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Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

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Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#371

Post by FpUser »

r_singh wrote: post #323
FpUser wrote: post #133

I have a desktop Windows only product that I sell (10s of thousands of clients). It does not have the most eye pleasing UI design but it is very functional and ergonomic. All possible actions are clearly visible and / or discoverable. And every action can be accessed in less clicks then in any of competitor's products. I actually get some praises for it. Still every once in a while I get support email telling me that…

> beauty trumps usability/ergonomics I bet that beauty wouldn't have trumped usability (in terms of Apple's preference and an elite buyer's purchase decision) if it also wasn't positioned and marketed as an aspirational / cool product. There's a lot of people that just want to own it because it's the goto for aspirational / luxury electronics. That aside, I always buy only Apple because other products just deteriorat…

"...other products just deteriorate in terms of performance at an unbelievable rate. Have owned windows and android products and after using them for like a year, it's hard to believe that it's the same shiny machine that you thought would be a good buy"

I use Windows and somehow my laptops and desktops do not deteriorate. Works like a charm. Same goes to my Linux setups. I do not use Android much beyond plain phone calls so can not really judge that one.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#372

Post by nullwarp »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #308
JadeNB wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have one of the few Android phones with a physical keyboard What phone? Do you recommend it?

BlackBerry KeyOne or Key2. I have the KeyOne and would recommend the Key2. Typing is not any faster than on glass, but it's purposeful and generally error-free, which is a much better experience in my opinion. Also, you don't need to look at the keys.

Not having to stare at the screen to type is such a huge thing for me, also I've completely disabled auto-correct.

I'm really sad that it feels like we're dwindling down on physical keyboard phones.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#373

Post by meerita »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #216
kick wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things that are missing that are obvious, such as being able to organize the icons on your Home screen as you wish like you can do in Android, This is bad on a mobile operating system. I had the displeasure of trying a device running Android's default UIs a few weeks ago: it felt like a Fisher-Price toy. Apple's model of organization is better in every way.

You could just organize things Apple's way if you wanted to though. Sometimes it seems like Apple's lack of choice is the primary reason people prefer Apple.

That's a false premise. Sorry, but the rest of the world don't have problems with that, we don't even know if that is a problem. For me, that option is really important because I can organize the icons in the order and in the spatial order I want. Same for my elderly mother, I leave her a few icons in the middle of the screen. Easiest way to organize icons on the screen instead to top bottom groups, icons.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#374

Post by twanvl »

toast0 wrote: post #293
chrisseaton wrote: post #2

Is anyone trying to back this up with a proper scientific study of whether users find it easier or harder to use? Seems just like opinion and debates about aesthetics otherwise? If I wanted to claim that JavaScriptCore was getting slower and I didn't post any data to back that up people would laugh me out of the conversation.

As far as I know, the last time anybody used science to help make a good UI was for Windows 95. If you can find "The Windows 95 User Interface: A Case Study in Usability Engineering" you can see they were thorough. I would love to be wrong, but I don't think anything like this was posted for any more recent Windows, or Mac OS X or any of the many mobile operating systems.

There was a whole series on the office 2007 ribbon UI. (see https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2008/03/13/table-of...)

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#375

Post by meerita »

mellowdream wrote: post #79
meerita wrote: post #5

Apple made a huge mistake when it launched iOS 7: it failed to improve its UI. I don't know if it was a matter of the best and most capable designers leaving the company or bad decisions by the managers, but the truth is that iOS 7 was never a good UI for iPhones, especially the biggest ones. There are many things that are missing that are obvious, such as being able to organize the icons on your Home screen as you w…

It's SO nice hearing that I'm not the only one who thought this - it was actually around this release that I just gave up on iPhones and moved to Android phones. The amount of fiddling/setup/googling I've had to do since has been dramatically less.

I've sold my iPhone 5 and bought Pixel phone with Android KitKat back then and it was the best decision I've ever made. Now I'm considering to go back to Apple just because the privacy level.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#376

Post by duncanawoods »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #355
xg15 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Steve Jobs had followed user preference he'd have made a faster flip phone. Actually, would this be so bad?

This is a take that I had never considered. Given our apocalyptic predicament, perhaps faster horses would have been the better choice... What a twist.

Also... are self-driving cars smarter than horses yet? I've wondered if it would be easier to train a dog to drive a car than a computer. Working dogs are just so crazy smart.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#377

Post by matwood »

b3kart wrote: post #180
bitwize wrote: post #3

Apple has fallen into the same trap that Microsoft has -- changing their UI not to advance the state of the art, but just for the sake of changing it so they have something new to sell.

I’d play the devils advocate re. it being a “trap”. People get bored of things. Changing UI for the sake of changing UI is a sensible business decision if it scratches the customers’ novelty itch. At least a good short-term decision.

Yeah. When a company doesn't make changes they get complaints about using the same 'old' or 'tired' design. The general market likes new regardless if it is better. To quote a recurring snarky remark from HIMYM, "newer is always better" /s

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#378

Post by matwood »

josteink wrote: post #29
jbverschoor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone has become a 2-handed device instead of a 1-handed device.

The iPhone SE may have been the last true iPhone IMO. Too bad Apple seems hellbent on the much less usable 6” monstrocitious these days.

What's funny is that before Apple released the large iPhones, people were leaving the iPhone to go to the larger Androids. There were very loud complaints about how Apple was behind, and larger phones were the future.

I switched from an iPhone 4 to Android, and went back to the iPhone when they released the larger size - the 6 IIRC.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#379

Post by endorphone »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #288
Razengan wrote: post #287

The iPad was my gateway into the Apple orchard. I had never purchased an Apple product until about a decade ago, when I got the first Retina iPad as a gift for someone who didn’t use computers. I was so impressed by how intuitive the device and OS was for them, that I installed macOS in a VM on Windows to try iOS development. I fell in love with macOS (back during Lion) shortly before getting my first MacBook and lea…

Oh, you want to updates your apps? That's easy. Open up the App Store and then click on your profile picture. Wait, what?

A constant barrage of application update notifications, and the process of doing the same, was an unnecessary chore that led to update fatigue. Apple moved to defaulting to automatic updates, removed the various signals and notifications about updates pending, and now the average person just has updated apps within a reasonable window of consideration.

e.g. This was definitely a change for the better. They're pushing something that shouldn't be first class into the background, in the same way that you don't manage memory or decide which apps in the background to close.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#380

Post by OGWhales »

kccqzy wrote: post #306
JohnTHaller wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you want to updates your apps? That's easy. Open up the App Store and then click on your profile picture. Wait, what?

Hold the App Store icon until a menu appears. Choose "Updates" and done. I'm not defending Apple here. I only accidentally discovered this shortcut. I feel that designers these days expect users to explore a lot of things out of blind faith in order to discover functionality.

Thanks for the tip. I always forget how to do it the couple times I've updated.
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