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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

#171

Post by rmc »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #134
incision wrote: post #98

What are there, 1B Android users? I'm sure Google would like that to be 7B. I'd wager the complaints of the sort of people who frequent lobste.rs or HN are not representative of the majority of current users and almost certainly not of the next 6B potential users. Overall, it's everything Google said they would do with material [1]. It's fine to dislike these things, I don't necessarily like them myself, but claiming…

When I help people out with their computers and I run updates (pretty much everyone I go to stay with!) they always complain if there's been a change in the UI at all - "why's that button moved?" "where's my favourites?" "how do I access my inbox now?" "why does it keep popping up that thing?" ... I'd really like to see some respect for this from people like Firefox - "we won't move any major UI elements or update th…

Non-techy people aren't good at tech. They don't grok it. Usually they operate it by learning it by rote. "Click the button there, then click/tap this". To them working a piece of tech is like learning off spells. When you change the UI, it's like someone changed the language you're trying to work in. They have to relearn from scratch.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#172

Post by joeyh »

You know, programs could version their UI's.

I was struck in Bram Cohen's interview by how much care he's taken to avoid changing vim's behavior at all, while still letting nice new features be added. In the case of vim, you have to learn about features and enable them to change the UI. That works, but it does mean that the default vim experience for a new user lacks a lot of its cool features, and it can be hard to learn about features. (I only learned that vim has persistent undo from that interview.)

Imagine if say, firefox, had a UI version number. New users get the current version, and firefox writes that to its config. So upgrades don't have to change the UI the user has gotten used to. It could prompt on upgrade to let the user try out the fresh new version, and if they don't like it, they could revert back. Even if this were only limited to the "chrome" around the web page (no need to version UI for preferences pages etc), I think it would be a nice win.

Gnome 3 sort of did this with its legacy mode, but it's a poor imitation at best of gnome 2.

I'm sure that UI developers would hate this. Having to maintain old UI code, or implement pixel-perfect imitations of it using the new UI code. Needing to worry about how to shoehorn new features into an old UI that was not designed for them. Etc.

It's much easier to put the cognitive load on the shoulders of the user, who is forced to unlearn old habits, develop new muscle memories, and generally grit their teeth and bear it until the new UI fades into the background and stops distracting.. Just in time for a UI refresh to come around!

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#173

Post by pjc50 »

iancarroll wrote: post #64
throwawayaway wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new gmail interface combined with the fact it logs me in to youtube to watch a video, made me install a cli mail client. Haven't looked back.

The web interface convinently logged you in and you stop using it because of that?

Logging into youtube will, by default unless you know about it and turn it off, associate every video you view with your G+ profile for your gmail account, so every person you correspond with can look up your video history.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#174

Post by Mikeb85 »

hackmiester wrote: post #118
theGimp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I'm hating is that they've managed to completely screw up Chrome by getting rid of tabs Go into Chrome's settings and restore them.

I don't think users should have to tick the "behave in a less broken way" box.

Except the new way works better, and casual users who are used to the concept of 'an app for everything' won't mind...

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#175

Post by halestock »

joeyh wrote: post #172

You know, programs could version their UI's. I was struck in Bram Cohen's interview by how much care he's taken to avoid changing vim's behavior at all, while still letting nice new features be added. In the case of vim, you have to learn about features and enable them to change the UI. That works, but it does mean that the default vim experience for a new user lacks a lot of its cool features, and it can be hard to…

Bram Moolenaar, you mean.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#176

Post by andybak »

apetrovic wrote: post #150
incision wrote: post #98

What are there, 1B Android users? I'm sure Google would like that to be 7B. I'd wager the complaints of the sort of people who frequent lobste.rs or HN are not representative of the majority of current users and almost certainly not of the next 6B potential users. Overall, it's everything Google said they would do with material [1]. It's fine to dislike these things, I don't necessarily like them myself, but claiming…

> Animations are really valuable anytime someone doesn't come to the table with a complete mental model of how something fits together already. Basically, they're not for you Mr. Programmer. Yeah, whenever I see sentence like "as a user, I don't care about animations" I just stop reading the rest. I appreciate the fact that you , the article/comment writer, have good mental model about what is going on and you want t…

Well thought out animation is also something that should improve usability. It directs user focus and can give hints as to what just happened.

I actually think most of the animation in Lollipop is rather well thought out from a UX perspective. It might be a teensy bit showy but I rather like it.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#177

Post by codingdave »

Khan academy is the worst offender in my mind. This past summer, it seemed like there was a change in how to navigate around the site every week. And changes to how reports displayed, even how questions were answered... across the board, constant changes.

My kids, who range from 5-9, and use it to learn math, had to ask me for help constantly.

2 of my kids stopped using the site,as did I. One still uses it. I went from being a strong advocate for Khan Academy to just a lukewarm user who watches my son's progress... and all because of the excessive rapid UI changes.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#178

Post by dnr »

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…

The lock screen is indeed infuriating! Does anyone know if there's a way to restore the old behavior where you could enter your pattern lock immediately after pressing the power button?

The extra swipe serves no purpose at all, given that I've already pressed the power button, and have a pattern lock.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#179

Post by neuralk »

Sakes wrote: post #162

The above blog has some valid points. But how the hell is it at the top on HN when there is a constructive, informative, and beautiful post about how to create aesthetically pleasing GUIs right below it.... I'm bitching about bitching. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8635082

They cover slightly different territory. The post you linked is more about the aesthetics of good UI, with a little bit about functionality and UX. The solutions there do not solve or address the problem brought up in the OP here, which is more about UX and the modification of existing user interfaces. For instance, it wasn't the updated graphical style of the keyboard that the OP complained about, but the rearranged placement of keys.

That said, both are good reads and complement each other.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#180

Post by Someone1234 »

kaizendc wrote: post #145
gdulli wrote: post #85

The problem is that software companies acquire the amount of labor (which is large) that they need to create something but then don't have anything to do with that extra labor when it's finished and all that's needed is maintenance and a reasonable amount of additional upgrade work. So if the company is profitable enough that it doesn't need to lay anyone off, it has the excess labor keep iterating on a product that'…

Exactly, it's mostly busywork.

I'd maybe agree regarding the UI/animation. But L has brought some significant improvements (ART, Project Volta, background batching API, et al). So it is a good release inspite of the UI/animation updates.

Google Maps and Windows Search are two products that have been over-worked to death. Both were better in older iterations (Windows Search pre-Vista, Google Maps before they went all minimalism-stupid).

Google Maps in particular stripped out tons of useful functionality for a long period (My Places seems to appear and disappear every second release, location search history is currently MIA, compass is gone, et al).

Windows Search just tried to make it "clever" but instead made it "unreliable." They wanted to add support for everyone file format one by one (and ignore everything else) but instead managed to only support native Microsoft formats well and nothing else at all. File Search in Windows (Vista-8.1) is horrendously poor. Give me Windows 95 search.

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