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The Decline of Usability

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Re: The Decline of Usability

#361

Post by barrkel »

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…

Everything is turning into pop culture.

Doing things because they're fashionable right now, because they're newer, because it's easier to convince someone that the old way looks old than it is to convince them that it's worse.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#362

Post by barrkel »

pcurve wrote: post #358
wott wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There shouldn't be a lot of "space to spread out"; that's car culture, not human scale development.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#363

Post by kps »

ehonda wrote: post #221
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #55

Some of the worst offenders are 16x9 monitors. Great Apple did not follow that strange fad, and stuck with 16x10.

My desktop main monitor and laptop are 16x10, both are 10 years old. I can't get over how terrible 16x9 is for computer use, its a travesty that this became the standard.

Using TV screens for computer output is an idea that should have died with the Commodore 64.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#364

Post by wolco »

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 best thing a parent could do is download a set of approved videos and use a local playlist.

The easiest thing to do is just allow them on youtube no filter.

The middle ground is the play app. Weird stuff sometimes get through but usually it's more someone dressed as a pretend princess. The good thing it's never really a murder scene or something equally as horrible (which could popup on youtube.com).

What would you do as a parent?

I would avoid youtube unless you setup the video until 7 or 11. After that it depends on the child.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#365

Post by airstrike »

Spivak wrote: post #351
10kresistor wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people even have muscle memory for different keyboard layouts at the same time!

I know I used to switch pretty seamlessly between US International and ABNT-2[0] but others use Dvorak, Colemak and what have you which is obviously orders of magnitude harder...

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_keyboard_layout

Re: The Decline of Usability

#366

Post by airstrike »

roboyoshi wrote: post #170
FridgeSeal wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started a new job and they use Gmail for the email, it has been probably well over a year since I logged into gmail on web. That’s side hamburger button throws me for a loop every. Single. Times. For some reason I keep thinking it’ll bring up the other gsuite apps, but instead the whole page shifts awkwardly aha then the sidebar disappears, “that was not what I was expecting” is my reaction every time.

You may want to try this one: https://simpl.fyi/

Amazing, thanks for this

Re: The Decline of Usability

#367

Post by nine_k »

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 must be the rare person here who finds that Gimp becomes better and nicer with each release.

Yes, I had to explicitly set the way I want the icons to look in settings. It wasn't hard, and one of the bundled sets worked for me.

Maybe it's because I'm a long-time user and I know my way around, and where in the settings to look.

One of the problems of shipping UIs is setting good defaults. Maybe Gimp does not do a great job here; I should try a Clea installation.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#368

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #330
madjam002 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike it too, but doesn’t Windows 10 do the same thing?

Windows 10 is even worse. It swipes up for you when you press a key, but it won't pass that key on to the password box. So you have to press a key and then type your password. At least with gnome you can just type your password and it works as expected...

It also requires you to wait until the animation has finished. I regularly lose the first character or two of my password, because I start typing too soon, while it’s still animating away

Re: The Decline of Usability

#369

Post by jacobsenscott »

In the old days you had no choice but to use the widgets provided by the OS, unless you wanted to build everything from scratch, which was very hard. So everyone used the widgets provided by the OS and things were good. Those widgets were build by experienced hci experts, so it was hard to go wrong.

Now you have no choice but build all the widgets from scratch - a web browser doesn't provide any beyond a few form controls. So it is bad - every application must rebuild all the widgets from scratch, usually by designers with limited experience and skill.

Re: The Decline of Usability

#370

Post by a1369209993 »

kristopolous wrote: post #269
pfranz wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they couldn't make it easier to set I think the clock should have been less prominent. It's necessary if you're doing a scheduled recording. It's too bad time sync over power lines didn't catch on widely (or broadcast over the radio). It would still be saving everyone from changing their digital clocks during DST.

Time codes inside of analog terrestrial NTSC sounds really easy and obvious. Given that nobody did it, it would appear that even though legally people like Mr. Rogers were making the case for time-shift programming, the industry must have assumed it was a minor use case.

> the industry must have assumed it was a minor use case.

You mean the same industry that was trying to make time-shifting (and VCRs in general) illegal?

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