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The Decline of Usability

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Re: The Decline of Usability

#351

Post by Spivak »

10kresistor wrote: post #236
EEMac wrote: post #222

Part of this is because the sensors are winning. Sensors (about 70% of the population) use an application by mapping: a click here does this . Based on literature and my experience with my husband, maps are made separately for each application no matter what the similarities are. Most computer programmers are intuitives: we want things to work the same way in one application as they work in another. That makes it eas…

I suspect that user interfaces that feel like sugary garbage to us are totally fine with them. To them it's all the same.

Newly realized sensory here. I both wonder and desperately don't want to know how you feel. I don't think I could even function if I couldn't have a separate mental manual/muscle memory for each app.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#352

Post by Spivak »

oftenwrong wrote: post #32

It is quite sad how often I end up having to help older relatives with their computers on account of unintuitive UI. One memorable, recent example was my mother, who could not figure out how to get her GMail sidebar to un-collapse itself. Here's a screenshot of a collapsed sidebar: https://storage.googleapis.com/support-forums-api/attachment... and a screenshot of an un-collapsed sidebar: https://techcrunch.com/wp-co…

I was confused about what you were talking about until I saw your screenshot. Fascinating. Coming from Android it is completely normal that hamburger on the left is drawer and three dots on the right is menu. Pretty much every app does it so you can't help but learn it but if you're coming from the desktop and it suddenly appears it makes a lot less sense.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#353

Post by pcurve »

martin_drapeau wrote: post #298
pcurve wrote: post #245

We have army of ux professionals these days. But I think engineers do better UX than most so called ux professionals and I say this as a ux professional myself. we've invented a colossal industry with good intent in the beginning, but over past 10 years, I've seen it degenerate into desperation for relevancy by constantly introducing new things. (things aren't much better in SE) Can we get back to just doing things?…

I agree with engineers doing a better job. Especially over inepexerienced UX professionals who want to try the latest fad. Ultimately users don't care - they want it to work consistently and be intuitive.

" Ultimately users don't care - they want it to work consistently and be intuitive."

Yes.

And if you get these 3 aspect experience right, you can basically get away with murder: Quick performance, accurate info/data, and forgiving/recoverable from error/mistake.

What is looks like, for the most part is inconsequential.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#354

Post by boring_twenties »

lisper wrote: post #103
munk-a wrote: post #97

Oh yes gods slack in particular got a lot worse with the most recent update, but the site I think takes the cake is one we Canadians use for food delivery - skipthedishes.com . Gods this site breaks so many things, options to update things are hidden among menus that switch the current page while not being ctrl-clickable into a new tab (which can trash your current in-cart order) and the whole site loves "minimalism"…

Wow, you are not kidding. I went to this site to see for myself, and the very first thing I see is re-Captcha. And it doesn't even work! I have to pick out photos of tractors before I even get to see what is on the site! Holy cow, why does anyone use this? It's a hot mess.

Well it's either this or you have to cook and do the dishes. Heck, it's even in the name.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#355

Post by kps »

wbl wrote: post #228
EEMac wrote: post #222

Part of this is because the sensors are winning. Sensors (about 70% of the population) use an application by mapping: a click here does this . Based on literature and my experience with my husband, maps are made separately for each application no matter what the similarities are. Most computer programmers are intuitives: we want things to work the same way in one application as they work in another. That makes it eas…

Please explain dd then.

The Unix command? It was parodying the IBM JCL statement.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#356

Post by Spivak »

jl6 wrote: post #22

I find the entire Windows/Mac/Linux desktop experience has regressed terribly, with inconsistency the primary offender. I suspect this is because usability testing is only ever (a) app-specific and (b) short term. Nobody is studying the collective desktop experience across multiple applications, so every vendor thinks they have nailed it, but never notices that their version of “nailed it” is different to everybody e…

I mean inconsistency seems to come from the fact that every app the pet app of a company of anywhere between 20-1000 people. It's easy to take the defaults and accept the platform conventions when you want to get on with other things.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#357

Post by Talanes »

kristopolous wrote: post #188
majewsky wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> here's how you could ask YouTube: "We have a few interfaces. Please tell us what you like to watch: [...] This proposal quickly falls apart because your categories are ill-defined based on your preconceptions. I watch a ton of lectures about video games on Youtube (e.g. speed run breakdowns or game lore theories). Do I choose the "Cartoons and video games" bucket or the "Lectures and tutorials" bucket?

yeah it was off the cuff. If you ask a 9 year old online if they're an adult, some will say "yes". I mean I guess it's their loss. Maybe a more direct approach is better. "We've found adults and teens like different parts of youtube and use it differently. We want to make it the best for you. You can switch at any time, but tell us what best describes you: * I'm an adult * I'm not an adult. " youtube has this "for ki…

The one big thing "For Kids" has going for it is the pro-active identity. Rather than feeling like they are missing out by not being an adult, they instead feel like they're picking the thing that's special for them.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#358

Post by pcurve »

wott wrote: post #313
pcurve wrote: post #245

We have army of ux professionals these days. But I think engineers do better UX than most so called ux professionals and I say this as a ux professional myself. we've invented a colossal industry with good intent in the beginning, but over past 10 years, I've seen it degenerate into desperation for relevancy by constantly introducing new things. (things aren't much better in SE) Can we get back to just doing things?…

No, it's the same with urbanism for example. If I look at what was built in my country before, say, WW2, it all makes sense, even if we just consider private housing development: numerous streets around small blocks, which guarantee many communication options and no concentration of traffic on single exits, streets on the outside of the blocks, so that it can be used by outsiders too, and so that it allows future ext…

dumb question... when there's a lot of space to spread out, what would be a better way to lay out subdivisions off of main road?

Re: The Decline of Usability

#359

Post by bootlooped »

kristopolous wrote: post #57
Animats wrote: post #10

Ubuntu got worse at 18.04. Logging in on desktop now requires "swiping up" with the mouse to get the password box. The "swiping" thing is to avoid problems with unwanted activation when the device is in your pocket. It's totally inappropriate to desktops. Then there's icon mania. I've recently converted from Blender 2.79 to Blender 2.82. Lots of new icons. They dim, they change color, they disappear as modes change,…

Gimp is a great example. If you look up screenshots from the late 90s of gimp 1.0 you think "Hey wow, that looks pretty great! I know where the buttons are, I can quickly scan them and it's clear what they do! It isn't a grey on grey tiny soup, they are distinct and clear, this is great. When is this version shipping? It fixes everything!" Apparently almost everyone agrees but somehow we're still going the wrong way,…

I have only used GIMP a handful of times in my life. I recently had to download it to do something beyond MS Paint's abilities. I had a hard time understanding why many things behaved the way they did. I don't remember it being this hard the last time I used it.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#360

Post by Krasnol »

This is the worst device angle pest we've seen in games already.

PC games designed with consoles in mind make PC games UI worse. It starts with the menu and ends at in-game controls.

This is the same thing we see in windows 10 now. It looks like it must be build in a way that you could use it drunk with your nose on the screen even though more precision is not only possible, it's normal.

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