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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

#181

Post by nilkn »

mattmanser wrote: post #169
nilkn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> swipe up on your phone, not left or right The way you wrote this makes it seem like swiping up instead of left or right is really horrible and confusing. Why? Previous versions of Android had a totally different lock screen design, so I honestly do not know why you feel so confident that the correct swiping direction should be left or right. Because Apple did it that way?

The problem is that if you swipe left it will open the dialer, right photo. Only up unlocks it. While it's useful having shortcuts to do these things, they've gone far too far and made it too hard to do what you most often want to do, which is simply unlock the phone. The old photo button worked well, for example. They had also previously used "up" on the lock screen for voice commands/google now, so I for one have l…

I still don't see how that's bad. My current lock screen, a custom one, only unlocks if I swipe right. Not up, not down, not left. Swiping left would open the camera. There's no easy way for me to get to the dialer straight from my current lock screen. From the way you describe it, Lollipop's lock screen sounds great to me. Full notification list, the ability to interact with the notifications, the ability with a single swipe to either get to the camera, the dialer, or just unlock the phone... sounds great to me. I'm not trying to be facetious, just to be clear. It sounds like by far the most useful lock screen Android has ever had by default.

Also, for what it's worth, I find swiping up to be easier to do one-handed on large phones.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#182

Post by throwawayaway »

pjc50 wrote: post #173
iancarroll wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had no idea it had gotten that bad! Seems my overreaction was justified.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#183

Post by general_failure »

jobu wrote: post #153
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is why I won't recommend Android to any friends or family. Being the most technically literate person most of them know, they all come to me for help fixing problems with their computers or phones. The UI changes in iOS7 caused a whole bunch of questions and problems with my "support network", but with Android it would be like that every year with every OS update.

The reason I don't recommend iOS is because Apple keeps changing their policy on apps and their stuff works only with products they make. I like my friends and family to not live in Apple's world view / walled garden.

So, it's not about Apple designing great products; i recommend android because it's a better choice for freedom (which usually always ends up having to make more effort).

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#184

Post by untog »

meepmorp wrote: post #143
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is removing the key separators a good idea? // I've a suggestion for this one - key separators support a paradigm of key presses , following the [traditional] keyboard metaphor. However with swipe-able keyboards it doesn't really make sense, you only need to approximate the position of the letter during your swipe - no "barriers" helps to enforce that new paradigm. If most people swipe, then it makes sense to m…

> If most people swipe, then it makes sense to move away from representing the keyboard as a layout of switches (a key-board). reply Do most people swipe? I honestly have no idea, and I'm not an Android user. I'm wondering if there are any stats on that. Particularly for older or less techno-phile users, swiping keyboards might be difficult to get into using.

I doubt most do, but there's no reason to not be forward thinking and hope that new users will - IMO it's a far better experience.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#185

Post by Mikeb85 »

You know, you could replace Android 5 with 'Gnome 3', 'Ubuntu Unity', 'Windows 8' or 'Systemd' and the discussion would be exactly the same.

People just hate change, and will always think the old way is better. I remember when people were bitching about the Start button in Windows 95... Now they bitch about the Start button in Windows 8.

Personally, I think all the above items that I mentioned are better than what they replaced...

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#186

Post by faizmokhtar »

asgard1024 wrote: post #65
shawnwall wrote: post #30

Google is making a huge amount of progress in UI and UX; the company has historically been rather mediocre in terms of it's UI and UX, while Apple was always the star. Over the past year or so the roles have reversed, and Google continues making strides towards unifying their applications in a single user experience and ui paradigm that allows for simpler app use, particularly for new users. It's easy to get upset wh…

> allows for simpler app use, particularly for new users Are you kidding me? So called "flat design", with nondescript icons indistinguishable from the surrounding text, is the worst thing ever for new users. How am I supposed to know that I can click (er, I mean, touch) something?

IIRC, there's actually a distinction between clickable stuff and text in material design.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#187

Post by upops »

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…

Brightness is by default adaptive brightness. The slider in the menu is for relative brightness; it's still adapted.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#188

Post by exodust »

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.

* 'Excessive change is generally better than no changes at all.'

Can't agree with that. If the change isn't needed then change can't be better. The burden of responsibility for justifying the change is on the person wanting the change. To identify why the change is needed and how it's an improvement.

It's a weakness of the production team if there's a "must evolve no matter what" mentality on repeat-cycle. You could aim for "stability", for "baseline" for "solid foundations" instead of "excessive change". Then your efforts are about extending, expanding and tweaking rather than changing.

There's nothing subjective about evaluating reasons for changing an interface. There's either good reasons for the change, or there isn't. Too many people try to manipulate discussion in this business with "it's subjective". It dilutes the discussion because "subjective" doesn't commit either way, it just kind of shrugs and says "oh well, too hard to conclude anything".

When a consequence of change is that you piss off a bunch of users, then you can't say that change is inherently better each iteration. A wrong turn might be made and literally breaks the product or dents the reputation for many iterations. It happens. Nothing is immune from the great unwashed interface testers, and we don't like useless layout changes for things already committed to muscle memory.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#189

Post by collyw »

meepmorp wrote: post #143
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is removing the key separators a good idea? // I've a suggestion for this one - key separators support a paradigm of key presses , following the [traditional] keyboard metaphor. However with swipe-able keyboards it doesn't really make sense, you only need to approximate the position of the letter during your swipe - no "barriers" helps to enforce that new paradigm. If most people swipe, then it makes sense to m…

> If most people swipe, then it makes sense to move away from representing the keyboard as a layout of switches (a key-board). reply Do most people swipe? I honestly have no idea, and I'm not an Android user. I'm wondering if there are any stats on that. Particularly for older or less techno-phile users, swiping keyboards might be difficult to get into using.

I swipe, but I must be in a minority. People always seem a bit surprised when they see me use the keyboard that way.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#190

Post by VieElm »

panarky wrote: post #112
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…

I don't understand all the vitriol. Lollipop arrived on my Nexus 5 last week, and I couldn't be happier. Battery life is significantly longer, and the new UI ... ugh, this sounds almost cloying ... the new UI makes me happy , it gives me joy . It's beautiful, it's intuitive, it's functional, it's natural. What more could you want? I've never owned an iPhone, but this joyful experience must be a tiny bit like what iPh…

I don't want joy, I want to be able to see my schedule this month and my schedule today, at a glance, so I don't lose my job.
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