Live data from Hacker News

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

jnd.org

461–470 of 509 posts

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

#461

So true. I used to be an iPhone user for many years until iPhone 5. My Android phone broke and even though I also own an iPhone 6 for testing, it was so frustrating to use that I'm using my Android tablet as a phone until I fix my actual phone. iOS is just stupid. You have to memorize all these gestures for no reason. No discoverability, I bet most people don't know about 80% of all available gestures. To go back to…

Ive, not Hive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jony_Ive

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

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you could always access and navigate menus by the keyboard on Macs (Ctrl + F2 nowadays). It's just that this was/is a relatively unknown feature.

How do you do this on System 7.5? Would actually be super useful on a PowerBook I have where the trackpad goes wild on cold days before the machine warms up.

Actually, I don't remember how this really worked in System 7. :-(

I think, at least in Word you could Cmd + Tab (or pressing "." on the numeric keypad) to transfer focus to the menu bar. (Then simply navigate by cursor keys and use Enter or Space to select an item.)

However, Mouse Keys may be generally of help. I think, in System 7, they are part of the "Easy Access" system extension (be sure to have this in your system folder). Mouse Keys are activated by Cmd + Opt + Clear and allow you to navigate by the numeric keypad. (Up, down, left, right, diagonally, 5 is equivalent to a click, 0 to holding the mouse button pressed, the decimal point [dot] to releasing it.) On a PowerBook, you probably have to use the function key as well. (Using Mouse Keys, you may activate a menu by the 0 key. Normally, once the menu bar has focus, you can navigate by cursor keys and select a menu item by the space bar.)

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

#463

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…

I think the core problem is that every manmade tool eventually has to choose 2 of the 3: • Be intuitive for new users • Have features for power users • Sane number of customization options Like the dock labels issue. I personally don't need or want labels in the Dock. But there should be an option to enable dock labels for people who are not familiar with all the icons. In fact I would like to hide the labels for ALL…

I absolutely disagree.

Nova Launcher is an example of a pretty good piece of software that fulfills all 3 requirements in my mind (it's a 3rd party launcher, or desktop, for Android). It's what I use personally so it fits my power user and ricing needs, but it's also what I set up for less computer literate relatives.

It has every option one could want, but they are organised sanely and are kept separate from the basic interface. I don't see why this is difficult.

As a power user you could easily set up your click and hold labels with KWGT or KLWP. Having this option available doesn't make the phone worse to use for normal users. All hail the android ecosystem!

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

#464
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, there is a steady decline in usability and its a bloody shame because for years the usability is what set Apple apart from the others. A few things which hugely annoy me; - Saving a photo from iMessage.... the option has disappeared. I get a popup to airdrop the file, interact with some apps and a huge copy button. In fact, I can scroll down in this menu but there is not a single visual indicator that…

1Password works natively with iOS... In the standard iOS keyboard when you are in a password field, click on the key icon that pops up and you can select to fill the password from 1pass.

Not for system dialog boxes, like signing into the App Store. I know exactly what he's talking about.

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

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? It usually pops up a message asking if you want to undo, which you need to tap. I'm pretty darn sure this is how the feature has worked since it was introduced.

You are right. I hadn't used this in a long time. Did it always pop up the dialog? I could have sworn it didn't.

As I said, I'm pretty darn sure it has always popped up a dialog. Certainly, the dialog has existed for a very long time, I recall seeing it on my first gen iPad, when I was in High School. (I graduated college three years ago.)

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

#466

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…

My most-hated thing is bringing up the brightness controls. Not intuitive, and isn't explained when you first set up the iPad. Sometimes it even takes me several attempts because I'm not close enough to the corner I guess.

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

#467
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In a text box if I misspell a word, such as impaitant, I cannot go to the middle of that word and delete 'ti' and replace with 'it'. If you hold your finger on the textbox it should turn into a cursor which you can drag to the required position to make the edits.

Or just highlight the word and a spelling correction will be suggested, or just use the backspace when you make the mistake instead of continuing to type.

Thought of another one in the same spirit: never mistype a word. And never use a word that is not in the dictionary!

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

#468
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, there is a steady decline in usability and its a bloody shame because for years the usability is what set Apple apart from the others. A few things which hugely annoy me; - Saving a photo from iMessage.... the option has disappeared. I get a popup to airdrop the file, interact with some apps and a huge copy button. In fact, I can scroll down in this menu but there is not a single visual indicator that…

And 3D Touch on the virtual keyboard, which used to turn it into a trackpad with which you could move the text cursor freely and 3D Touch again to select text has been replaced with "Haptic Touch" which lets you long-touch the space bar to move the cursor but offers no way to select text so you have to revert to the old "touch the word you want to edit" UI.

Aand I just learned that long-touching the spacebar was a thing. Seems like something that should be more obvious from the design.

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

#469

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?

Google and Netflix are horrible for this. Want to switch which user account you're using? No problem, simply find the picture of the current user account that you definitely don't want to use, and click on it.

Clicking your user account picture to access actions related to your user account (such as, change account, logout, change this picture etc) actually seems pretty intuitive. Where would you expect to find this functionality instead?

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

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Netflix are horrible for this. Want to switch which user account you're using? No problem, simply find the picture of the current user account that you definitely don't want to use, and click on it.

Clicking your user account picture to access actions related to your user account (such as, change account, logout, change this picture etc) actually seems pretty intuitive. Where would you expect to find this functionality instead?

I was expecting to find it there, but older people who I've walked through these interfaces would expect it to be under something like "settings" or "switch account" rather than "this account".

Also, it's really a stretch to say that an action related to account x is "switch to account y."

Post reply on HN