As Pauli said, “That’s not even wrong.”
Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
221–230 of 451 posts
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting directions is simple. Even the author doesn't take issue with that specific functionality. And I've never had an issue with Google maps hiding street names when there was ample room to show them, but if you're more than a little zoomed out, there isn't that room. Showing only major roads is a decent trade off, as is the mouse scroll wheel for zoom in/out. Or maybe it's my own failure of imagination: how would…
> Getting directions is simple. Even the author doesn't take issue with that specific functionality. Yes he does. You touch anything and state is erased. Don't know exactly which one of the search results you want to go to? Tough shit, the interface works against you. And still, getting directions used to be simpler. Now you have to decipher unlabeled hieroglyphs, and the interface keeps changing. You can't even get…
Exactly. It basically forces you to walk with the map open and not just do like 'keeping walking straight until you see road x'. Such a damming thing when you are walking 15-20 minutes to a place in a new city or even in an unknown area in your city.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#223I was driving across country, became tired and had to check-in at a roadside motel a few weeks ago. It was 3AM and the clerk took about 15 minutes to complete the check-in. She apologized several times and said "this was so much faster back years ago when we had DOS. There's too many clicks, screen freezes and confirmation with the newer computers". She was older so I'm assuming by newer she means POS systems built within the past 20 years
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
The example for maps is not a "hyper specific use case": "The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding." That's a common use case. The problem with Google maps (and the problem with a lot of modern software) is, as you say, it makes a lot of gu…
Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?
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Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only a programmer would think that going back to keyboards is a good idea. He goes too far and his suggestions are nebulous. But it sure would be nice to go back somewhat to the keyboard. There are so many apps with broken tab-orders; so many common operations without common shortcuts; so many badly tuned completion engines; bad interactions with autofill, etc. There's a whole lot of stuff that I could do faster on…
And you have to have 3 browsers because 2 of them are broken on some field. I wonder how often updates cratered green consoles back in the day. Curses could be tricky at times. The path for many commercial UIs seems to be to map out complex processes into the most linear common path so that anyone off the street could do it. All that mouse action kneecaps productivity, and as soon as you come to an exception you ente…
Great UX is worse than fusion - at least once we get fusion done it'll be worked out, but UX will always be on the brink of regression.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#226Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.
The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…
Based on my recent interview with a company that does a huge amount of livestreaming, the really smart people at least have a few ideas about this.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#227There are some good points here, but of course I am going to ignore those to talk instead about the stuff I disagree with! The section about google maps follows a form of criticism that is widespread and particularly annoys me, namely => popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y', therefore x is hopelessly borked, poorly designed, and borderline useless. There is always room for improvement, but a…
Indeed, but even without getting into the details of UX tradeoffs, etc... Google Maps was science fiction in 1983. The whole thread misses the fact that the functionality we have in our pockets today would have absolutely blown our minds in 1983. How can it be called perceptually slower?
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. But it used to be even better when it made that assumption clear by adding a pre-filled box with your current location. It just worked for the default case but when you needed something else it was straightforward to do that.
Doesn't it? It gives me two boxes, "current location" and "destination" and I can change either.
Straight away after you open Google Maps on a mobile?
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#229Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.
The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…
Why not have the previous and next channel frame-data points loaded in the background? This would enable to switch quickly, even if it costs a bit more resources on the hardware side.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#230The maps feedback is spot on -- as a consumer I want a decision support tool that helps me run searches reliably and quickly. I think G wants to show me a maximum of three things at once so they can optimize ad clicks.
G maps had the option to be excel and instead chose to be the bottom shelf of the cereal aisle. It's fine to treat your users like consumers instead of power users, but that opens a hole in the market for a city-aware, mobile-friendly GIS tool.