51–60 of 78 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't know they were links until I read this comment! No hover on mobile.
I'm not too sure what the solution is. You could make the links blue and/or underline them, but that could harm readability and aesthetics. I suppose some sort of icon (like an arrowhead) next to each link could help them to afford clicking.
---
Edit: Added an example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually think it's the opposite. I've met many high-falutin designers who seem to care more about an abstract vision and theory then practical terms. I've seen designers coddled and defended against avalanches of negative feedback under dubious auspices that users don't know what they want or that it's a natural thing to complain... I envision whenever I see these redesigns that there's some Im-so-smart person on…
I've seen designers coddled and defended against avalanches of negative feedback under dubious auspices that users don't know what they want or that it's a natural thing to complain... Then those aren't designers, those are artists . Artists have the option of creating a singular vision and defending it against all comers. Designers have to create a vision that matches the discovered desires of the users, and then ru…
I think this approach is actually part of the problem of the UX today. It ignores the fact that most of the time, users have no "desires" about the product, and that instead what user does and wants is directly shaped by their interaction with the product. It's discovery by looking it the mirror - you don't see what your users want (because they don't want much, UX-wise), you only see reflections of your own preconceptions.
My belief is you should focus on understanding the problems your target users want to solve with your tool, and then design UX around making the product a powerful and convenient tool for solving those problems. And if you think UX is your product, then I don't want to waste my time even checking it out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way we currently have it has worked for at least 30 years and takes at most, a few seconds of explaining and everyone I've ever met understands the file metaphor. There's this anecdotal story about how people in the early 80s couldn't figure out that the mouse should be intentionally rolled around on the table without a demonstration but once shown it was clear. We shouldn't have some visceral animosity against s…
If we followed that idea though (keep it as it has been for 30 years) then Google Drive or iOS would have you browsing through hierarchical folders like Windows Explorer.
Yes, an explorer.exe interface for Google Drive would be a huge win. That's also why I avoid using it, and keep everything I can in Dropbox instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't know they were links until I read this comment! No hover on mobile.
I'm not too sure what the solution is. You could make the links blue and/or underline them, but that could harm readability and aesthetics. I suppose some sort of icon (like an arrowhead) next to each link could help them to afford clicking.
Not having a followed link style in this context degrades the usability of the website because you have to rely on your memory of which links you have followed on the list and which you have yet to see. This is an important and little remembered point in the current interaction design "dark age", as Bruce Tognazzini puts it, and Norman et. al. have" rel="nofollow">https://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-des... recently written about.
(It is of course also true that the unfollowed link style is not very clear)
I wish more websites, especially those actively writing about UX, would style visited links differently. When you're reading one of these myths, there is no link to go to the next one ; you need to go back to the index. But since visited links are not differentiated, it's difficult to know which item you've just read, and where to go next. Just using "a:link" instead would yield a more satisfying design: http://i.img…
The trick is to always override the color options in Firefox settings
p/s: I'm starting to follow people in HN through this way too, and keeping up with my weekly reading materials (xkcd, manga, etc)
But I took it one step above by disabling colors altogether & sees the web as (mostly) wall of light text on dark background
Agree with so much of this, but definitely not with #28. White space has become a design curse. I know how to manage information; I'm not bewildered if I see a lot of it in one place, and I don't need to be guided through it. And I'm truly tired of clicking ellipses to 'see more' Just load the damn page, load the damn comments and paginate. Abandoned Gawker for this reason long ago.
White space is super important. It can serve as a delimiter between pieces of your UI for example. It can serve as an emphasis on content or an important UI element. It has a ton of different uses you are completely disregarding... because > I know how to manage information But you really don't, though. If I replied with a 20 lines efficiently-packed wall of text with no paragraphs or linebreaks, you'd complain. If y…
> But you really don't, though.
No, I really do, you know. Sure, if there's a logical structure in information, you'd do well to highlight it - as well as any relative relevance of pieces of info (IFF you know what task I'm solving). But I'm not 3 y.o. anymore, I can handle more than 5 lines of text on a page. Please don't hide information from me just because you think it's not relevant to the most basic use case.
I'm strongly with Tufte on this one. Presenting information is about dumping it all on the person with minimum artsy bullshit, and helping the viewer make sense of it efficiently. Modern UX paradigms however go in the completely opposite direction - hide everything, remove features, decrease information density.
There's a reason NASA mission control look like this:
http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-090313a-lg.jpg
and not this:
https://i.imgur.com/4CqzSb4.png
even though the latter is exactly what modern UX guidelines would call for.
If you want to build tools to help people solve problems efficiently, make tools. If you want to make a safe-for-work mental masturbation art piece, which is what most mainstream UX guidelines boil down to, then by all means. I just don't want to have it anywhere near me when I have problems to solve.
--
> intuitive interfaces are for kids
There's only one intuitive interface in the world, and that's the nipple. Everything else is learned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
White space is super important. It can serve as a delimiter between pieces of your UI for example. It can serve as an emphasis on content or an important UI element. It has a ton of different uses you are completely disregarding... because > I know how to manage information But you really don't, though. If I replied with a 20 lines efficiently-packed wall of text with no paragraphs or linebreaks, you'd complain. If y…
It can serve as a delimiter between pieces of your UI for example. If you want a delimiter then use a delimiter, perhaps a line? One of my main gripes with "modern" UI are UI elements which have no defined border on them. For example, how do I know where's the border between two buttons, or whether there's any inactive space between them, when I see only text separated by whitespace (or for that matter, whether they'…
The thing is, you're talking about very specific examples. My point is that especially in UX design you can't use absolutes like that, such as "whitespace is always bad" or "whitespace is always good". This was also the author's point and this idea that "instead of whitespace we should use lines", "instead of whitespace we should pack things tighter" and so on is absurd.
Now here's UX Myth #35: "Modern UIs have good, established UX". Desktop, web, most everything I've seen are UX disasters blindly following trends. And just because you throw UX designers at a problem doesn't mean they will do a good job at it.
UX design is very much a "fake it till you make it" industry. It's based on good principles and mostly the scientific method, but it has a lot of reproducibility issues because it deals with a lot of subjectiveness. Also, some good UX principles may not apply in all situations.
And think about this: Most people are actually bad at their job. The majority of devs and web designers aren't working at Google/Facebook, they're making awful wordpress sites. This is less visible in UX design but it's still true - the majority of UX devs aren't good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
White space is super important. It can serve as a delimiter between pieces of your UI for example. It can serve as an emphasis on content or an important UI element. It has a ton of different uses you are completely disregarding... because > I know how to manage information But you really don't, though. If I replied with a 20 lines efficiently-packed wall of text with no paragraphs or linebreaks, you'd complain. If y…
>> I know how to manage information > But you really don't, though. No, I really do, you know. Sure, if there's a logical structure in information, you'd do well to highlight it - as well as any relative relevance of pieces of info ( IFF you know what task I'm solving). But I'm not 3 y.o. anymore, I can handle more than 5 lines of text on a page. Please don't hide information from me just because you think it's not r…
I wish more websites, especially those actively writing about UX, would style visited links differently. When you're reading one of these myths, there is no link to go to the next one ; you need to go back to the index. But since visited links are not differentiated, it's difficult to know which item you've just read, and where to go next. Just using "a:link" instead would yield a more satisfying design: http://i.img…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I know how to manage information > But you really don't, though. No, I really do, you know. Sure, if there's a logical structure in information, you'd do well to highlight it - as well as any relative relevance of pieces of info ( IFF you know what task I'm solving). But I'm not 3 y.o. anymore, I can handle more than 5 lines of text on a page. Please don't hide information from me just because you think it's not r…
Are you seriously comparing NASA interfaces, which require months/years of training, to interfaces which are meant to be as intuitive and immediately-useful as possible?
As for months/years or training - sure, there maybe (or maybe not even training in the tool per se, but more like general education; you need to know what the data shown actually means). But in a typical tool, 10 seconds or even 5 minutes of training won't kill anyone and would vastly improve efficiency. Want a proof? Video games. Each one has a custom, specific UI. RTS games have so many stuff on screen that they often have tutorials and in-game help. And 8-year-olds have zero problems with understanding all that in under 5 minutes. Outside of gamedev, people seem to have forgotten the concept of introduction, tips and tutorials.
