least they are rational about it, in some sense), but the cause is the same - it's putting your own ego (behold at my artistic creation!) in front of actual usability.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#155

Post by izacus »

flakmonkey wrote: post #30
mschuster91 wrote: post #22

If you decide to use icons, offer a hover-tooltip. Even if you decide to use a textual button, offer a hover tooltip if there's a keyboard shortcut. (Hello phpStorm, I'm looking at YOU!)

This doesn't work for touch-based devices, unfortunately.

Don't we have "ForceTouch" or something now that can provide more information about touched thing?

Re: The best icon is a text label

#156

Post by noir_lord »

e0 wrote: post #131
joshuak wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on the more and more useless progress of web interface design. The hamburger icon (three-strip icon as you call it) being particularly egregious, akin to the travesty that is the 'start' button on windows. However, to be fair, Apple designers are very much against this trend as well (not to defend the recent downturn in Apple UX design). I recommend this 2014 WWDC talk on UX[1]. The entire talk is worth watch…

"Streaming is available in Safari, and through the WWDC app." It's 2015! I didn't think 'Best Viewed with Internet Explorer' was a thing anymore.

It's a thing when they do any product launches as well, I end up having to paste the stream into VLC.

Don't own any Apple stuff but I like to watch what they are up to (often because I'll end up supporting their stuff at some point).

Re: The best icon is a text label

#157

Post by suneilp »

on_and_off wrote: post #153
frik wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI usage statistics are often biased (power user deactivate tracking). A/B testing and watching real end users using your product is better.

>power user deactivate tracking Is that a thing ? I can't speak in general but I know that for the large mobile app I am working on, we are slowly migrating to our own solution and I highly doubt that users could deactivate it.

It's about blocking google analytics (or whatever else).

Re: The best icon is a text label

#158

Post by fatratchet »

on_and_off wrote: post #153
frik wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI usage statistics are often biased (power user deactivate tracking). A/B testing and watching real end users using your product is better.

>power user deactivate tracking Is that a thing ? I can't speak in general but I know that for the large mobile app I am working on, we are slowly migrating to our own solution and I highly doubt that users could deactivate it.

I think it's ment in the sense that power users are by far the most likely people to disable telemetry or "Send usage data to help improve this software" functions, if such a setting is offered.

Especially if the option is buried somewhere deep in the settings menu. Also the most likely users to have adblockers, though that's getting more and more common.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#159

Post by herval »

js8 wrote: post #154

I think we forgot many of the lessons from the 90s, in naive attempt to emulate Apple. Here's list of standard things that every application in the 90s had, that are frequently missing from the current UIs: - Menu - Typically at the top of the screen or window, you can go there and find everything you can do with the application, at the consistent place; moreover, as you go over menu entries, an helpful explanation w…

While some of these are obvious - removing borders from buttons on iOS made everyone confused, in my personal observation - others are not necessarily "a naive attempt to emulate Apple". Eg.: you can't have (useful|easy to figure out) tooltips or "right click" on touchscreen devices.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#160

Post by js8 »

herval wrote: post #159
js8 wrote: post #154

I think we forgot many of the lessons from the 90s, in naive attempt to emulate Apple. Here's list of standard things that every application in the 90s had, that are frequently missing from the current UIs: - Menu - Typically at the top of the screen or window, you can go there and find everything you can do with the application, at the consistent place; moreover, as you go over menu entries, an helpful explanation w…

While some of these are obvious - removing borders from buttons on iOS made everyone confused, in my personal observation - others are not necessarily "a naive attempt to emulate Apple". Eg.: you can't have (useful|easy to figure out) tooltips or "right click" on touchscreen devices.

That's because touchscreen devices suck for the real work! Their popularity is actually mostly due to Apple, too. Still, that's not an excuse, think out of the box, come up with some other way to do the same thing.

There are ways. Some applications for example had a "query" button which let you examine the UI, what each element does. I don't see why touch devices couldn't have the same thing as a (hardware) button.

Steve Jobs hated buttons, but they have their place. If you eliminate all of them, of course you end up less productive.

And yeah, unfortunately, my list is very obvious.

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