iOS 7 • Hacker News Board

Re: iOS 7

#61

Post by toyg » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:19 PM UTC

I don't care about flatness or skeutransmogrification or whatnot, but the damn thing must WORK.

Look at his iMessage screen comparison [1]: yes, the old screen looks a bit geocities, but you can actually read text very well; the new screen is almost unreadable. The prime aim of iMessage is to make people read text, not to look cool.

It doesn't matter if there are options to thicken the font -- the whole point of OSX/iOS UI was that you should not need options, because defaults should be good enough for most people. This is clearly not the case with what we've seen of iOS7, and that's a problem.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgemmell/9023510971/

Re: iOS 7

#62

Post by bmcmahen » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:20 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #27

iOS 7 foregoes borders, instead relying on colour to indicate interactivity Good thing there aren't people out there who are color-blind, then... Oh, wait.

As someone who is colour blind, I don't see this being much of an issue. If the colours are strong and stark enough (which it looks like they are) the vast majority of people who are colour-blind won't have any issues.

Re: iOS 7

#63

Post by untog » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:20 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #36

runjake wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum. I agree, but the similarities are being pointed out precisely because Apple (and their major pundits like Marco and Gruber) makes a big deal about how others have borrowed ideas from them. For example, the infamous "Redmond/Mountain View, start you…

Borrowing ideas is only a big deal if you're ripping on those you borrow from. Like if someone from Apple were to say "MS just can't do design right, Metro is terrible start to finish" and then they borrow from Metro, that's newsworthy. Following current design trends and adding a splash of your own flavor to them... that's status quo, isn't it?

I'd be interested to know whether the lawyers in the Apple vs Samsung 'rounded corners' court case would agree to that being the status quo.

Re: iOS 7

#64

Post by daughart » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:22 PM UTC

kraemate wrote: post #24

I cant believe how quickly UI and design have fallen now that Jobs is gone. Things like childish gradients and terrible icons. Don't even get me started on the contrast -- light text on fluorescent green background and the really thin font. I could only draw one conclusion from the comparison of iOS 6 vs 7 --- it's as if Apple has done everything possible to make it unusable. Steve would probably have fired the taste…

People on here are nuts.

How are the new gradients any different than the old gradients?! Any more "childish"?! (Look at the Messages app for example.) Is there any consistency between the old Voice Memos, Apple Store, Videos, iTunes, and Stocks apps? Do these icons really strike you as fundamentally better than the new ones?

Re: iOS 7

#65

Post by threeseed » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:23 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #27

iOS 7 foregoes borders, instead relying on colour to indicate interactivity Good thing there aren't people out there who are color-blind, then... Oh, wait.

There is a high contrast mode. And the entire web mainly uses color to differentiate between links and normal text ie. many omit the underlining. So not sure what makes iOS so different in this regard.

Re: iOS 7

#66

Post by mtgx » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:24 PM UTC

dylangs1030 wrote: post #16

I'm glad someone wrote a blog post like this. It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum. Android copies from iOS and vice versa - they each follow the cultural trends of smart design. I would much rather see blog posts like this - where the author considers the iOS in its own right instead of…

I think that is happening because Apple is usually the one to cry foul, and now everyone wants to expose them for the shameless hypocrisy. That is all.

Re: iOS 7

#67

Post by pdeuchler » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:24 PM UTC

ryanstout wrote: post #5

Hopefully I'm not the only one that thinks this is going to kill usability. The reason old people can figure their way around This article seems to sum up some of my other complaints fairly well: http://wolfslittlestore.be/tasteless/

If you go to the Apple Developer forums (https://developer.apple.com/devforums/ Dev account needed) the "Getting Started" sub-forum is filled with devs, from just signed up to veterans with multiple apps under their belt, asking usability questions.

I think it's telling when your own developing base has to post to forums asking simple questions like:

  Where did my spotlight search go?
  How do I rate songs?

Re: iOS 7

#68

Post by Domenic_S » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:25 PM UTC

headShrinker wrote: post #49

Domenic_S wrote: post #18

> The thing is, we’ve grown up. We don’t require hand-holding to tell us what to click or tap. [...] iOS 7 foregoes borders, instead relying on colour to indicate interactivity Relying on color to indicate interactivity... like we've done on the web forever? That's been a best practice since I-don't-know-when. I disagree with the "we've grown up" idea. I'm not sure there's a Platonic ideal for UI/X, but clearly we're…

> Relying on color to indicate interactivity I disagree. We reply on context and content to indicate interactivity. Color has been a pseudo indicator and is now inaccurate at best and misleading at worst. Just take a look at the header of this comment; the username timestamp and link are all the same color, yet only two of the three are actually links or clickable at all. Thus, the content and the context indicate cl…

HN is full of UX antipatterns, I really wouldn't recommend using them as a template for what works.

Re: iOS 7

#69

Post by daughart » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:25 PM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #53

aroman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about this too, but then realized it's a completely moot point unless you are black/white color blind (which virtually nobody is). Differing colors are NOT being used to indicate differing actions. They're just being used to indicate interactivity in general , and it doesn't matter if you see that indicator as red or green (the most common form of colorblindness).

You hint at it, but there are more flavors of color blindness than red/green. When I learned that my (former) boss was color-blind, I spend an hour on wikipedia and learned way more about color blindness than I had realized there was to know.

Other forms of colorblindness are incredibly rare.

Re: iOS 7

#70

Post by kfury » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

I really like the side-by-side comparison, buy why use a dark, non-default background for the iOS 6 home screen and a light one for the iOS 7 home screen? It looks like you're tossing objectivity to push a point.