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Perfectly Cropped

tyler.io

101–110 of 571 posts

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#101
Semi-related: My biggest UX gripe with iOS is that the option to hide a picture in the Photos app is part of the share menu.

Those are such diametrically opposed interactions, I really don't understand the thought process that went into that. Usually sharing is the last thing you want to do with a photo you're trying to hide, and with the share dialog open it always feels like you're just one mistap away from sending it to whoever.

I guess with the "Duplicate" / "Slideshow" / … options the share menu has become more of a general action menu, but if that's the idea, they should really change the icon imo.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhones have degraded in every respect as far as I can tell. When I got my first Android phone about 4 years ago I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I was surprised at how expensive the iPhone was but after using a friends phone I understood that it was a higher quality product and you got what you paid for. But my girlfriend recently got the latest one (11?) and I was shocked at how bad it is. It feels absolu…

Maybe the USA is different but here in Japan the odds of seeing an iPhone without either a case or a ring are probably 1 in 1000. Problem solved. Further, there rows and rows and rows and rows of cases for sale. I'm not saying the phone shouldn't sit flat (though I personally don't care). But just in looking around most people seem to want to customize their phone by adding a case so at least in Japan it's a non-issu…

But why do I spend so much money to get a thin phone and then spend even more to make it thicker?

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhones have degraded in every respect as far as I can tell. When I got my first Android phone about 4 years ago I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I was surprised at how expensive the iPhone was but after using a friends phone I understood that it was a higher quality product and you got what you paid for. But my girlfriend recently got the latest one (11?) and I was shocked at how bad it is. It feels absolu…

Bugs me too (iPhone SE is the last good phone anyone made), but I think the assumption at this point is that it’s a $1000 phone and everyone puts a case on it, so as long as the case is as thick as the camera bump it’ll sit flat. The iPad is worse. Camera bump sticks out so that it doesn’t sit flat, and no one should be using a 13” tablet as a camera so I’m not sure why they thought adding a good camera was important…

Why, Apple kills multiple birds with one stone.

On pictures, iPhone looks sleek, easy to brag about.

In spec sheets, iPhone is impressively thin.

In real life, iPhone is expectedly fragile, so people put protective covers on it. It also solves the problem of uneven shape.

In real life, people want a wider choice of colors, textures, and a larger battery. Custom covers solve this at no expense to Apple, which can continue to pretend they don't exist.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#104
post #65

Our mainstream iOS app has tons of these kind of issues. Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. I did UI design back in the 80's when it was actually a programmer duty more than an art thing. Of course back then were no phone sized screens and the UIs were much simpler in desktop app…

I seriously believe that the last time any real thought went into usability in UI was with Windows 95 - and even that wasn't free from form-over-function issues. In Windows 3.0 it was meant that only elements you could interact with the mouse would have a beveled 3D appearance, so people would know just by looking at a screen what they would be able to interact with. However it wasn't fully followed - checkboxes, rad…

> I seriously believe that the last time any real thought went into usability in UI was with Windows 95

Way to throw Bob under the bus...

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#105
post #96

Our mainstream iOS app has tons of these kind of issues. Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. I did UI design back in the 80's when it was actually a programmer duty more than an art thing. Of course back then were no phone sized screens and the UIs were much simpler in desktop app…

> Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. This stereotyping of a profession is becoming a cliché and is being rude towards a profession who has contributed so much to make technology accessible. The example in the blog would not have been intention of the design spec, it looks like mo…

Designers deserve every bit of this stereotyping. There was a time when designers were taught to value fitness for use. Now "design" seems to be exclusively about aesthetics. This may be rooted in how designers are taught or simply in how they now practice. Or it could be that managers insist on aesthetics-only, in which case designers need to push back hard.

Whatever the cause it's a failure on the part of designers and their profession, and they deserve criticism for it.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhones have degraded in every respect as far as I can tell. When I got my first Android phone about 4 years ago I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I was surprised at how expensive the iPhone was but after using a friends phone I understood that it was a higher quality product and you got what you paid for. But my girlfriend recently got the latest one (11?) and I was shocked at how bad it is. It feels absolu…

Maybe the USA is different but here in Japan the odds of seeing an iPhone without either a case or a ring are probably 1 in 1000. Problem solved. Further, there rows and rows and rows and rows of cases for sale. I'm not saying the phone shouldn't sit flat (though I personally don't care). But just in looking around most people seem to want to customize their phone by adding a case so at least in Japan it's a non-issu…

No idea about the USA either, but I wouldn't like to imagine how big that thing is with an added case. Good grief. The phone comes in multiple colours. If it has to be used with a case it should come with a case. Otherwise it's like selling a car without seats.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#107

Our mainstream iOS app has tons of these kind of issues. Our designers seem more interested in coolness than usability. I think a lot of designers are big on artistry but low on understanding how to help people actually use things. I did UI design back in the 80's when it was actually a programmer duty more than an art thing. Of course back then were no phone sized screens and the UIs were much simpler in desktop app…

It is a serious decline - Apple was literally the best there was at this in the past.

I noticed their design attitudes towards affordances and contextual clues changing around the time Ives made some claim about how phone users have been educated about touch UI sufficiently to start dropping them. That seems to have become an general excuse to lean towards 'pretty' over 'functional'.

And worse are third party apps. They always have been more variable, of course, but the old HCI guidelines were actually really good, so much so that people followed them because they were convincing.

UI decay isn't the only reason I use my phone and Ipad less, but it is one of them. (Current Screen Time: 24 minutes a day. That's mostly checking email while standing in line and mashing 2FA buttons.) The dynamic lists of recent activities and such mean I have to stare for a while to see what the options are this time, and generally be careful not to make mistakes. I've turned off autocorrect, because it makes enough enough mistakes that it is slower (and really irritating) to use.

I like my laptop a lot more these days.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#108
post #42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, yep I feel like an absolute idiot doing that in public. My genuinely favourite hidden/unintuitive feature is the force-touch on the on-screen keyboard to see a little cursor you can scroll around the text field you are using. I hate that it's so unintuitive, but it's incredibly useful

On many Android keyboards you can hold and drag on the space bar to do the same. You can also drag back on backspace to delete whole words/sentences. Similarly unintuitive though, I only know about it because I saw someone else mention it on the Internet.

Gboard also now comes with an "arrow keys" panel that you can access by clicking the Google logo.

See: https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2017/04/gboard-te...

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#109
iOS 13 also completely butchered the screenshot editing interface.

It's approximately 4 times slower than the old one. The markup button is hidden in the 3-dot menu in the far upper-right (such a strain to reach this!). Oh and the "full page" safari screenshot feature? It only saves PDFs. What a joke.

I'm moving to Android or PinePhone.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#110
> Here’s a fun, personal story about what can go wrong in an otherwise fine UI when things are redesigned.

writes the person whose blog is typeset with a nearly invisible thin gray font

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