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

The Decline of Usability (2020)

datagubbe.se

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 241 posts

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#141

Post by codeptualize »

mnd999 wrote: post #115
codeptualize wrote: post #64

There is a misconception that consistency == usability. It's an important part of usability but there is a lot more to it. Tunnel vision on consistency (or anything really) doesn't lead to good outcomes. The big picture is what matters: can someone do what they need to do? Articles like these also have lots of opinions, no research and stats, nor have decent explanations of how much impact these "problems" actually h…

> Articles like these also have lots of opinions, no research and stats, Oh you’re in the data driven club. I bet you even A/B test. Good luck with that.

No, I don't use A/B tests for usability as they aren't very helpful to find usability problems.

A/B testing is more for conversion optimization, it's to measure how persuasive something is.

User testing is my preferred method (in it's simplest form just observing people doing a task), if that's not an option I like heuristic evaluations.

I suggest you actually look into what usability is about, you might enjoy it. Good luck with your assumptions.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#142

Post by wredue »

dgb23 wrote: post #58
Y-bar wrote: post #2

The author mentions they reserve judgement about Mac OS because of lack of experience. But I would say the same decline is happening here. Especially Apple themselves seem infatuated with hiding things behind slow hover effects and way-too-subtle shades of grey. This is hurting discoverable portions of the interface, probably in the name of looking sleek, and once you have learned that something exists somewhere behi…

Somewhat related: As someone who likes working on a single screen I typically like to open things in full-screen mode by default. MacOS plays a sluggish animation when switching between screens. You can't turn it off, you can just switch between two similarly slow ones. I can't imagine a good reason for this. What is their model of a user and how did they derive "slow animation when switching windows is good" from th…

People absolutely LOVE slow animations for general OS use.

Personally, I want for what I asked to happen to actually happen when I press a button, but I am far and away the minority.

What’s even worse, is that developers today have taken this “people love animations” stance and decided “hey, we can get away with utterly shit tier performance by just making an animation!” And so 15 second page loads are now the norm because you are rewarded with a few fade effects now and again.

And now the “fuck performance” has invaded literally everything.

We now even have technology being built for the express purpose of letting developers off the hook for performance characteristics (Look hard at you DLSS). Somehow, the general public has decided that DLSS is an optimization, and not actually just a way to not optimize at all. In the conversation of Starfields utterly dogshit optimization, the first “optimization” always brought up is DLSS.

Our industry is completely fucking sideways.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#143

Post by cuddlecake »

ProxCoques wrote: post #120

UX designer here who has done nothing but design web, mobile and related UI since about 2000, mostly working for or at large consumer brands (and now thinking of retiring). I'd definitely agree with the idea that change for change's sake is responsible for a lot of usability problems. But a bigger problem is the near extinction of any professional discussion or capable analysis of design by the people who are doing i…

As a frontend dev, what are good resources to learn about principles and heuristics that I can apply in my work?

I have some knowledge, albeit very primitive, that I picked up from an HCI introduction and some good designers, but nothing too technical / formal yet.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#144

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

winrid wrote: post #130
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I once spent a lot of my time and the time and the time of a developer trying to find a setting because there was no indication that a window had more content (a checkbox) to scroll down to. I've done that, man. Quite embarrassing.

Embarrassing for the app/os designers.

I try to write mine, to avoid that kind of thing. It often involves a lot of arguing with the graphic designer.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#145

Post by codeptualize »

pseudalopex wrote: post #135
codeptualize wrote: post #64

There is a misconception that consistency == usability. It's an important part of usability but there is a lot more to it. Tunnel vision on consistency (or anything really) doesn't lead to good outcomes. The big picture is what matters: can someone do what they need to do? Articles like these also have lots of opinions, no research and stats, nor have decent explanations of how much impact these "problems" actually h…

These things were studied in decades past. Did you demand research and stats when Microsoft made it impossible to tell which window is focused? What benefits were claimed?

My whole point is that usability is not about small details but the ability to complete a task. The big picture.

I don't use windows, I don't like it, but if [it being impossible to tell which window is focussed] doesn't impede people accomplishing the things they need to do, it's probably a cosmetic, at best a minor usability problem.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#146

Post by _y5hn »

mk89 wrote: post #137
Ensorceled wrote: post #127

The past decade or so, I've found myself in a constant battle with UI/UX team members. A big part of the battle seems to be a shift from power/tool user to consumer design paradigms. 20 years ago, most software was tools for professionals, now most software (on a usage level at least) is consumer software (literally consumers of video, social media etc.) Designers can't seem to switch modes and keep trying to apply "…

The best is that if you (junior or senior) bring this up, you're either shut down by management because you don't have the right expertise (how dare you, especially if you like me are mostly working in backend) or by the UX guy saying 1) it's a best practice, and 2) if they ran a research/survey, they found that it makes "almost no difference" - the major points are xyz (which is something really worse that requires…

Not just a front end problem. As a customer of facebook, netflix, hbo,prime, disney+ etc., it continually amazes that these expensive devs can't make the backend remember what I watched and not. Combined with an "engaging" front end that hides what I'm interested in and shifts the interface randomly, the experience is pretty low.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#147

Post by wredue »

estebarb wrote: post #18
Y-bar wrote: post #2

The author mentions they reserve judgement about Mac OS because of lack of experience. But I would say the same decline is happening here. Especially Apple themselves seem infatuated with hiding things behind slow hover effects and way-too-subtle shades of grey. This is hurting discoverable portions of the interface, probably in the name of looking sleek, and once you have learned that something exists somewhere behi…

Recently I bought a MBP and I'm surprised by how hard to use it is. Printing by both sides? Not supported, you must do it by hand. And some apps print the pages in reverse order, so you end up having to sort the pages. Use numberpad . as . instead of ,? You have to download an app to use a sane default. Alt+. in terminal? No luck if you aren't using an English keyboard. Run a downloaded app? Run it, accept failure, s…

The blocked app shit really gets me. Installing compilers by hand is always a fight and a half.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#148

Post by ChoHag »

mk89 wrote: post #137
Ensorceled wrote: post #127

The past decade or so, I've found myself in a constant battle with UI/UX team members. A big part of the battle seems to be a shift from power/tool user to consumer design paradigms. 20 years ago, most software was tools for professionals, now most software (on a usage level at least) is consumer software (literally consumers of video, social media etc.) Designers can't seem to switch modes and keep trying to apply "…

The best is that if you (junior or senior) bring this up, you're either shut down by management because you don't have the right expertise (how dare you, especially if you like me are mostly working in backend) or by the UX guy saying 1) it's a best practice, and 2) if they ran a research/survey, they found that it makes "almost no difference" - the major points are xyz (which is something really worse that requires…

[dead]

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#149

Post by wredue »

li2uR3ce wrote: post #32

Despite the gutting of desktop usability for the sake of being mobile compatible, many environments still have zero presence on mobile. Can I PLEASE have my fucking scrollbar back now? I once spent a lot of my time and the time and the time of a developer trying to find a setting because there was no indication that a window had more content (a checkbox) to scroll down to. Something that would have been obvious befor…

And what the fuck is with the wording on check boxes these days?

On top of not even knowing if the sliding circle is actually on or off, half the time I cannot figure out which of on or off I actually want. Double negatives all over the place. Weird wording. No indication of actual impact.

It’s all crazy.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#150

Post by dangus »

I think the idea that UI was consistent between 1992 and 2012 is laughable. It’s nostalgia and rose colored glasses.

Cross platform applications were often based on entirely different codebases and looked nothing like each other or their native host OS. Examples: AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft Office (persists to this day), Internet Explorer Macintosh compared to Windows. If applications like Slack are bad at being a part of the host OS then we can’t ignore the fact that this isn’t anything new.

Numerous applications completely disregarded their host OS design language. Examples: Every Java application, RealPlayer, WinAmp, iTunes, America Online, Macromedia/Adobe Flash and Shockwave apps, HyperCard, the list goes on and on.

Post reply on HN