Perfectly Cropped • Hacker News Board

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#331

Post by gowld » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

Liquix wrote: post #309

reaperducer wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was in the WWDC keynote speech. The rest of the world else can "discover" it the next time a bug crawls on their screen.

Herein lies the problem: it doesn't matter how much 'better' or 'smoother' or 'consistent' the change is - or is not, in this case. It's a gross oversight to never inform end users of the change in any way . How many iPhone users attentively watch WWDC or read each update's (often incomplete) release notes? 1%? 3%? 5% tops? Why roll out a feature when 95% of your users will need to discover it through trial and error…

OTOH, we also have the problem where many a new feature launches a parade in its own honor, with notifcations and badges and and modal popups when the user is trying to do something else. Google/Android is much worse about this than iOS, though.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#332

Post by K0SM0S » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

johnzim wrote: post #254

K0SM0S wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, on both accounts. I'd like to interject that 15-10 years ago, Apple was stellar at this, I only noticed their general UX/UI out-of-this-world-excellence slipping down (slightly, still among the best-in-class, just not the unrivaled best) as of 2014 or so for the very first "little things", and by 2016-17 it had become a true UX issue for me. I frequently support my mother for all digital things, and everytime…

Jonny Ive took control of software design about 7-8 years ago which I think caused a fall in usability even as things got prettier. Sometimes look back at MacOS 9, even with its numerous issues and marvel at how good a lot of the UI/UX was.

> Jonny Ive

Ah, this would explain that. I seem to remember that he did not want to deal with software design, but pretty much had to to fill the gap after Jobs passed away. something along those lines. I'll cut him some slack for the monumental achievements in his career, but Apple as a company should re-think their UX strategy for the 2020's imho.

And thank you for a nice trip via MacOS 9 memory lane!

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#333

Post by gowld » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

fragsworth wrote: post #266

Zelphyr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It feels like change for the sake of change when it worked perfectly before." To my mind this is becoming a BIG problem in tech and I'm really saddened to see Apple falling for it. I guess too many people in a position to change things that feel like they need to justify their positions. Either way, it needs to stop. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

I think it's partially due to stack ranking. You have to justify your position to your peers (most of whom don't even use the application) and show everyone metrics of people using your crap. If you don't make any "improvements" to the app, you can't get any promotions. If an app is already perfect, then these "improvements" can only ruin the application. It should come as no surprise that if you ruin your UI, "engag…

Sure, that's the incentive. But then why aren't their managers laying off or reassigning the staff who have nothing to do but fiddle with things that were already fine? The problem goes right to the top of product development leadership.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#334

Post by gowld » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

soup10 wrote: post #211

Zelphyr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It feels like change for the sake of change when it worked perfectly before." To my mind this is becoming a BIG problem in tech and I'm really saddened to see Apple falling for it. I guess too many people in a position to change things that feel like they need to justify their positions. Either way, it needs to stop. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Apple design often prioritizes "slick, stylish and minimal" over straightforward, obvious and pragmatic utility. It's definitely gotten worse as demonstrated with the iPhone X, but they've always had things like hidden gestures and timed presses for basic functionality. Android designers aren't doing much better though.

As Apple's first human-interface designer puts it, Apple optmizes for looks good in a demo.

Apple targets computer shoppers, not computer users.

https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#335

Post by unlinked_dll » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #323

dpcan wrote: post #156

"But I see them impact my aging parents all the time." I've realized lately that I'm actually entering this zone. For the last 20 years I've been talking about how stuff like this is a nightmare for the "aging" community. 20 years is a long time, and now I'm falling into it. The big one for me in this new version of iOS was that: 1) I couldn't figure out how to move my cursor around. It used to be perfect. I held my…

In fairness, iOS these days is wildly unintuitive, and I'm not yet thirty. It's positively littered with hidden gestures and features that you'd never discover during normal usage. Many of them are really slick once you learn about them! But discoverability is worse not only compared to previous Apple software, but even to other systems like Android. And from what I've read, iPadOS is even worse.

I switched from iOS to Android in the iPhone 4 days, and switched back last month.

The new iOS UI/UX is horrible and it's extremely difficult to understand how the hell to navigate anything. Part of this is the obsession over gestures in place of buttons, the size of the screens and distance of the swipes also makes it difficult to use with one hand (I can't use my thumb to unlock the device), apps are completely unintuitive, and there seems to be an obsession with presenting new data at you rather than keeping the same pathways to find previous data giving me a sense of always being lost in every app.

The Podcasts app might be the best example of a horribly designed product. I can't believe anyone at Apple is actually using that app.

I'm going to stick with Apple due to privacy concerns for the time being, but I'm really upset with my purchase.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#336

Post by yiyus » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #328

billfruit wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it doesn't answer why these things had to change and why it is better now.

For me I was always struggled to get the phone to do what I wanted. Either selecting or moving the cursor. It works better for me now. You drag to select, tap to place a cursor, or “pick up” the cursor for more precise placement. i still use the long touch on the spacebar though out of habit. And it’s where my fingers are naturally most of the time when I’m doing stuff with text. The gestures became more single purpo…

A steering wheel is not the optimal steering device since we have cars with power steering, but changing that would make necessary for everyone to adapt to their vehicles again and would result in many accidents and many deaths.

Evolution is good, but the right pace is not always the fastest one. It can of course be faster for phone UIs than car UIs, but every change is still a potential hassle for all your users and should be carefully considered even if it is, objectively speaking, an improvement.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#337

Post by clairity » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #170

bhauer wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people that grew up with this system know to -- I guess just like try scrolling every interface and see if it scrolls or something? I dunno. Yes, it seems like the younger generation is conditioned to a different form of UI "discoverability" than those of us who learned computing in the desktop era. I look for visual indicators, even on touch user interfaces, so I am always missing functionality that is hidden behi…

Or the "shake to undo" in Notes on iOS that is totally undiscoverable. Also, three fingers gestures, 4 key keyboard shortcuts and ton of UI that changes when alt is pressed, Apple OS are actually harder to use than Windows in some respect.

windows generally had better default keyboard shortcuts than macOS, because many multi-key shortcuts could still be done one-handed (e.g., mash 2 keys with thumb), and shortcuts were better grouped somehow. the specifics escape me now, but i still miss the higher efficiency of windows shortcuts (which i haven't used regularly in over 10 years).

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#338

Post by ypeterholmes » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

This article focuses on the crop issue, but there's another issue with the UI that is more important: broken hierarchy. Saving the image is almost as important as texting it, but texting is given 90% of the share sheet. Meanwhile emailing, airdropping, tasks(!) and copying(!) are all given more importance than saving.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#339

Post by couchand » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

bosie wrote: post #280

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shake to undo applies to all text boxes on iOS. But I don't blame you if you didn't know that, I only knew about it from the iPhone OS 3(?) keynote that introduced it!

Can you turn this off? I am asking because using an iPhone unlocked while cycling is activating this great feature regularly.

I'm gonna be the jerk who says you really shouldn't be using your phone while cycling.

Re: Perfectly Cropped

#340

Post by lux » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

pault wrote: post #319

lux wrote: post #305

The iCloud authentication issues are the real nightmare for me. I can't tell you how many times I've been rejected using the correct email and password, and how many times I've had to use the reset function only to have it mess up again immediately after. Now, on one machine I just habitually click to dismiss the iCloud window. On another, I've just moved it as far into the bottom corner of the screen as I can get it…

I was a MacOS user since system 9. Every one of my computers was a Mac and I never used windows for anything except the occasional game. A year ago I had to use Windows for my dev environment at work (a dotnet core shop), and I've since bought a Windows workstation for my personal dev environment and stopped using my macs completely. It's absolutely mind boggling to me that windows is now arguably a better dev enviro…

Similar story to mine! I started on System 7 at my first industry job back in 1999. Used Linux exclusively on servers, and needed a personal laptop with a usable command line. Mac was pretty much my only option, since I wasn't interested in fighting with Linux's weak hardware compatiblity back then. Bought my first MBP in 2000 or 2001 and I'm still on one now.

But since I also do a lot of VR development these days, I also have a PC both at work and home dedicated to that. VR obviously dictates my platform choice pretty heavily, so moving to Windows for web stuff makes everything simpler. WSL pretty much sealed the deal, although I wish there were more VR-capable laptops that didn't look like an army tank...