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UX Myths (2014)

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Re: UX Myths (2014)

#61

Post by scrollaway »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60
scrollaway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It was a hyperbole, yes, but the general point stands - a proper tool will present all the things you need (or may need) to know in an organized fashion, to let you work efficiently. What we currently have in UX is a trend of making your work as inefficient as possible, by hiding everything behind interactions or removing it altogether, because... well, because what exactly? Does someone really believe that e.g. peop…

You're literally just saying "a proper tool should have good UX".

Please backtrack a minute: What we're trying to debunk is that "Whitespace is always bad". The rant you're going into, here, is that some tools are oversimplified or don't give you immediate access to functions you need. That's the tool not doing its job - it's bad UX. Nobody will argue against that.

It also has nothing to do with whitespace.

> Outside of gamedev, people seem to have forgotten the concept of introduction, tips and tutorials.

SMB 1-1 is often praised as having outstanding video game level design. One of the reasons is exactly because it doesn't use "tips and tutorials". It intuitively teaches you to run towards the right, to jump, how to kill enemies and discover secrets without ever popping a tooltip on the screen. Not that those are always bad, mind you, but intuitiveness is game design by excellence.

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#62

Post by ldjb »

gilgongo wrote: post #54
ldjb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The OP is referring to "visited links", not the style of the unfollowed links. 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.…

I'm aware of what the OP was referring to. I was replying to barrkel's comment about not realising the links were links.

But I absolutely agree with you that visited links looking like unfollowed links is a usability issue.

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#63

Post by ldjb »

runarberg wrote: post #51
ldjb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A simple heading (` Table of content `, ` Content `, ` Articles `, ` Links `) should get the message across. --- Edit: Added an example.

I suppose you could put a heading called 'Myths' above the list of myths. But I don't see how that would help the user realise they are links.

Of course, you could call the heading 'Links', but that shouldn't be necessary -- the links themselves should afford clicking. It would be like putting a label called "push" above a door handle when the handle itself should afford pushing.

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#64

Post by ldjb »

userbinator wrote: post #47
ldjb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could make the links blue and/or underline them, but that could harm readability and aesthetics. I doubt it, blue and underlined is pretty much a standard. I think it looks perfectly fine and clear. There's a reason most browsers' default stylesheet will make links look like that.

It might be an improvement in this case, though it's common advice to limit the colour palette to a handful of colours. Blue text also doesn't always stand out against certain background colours.

Underlining links (particularly where there are many of them) can harm readability, which is why many popular websites do not do it, including the major search engines, Wikipedia and even Hacker News.

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#65

Post by hollerith »

unexistance wrote: post #55
bbx wrote: post #19

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…

if it helps, I've been able to differentiate both type of links using plain Firefox 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

Some sites are unusable what that setting. For example, it makes the voting arrows on HN invisible. And it makes the chess boards on lichess.org invisible.

Is there a way to opt in to the site's color choices per domain?

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#66

Post by HillRat »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52
HillRat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Designers have to create a vision that matches the discovered desires of the users, and then ruthlessly road-test that vision through prototyping and structured user testing. 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…

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.

I agree! And, when I talk about "design," UI and UX are only one facet (because strategy, content, and technology are their own components in the larger design space).

When I talk about "desire," I'm following Gause and Weinberg in Exploring Requirements, where they say, "[W]e don't know how to figure out what people need, as opposed to what they desire. ... We do observe, however, that by clarifying their desires, people sometimes clarify what they really need and don't need." In that sense, they are in agreement with your approach: determine the desires your users have (what do they want out of the product, what will the product help them do, etc), and then use that to inform their needs (here's what the product should specifically do or afford). Your experience designers then work with you on how to create experiences that effect the needs to address the desires.

What I'm saying is, I think, that you're already thinking at a very sophisticated level in terms of design, it just sounds like your experience with design has been with organizations at a lower stage of process maturity.

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#67

Post by leppr »

hollerith wrote: post #65
unexistance wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it helps, I've been able to differentiate both type of links using plain Firefox 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

Some sites are unusable what that setting. For example, it makes the voting arrows on HN invisible. And it makes the chess boards on lichess.org invisible. Is there a way to opt in to the site's color choices per domain?

Not very convenient but using Stylish it comes down to adding entries into a text file: https://github.com/stylish-userstyles/stylish/wiki/Applying-...

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#68

Post by Yaggo »

bbx wrote: post #19

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…

I wish all websites used links. I'm totally fine with my click event being captured and handled client-side, but please use element with working href, so that I can cmd+click into new tab, copy-paste to friend, etc. Please do not broke the fundamentals of the web for sake of single page apps – you can eat the cake and have the cake!

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#69

Post by z3t4 »

kristopolous wrote: post #4

I'll take serious issue with #12. There's undirected scatterbrained interfaces and that's bad sure. But there's the other extreme. Like in Google mobile search, you can't do custom date ranges... they've removed one menu item just on mobile. On SoundCloud mobile you can't delete your own uploads. On reddit mobile you can only do text posts. Or that new version of gas buddy or Google maps or in Google photos on mobile…

It also has a lot to do with how the features are presented. On mobile for example it's very annoying not seeing what you type, as it's easy to slip and make mistakes, so you have to make sure any input box get a lot of screen realty.

Re: UX Myths (2014)

#70

Post by z3t4 »

twoshedsmcginty wrote: post #9

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 should be used for padding between elements. Users will however be annoyed if there is too much unused screen area, especially if the content is cramped together with little padding.
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