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If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

blog.maxrudberg.com

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Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#51

Post by olleicua »

olleicua wrote: post #50

I haven't read this article but I find the title highly objectionable. There is a recent distressing trend in UI design that providing the user with options always makes the UI harder to use. This means taking control away from users and giving it to best case devs who may not have thought of everything worst case suits with corporate agendas etc. Computers are supposed to make peoples lives easier not pidgeon-hole t…

Ok, I've read it now and maybe this isn't so bad but I do think walk-throughs have their place. In general I think UI design needs to be more thoroughly explored as a field.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#52

Post by potatolicious »

baddox wrote: post #8

If you have to be taught how to drive a car, they blew it.

Despite typically cavalier attitudes toward driving in this country, cars are expert systems, not unlike piloting aircraft, or using a sewing machine.

There is substantial training, even licensing surrounding cars. We put up with the steep learning curve because of the tremendous and inescapable requirement of cars in many places.

So. Is your app so important that your user will put up with a steep learning curve and reading documentation before they can use it?

The appropriateness of UI walkthroughs hinge on this point. Steep learning curves and a need for training is inescapable in many situations - it's also almost always unnecessary for consumer applications.

Just like how no one would buy a toaster that required training/documentation.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#53

Post by Lewisham »

notatoad wrote: post #37
andybak wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People skip tutorials and walkthoughs just like people don't read the Help. Discoverability needs to be layered. Come over and watch my Dad use your app. It's astonishing how much we take for granted.

Some people skip through tutorials and rely on discoverability, others are lost without a tutorial no matter how discoverable your features are. Written introductions are comforting, You need to accommodate both learning styles. With a recent project I watched a few totally inept testers discover all the features with no problems, but after launching it became clear that most of our power users were not discovering f…

I often find that I have no recollection of the tutorial after I've done it (usually because I am annoyed that it has come up when I've probably downloaded the app because I need it now).

I think there's room for both, but I think it's nuts to assume that the people who really do need a walkthrough will:

a) Remember it

b) Be able to find out where to get the tutorial again, unless there's a giant "?" button at the top.

I think your vision is skewed, if all you require is "a quick bit of intro text". I've seen tutorials that are minutes long, and it's just awful.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#54

Post by ww520 »

I respectfully disagree. Nothing wrong with a simple design that deviates from the "standard" behavior. Most UI metaphors including the standards require some learning. Even the desktop icons need explanation to the users initially. Most users are ok with training if the UI is simple enough to pick up.

For example, this app has non-standard UI but has very simple UI that the users can pick up quickly. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsyste...

Clear and Rise are perfect examples of simple UI that can be explained and picked up quickly.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#55

Post by shuttlebrad »

Depends heavily on what you're letting people do, and how long they're going to spend doing it. Games tend to have smaller numbers of "verbs", and longer engagement times - for a superb example of progressive teaching, play through the Portal developer explanation (available after you finish the game).

It's much, much harder to do this with an application where you can't boil the functionality down to a small set of verbs - line of business apps are the usual terrible example of this.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#56

Post by rimantas »

ary wrote: post #6

This is utter nonsense. Spend even a small amount of time with someone who works outside of the computer hardware/software industry and observe how and why they use a smart phone or computer. UI walkthroughs are not only necessary, but desired. They act as the equivalent of standing next to someone and "showing" them how something works. As the OP correctly notes there is a very heavy reliance on mimicry for most lea…

  > They act as the equivalent of standing next to someone
  > and "showing" them how something works.
Yup. That's the point. In the best case you should not show how something works it should be obvious or very easy to discover.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#57

Post by Too »

The problem is not that some apps use their own UI paradigm to achieve a minimal UI. The problem is the kind of apps that do so.

If an alarm clock (second example in the OP) requires me to remember weird gestures something is wrong. An alarm clock does not lack visual screen space and the main purpose of the alarm clock is to set the time and then close it. It doesn't have to look good or save space to show something else.

For a browser or a book reader it's different, there i want to fill the whole screen with content as reading is the main purpose of using that app. If i have to tripple sweep, double tap or whatever to get to the menu i don't care.

Re: If you see a UI walkthrough, they blew it

#60

Post by mwill »

furyofantares wrote: post #49
ricardobeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people put their most used apps in the home screen, so that's a tie.

I am not convinced most people organize their apps at all, or even know how to.

Anecdotal evidence: My father once saw me open the app switcher to force quit an app that was behaving badly. He thought it was easier, so he now checks it every single time he wants to switch an app. If it's not on the first row, he goes to the home screen and searches for it, which can take him up to a few minutes. He doesn't organise his apps in any way, and isn't interested in starting, even though he knows how to move them around.

He just likes the app switcher better.

But he never would have discovered it if not for him coincidentally paying attention when I pulled it up once.

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