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Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

lobste.rs

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Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#71

Post by Systemic33 »

As a Windows Phone user, this really resonates with me, because WP has actually been preserving the UI and basic principles it builds on, and only added features as users voiced needs for specific upgrades (like allowing transparent tiles with a photo behind the start screen (effectively a background, but in a non-traditional way.

With the exception of Windows 7 -> Windows 8, MS have also kept cosmetic updates to the system, fairly conservatively.

The authors critique of OSX is maybe the only thing i disagree with, since I haven't experienced any situation, where more than the cosmetic things changed, i.e. no UI elements changed really.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#72

Post by edw519 »

Sadly, this meme is universal through time and space and shows no likelihood of abating.

I once had a customer who told vendors, "I don't want maintenance, and I don't want the software I just bought to change, ever." At the time, most of us thought he was crazy. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm still sitting shivah for Classic Google Maps, Palm Graffiti, and Windows XP. Sigh.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#73

Post by paganel »

untog wrote: post #56
jbb555 wrote: post #14

Yeah and too many times when you complain about this kind of thing you get accused of "hating change" or some such thing. No, I hate THIS change because THIS change is bad!

I think it depends on what your complaint is. This article has a mix of solid complaints (they keyboard has been rearranged) and bad (transitions are gross!).

> and bad (transitions are gross!).

Serious question, why is this a "bad" complaint? Personally I hate transitions, I think they bring nothing of value and they're wasting my time, had the impression that there must be other people who thought exactly like me.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#74

Post by winsome »

mattmanser wrote: post #52

Argh, lollipop's driving me up the wall! Vent time, woo! The thing I'm hating is that they've managed to completely screw up Chrome by getting rid of tabs and mixing them all in with your other apps, in an attempt to force you to use the bloody useless app switcher button instead of making it do something vaguely useful. And the lock screen, what the hell were they thinking? The amount of times I've opened the phone…

Auto Brightness has been renamed and is available at Settings > Display > Adaptive Brightness. It just has to be turned on.

And I know it's personal preference but I love the way chrome tabs are integrated into the app switcher. It allows me to focus on what I'm doing and not so much what app I'm in. Now each tab is like an app in and of itself. I think that's the way multi-tasking should be done.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#75

Post by throwawayaway »

edw519 wrote: post #72

Sadly, this meme is universal through time and space and shows no likelihood of abating. I once had a customer who told vendors, "I don't want maintenance, and I don't want the software I just bought to change, ever." At the time, most of us thought he was crazy. Now I'm not so sure. I'm still sitting shivah for Classic Google Maps, Palm Graffiti, and Windows XP. Sigh.

It would be quite ironic if the foretold BYOD revolution enables people to be curmudgeonly stick in the muds.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#76

Post by rogeryu »

I do care about Windows desktop changes. Not for me, but for my mother, over 80 years old, and although she still can handle changes, it becomes more difficult. She's using Windows 7 right now (coming from XP via 2000 and 98), with the classic (grey Windows 2000) design. I hope that stays with Windows 9. I'm very glad we could skip Windows 8.

I guess many older people will have these problems, and I can't understand that MS has no clue about the first generation of elderly people using computers.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#77

Post by privong »

exelius wrote: post #58
privong wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is yet another case of where if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. So they're not designing it for you. I do not think that necessarily follows. Even if you are not the customer, they likely (think they) are designing it for you. Because they need you to keep giving them your data, they need you to find the UI easy to use and easy to hand over data.

Data is easy for them to get since, you know, they control the OS behind your phone and will get the data anyway. The new Google Maps UI is fucking custom tailored to showing you advertisements. It's much less useful now for things like driving directions or finding businesses that don't pay for sponsorship (i.e. if I search for "Rite Aid" from my house, it shows me a Rite Aid 3 miles away instead of the one literall…

Those things may be all true, but are unrelated to the point I was responding to, which was your invoking the "if you are not paying for it, you are the customer" meme.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#78

Post by SonicSoul »

remon wrote: post #28

The problem with arguments like these is that there being "no good reason" is highly subjective. Excessive change is generally better than no changes at all. Things have to evolve and even if we miss the mark every now and then it should always improve over time on average when new ideas are tried and tested.

the op didn't just say that. he went on to point out the flaws with the new design. It would be great to hear the reasoning that went on behind those changes, but overall I agree with him. Most times I see a redesign (os or a website), there is net negative change in usability. Part of that is due to having to re-learn the UI. And I wouldn't mind this if there was actually a benefit, but often times I can't find it no matter how long I think about it. If users that are conscious about UX are not seeing the benefits, how is it a positive change?

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#80

Post by rogeryu »

zmb_ wrote: post #35
DontBeADick wrote: post #5

I stopped updating all my Google apps ~2 years ago because there were so many asinine, unintuitive UI changes with each new version. A lot of their changes didn't even conform to the standards recommended by Google (e.g. menu button locations). It's almost as if the UI team gets bored and decides to make changes just because they need to occupy themselves. And then instead of testing them with actual users, they just…

I just updated my Nexus 5 to KitKat. The update forced me to use GMail instead of the Email app, and almost 24h later GMail is still "Getting your messages". None of my email accounts work. Never mind changing the UI, they should start by not completely breaking the key functionality of their applications in their effort to force everyone to use their services.

Use K9 Mail.
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