Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 210 posts

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#71

Post by failwhaleshark »

layer8 wrote: post #32
handrous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it takes a lot of work to ensure that removing depth and shading doesn't remove information, too. I think flat design inherently "wants" to be, if not user hostile, at least less user-friendly than what preceded it. It's a win if the depth and shading was just noise, before. If it was signal, well, now you've got to find something to replace that with, or you're harming UX. And you've got less "bandwidth", if…

Exactly. Flat design removes signals in order to let the UI appear simpler. But the removal of meaningful signals makes the UI more more ambiguous and harder to use. Flat design is an obfuscation, trying to cover up the actual complexity behind a visual semblance of simplicity.

Flat design is the definition of art because it creates something without the intention of usability. Functionality that is hidden isn't usable by definition. It always annoyed me in early Mac UX that there wasn't a specific affordance for additional interactive behavior.

Option this, Ctrl that. Yes, they can be discovered socially and informationally, but that goes against intuitiveness.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#72

Post by failwhaleshark »

seanwilson wrote: post #70
failwhaleshark wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any specific evidence given any that good textbook is "inconsistent," merely vague accusations cast without evidence. A straw man. Affordances have a specific meaning in design. Affordances themselves are subjective because they depend on prior user training. Signifiers are nonessential, supportive adjuncts to affordances to reduce cognitive load (fewer uncertainties and more clarity). "PUSH" sign on a do…

> I don't see any specific evidence given any that good textbook is "inconsistent," merely vague accusations cast without evidence. A straw man. Evidence from your link: Human–Computer Interaction, Preece et al. (1994, p. 6): The authors explicitly define perceived affordances as being a subset of all affordances, but another meaning is used later in the same paragraph by talking about "good affordance." Universal Pr…

So?

An affordance affords. It's in the word.

> pulling, but not pushing.

Because of prior ubiquitous, universal training. Something with a place for fingers to grasp must be for pulling because pushing needs no such requirements.

If you want to split concept hairs or justify common-sense, you're going to have to delve into linguistics.

Have a happy weekend.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#73

Post by johnnysinns »

jp57 wrote: post #52

> Apple are slowly undoing their great usability work in the name of elegance. Not slowly, or recently. The big removal of affordances happened with IOS 7, and Jony Ive's "flat" UI aesthetic. Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini, former Apple UI researchers and champions of UI affordances, wrote an essay[1] complaining about this problem in 2015. It seems like this era might be slowly _ending_ now that Ive is gone. [1] ht…

And man, didn’t the iPhone and iPad completely tank?

… oh, wait.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#74

Post by teucris »

layer8 wrote: post #32
handrous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it takes a lot of work to ensure that removing depth and shading doesn't remove information, too. I think flat design inherently "wants" to be, if not user hostile, at least less user-friendly than what preceded it. It's a win if the depth and shading was just noise, before. If it was signal, well, now you've got to find something to replace that with, or you're harming UX. And you've got less "bandwidth", if…

Exactly. Flat design removes signals in order to let the UI appear simpler. But the removal of meaningful signals makes the UI more more ambiguous and harder to use. Flat design is an obfuscation, trying to cover up the actual complexity behind a visual semblance of simplicity.

But going back to the comment above, I don’t think that flat design is inherently to blame here. Flat design doesn’t require the removal of shadows etc. in order to favor aesthetics over usability. That removal of signal is just bad design. If the designers of flat systems did better at replacing the lost affordances and visual cues, flat design has the potential to be incredibly powerful at making clear, accessible user experiences.

Now that I’ve said that, I do want to make it clear that I haven’t seen an excellent exemplar of flat design. I remain optimistic though.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#75

Post by teucris »

handrous wrote: post #25
khendron wrote: post #24

> Modern design is so beautiful to look at - but an absolute nightmare to use. You either need to use trial an error on every element, or hope that someone else can tell you what you need to do. This. Aesthetics has overtaken usability. Back when it was web design, a good interface was defined as one that was easy to use first, pretty to look at second. During the rise of mobile interfaces, this got flipped. Now pret…

What's crazy is that at one point the new wave of designers was hailed as digital native designers replacing the bad old print-trained designers. They'd save us from treating the screen like paper, unlocking the true potential of these interfaces. The worst sins of the print-designer era may have been pretty bad, but I'd say the average actually got a lot worse when the new crowd took over. First for the Web, then fo…

The idea of grounding UX in physical analogues, in my view, is incredibly important. No matter how much we interact with digital screens, we still walk on ground, pick things up with our hands, etc. Just because we can do anything in a digital experience doesn’t mean we should.

Skeuomorphism may have gone too far, but the pendulum seemed to swing back too far.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#76

Post by seanwilson »

failwhaleshark wrote: post #72
seanwilson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any specific evidence given any that good textbook is "inconsistent," merely vague accusations cast without evidence. A straw man. Evidence from your link: Human–Computer Interaction, Preece et al. (1994, p. 6): The authors explicitly define perceived affordances as being a subset of all affordances, but another meaning is used later in the same paragraph by talking about "good affordance." Universal Pr…

So? An affordance affords. It's in the word. > pulling, but not pushing. Because of prior ubiquitous, universal training. Something with a place for fingers to grasp must be for pulling because pushing needs no such requirements. If you want to split concept hairs or justify common-sense, you're going to have to delve into linguistics. Have a happy weekend.

I'm not debating the definition of the word. I'm saying I avoid using it where I can because I've personally found it hard to get multiple people to agree on the definition - you're proving the point by debating against your own link.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#77

Post by makecheck »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #2

UI affordances have been going away for a long time. FlatUI was the first nearly universal obviously-user-hostile movement. It happened out of boredom and the slow intrusion of the contempt-for-the-audience attitude of art and architecture into web design. Unfortunately, unlike art, we can't ignore architecture or UI design.

I think the saddest thing about “flat” designs is that technology is incredibly capable of delivering so much more. Sure, in 1988 we only had a few colors available in hardware so maybe a button had no choice but to be one boring solid color. In 2021, though?!? Ultra-high resolutions, massive color palettes, photo-realism has never been easier to achieve (even in 3D!!!), all this computing power, and then these overpaid “designers” give us: boring square buttons with one color with unreadable contrast. We deserve so much better from modern UIs.

UIs should not be so plain and spartan that they are literally unusable sometimes. Every Single Button should look like a button, with way more detail than UI buttons have ever had before (why not have a ridiculous number of colors in gradients to make buttons truly beautiful?). When something is highlighted, I want it to be obvious and, again, beautiful (why not glow with photo-realistic lighting effects, for example, since we clearly have the ability and can spare the processing power?).

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#78

Post by cududa »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #2

UI affordances have been going away for a long time. FlatUI was the first nearly universal obviously-user-hostile movement. It happened out of boredom and the slow intrusion of the contempt-for-the-audience attitude of art and architecture into web design. Unfortunately, unlike art, we can't ignore architecture or UI design.

My personal theory is a lot of universities got into “UI design” but basically just had print design teachers teaching the courses. Plus UI design with depth and complex elements requires more talent than flat design. IMO it’s a generation of lowering the bar so people with less technical ability can participate in design

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#79

Post by andai »

todfox wrote: post #5

For more of these daily annoyances: https://grumpy.website The growing user hostility of UIs makes me want to stop developing software and even stop using computers. I started using computers because they made more sense to me than a lot of things. Now, I'm encountering these little moments of illogic and unreason every hour of the day. It's not just beginners who need little cues. I'm deeply familiar with the APIs b…

This is hilarious, but I'm puzzled by his reaction to a hamburger menu:

> Oh-oh. Drag-n-drop icon used for a dropdown menu - May 8, 2021

https://grumpy.website/post/0V_dyk3EP

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#80

Post by marcosdumay »

teucris wrote: post #74
layer8 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Flat design removes signals in order to let the UI appear simpler. But the removal of meaningful signals makes the UI more more ambiguous and harder to use. Flat design is an obfuscation, trying to cover up the actual complexity behind a visual semblance of simplicity.

But going back to the comment above, I don’t think that flat design is inherently to blame here. Flat design doesn’t require the removal of shadows etc. in order to favor aesthetics over usability. That removal of signal is just bad design. If the designers of flat systems did better at replacing the lost affordances and visual cues, flat design has the potential to be incredibly powerful at making clear, accessible…

Just to add, Android's material design is full of shadows and 3D encoding, while still being flat. It's not a great design by any means, but it's proof that flat design does not imply on a 2D UI (despite its name).

The single largest problem is that when we took 3D buttons away, we got no icon for the idea that you some object is clickable. An icon does not need to be skeuomorphic, just unambiguous and easy to recognize, besides, it needs to exist to be useful. Flat design uses a high-contrast background to encode that, what is extremely ambiguous, but there's nothing prohibiting people from creating a better icon.

Post reply on HN