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Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

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Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#291

Post by colomon »

lukeschlather wrote: post #135
PMan74 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with arguments like these is that there being "no good reason" is highly subjective. Not only is it subjective it's almost certainly incorrect. If you read anything about Google it's clear that they don't make UI decisions without looking at a ton of data, making the changes and testing those changes. What does the author of that post think? A Google designer updated a load of designs on a whim?

What sort of data? I can look at data all day, it doesn't mean that I'm interpreting it right. Furthermore, the biggest issues may not show up in the data. I have a 22-month-old Android phone. Google Maps just keeps getting slower and slower. Now it takes 10-15 seconds to start up. I'd really like to know what percentage of the data Google is using comes from phones released in the past 10 months. (Or phones that hav…

And the Maps navigate functionality has gone from being so nice it single-handedly justified the cost of a smart phone to just barely working. I tried to use it on a 90 minute trip a few weeks back, and it did brilliant things like try to start me over from my original starting point rather than my last known location when it lost the GPS signal 45 minutes into the trip...

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#292

Post by npsimons »

tim333 wrote: post #165
debacle wrote: post #63

We have a huge underutilization issue in tech right now. The strategy seems to be to throw programmers and designers at the wall until they make something that sticks, but a lot of bad decisions come out of that strategy and it's not immediately apparent that they're bad decisions until users complain. This has led to a lot of cyclical design cycles, reinventing the wheel, NIH, etc. It's going to be damning to the te…

>We have a huge underutilization issue in tech right now Ironic given all the articles on the problem getting good people. I guess the trouble is the winner takes all nature of the market means Google can have 1000 spare good programmers while most small tech companies have a job hiring one or two.

Google is aggressive in recruiting; I still get emails from Google[1] asking if I'm willing to relocate yet (I'm not). If small companies want good people, they're going to have to dedicate some time and effort towards getting those people. I've lost three very good techies to Micron recently. Good talent is out there, you just have to know where to look.

[1] - I'm not bragging or anything; I was declined an offer after my onsite visit, but that was also three years ago.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#293

Post by jrobbins »

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 settings app requires some sort of double swipe down that's just plain awkward.

TIP: Pull down with two fingers to go straight to the quick settings shade.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#295

Post by edraferi »

jackmaney wrote: post #197
meepmorp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Wait...swiping? On a keyboard? That makes absolutely no sense. Most words contain a pair of letters that are not adjacent on a QWERTY keyboard.

Swipe typing on a touch screen [1] is analogous to T9 [2] text entry on a traditional keypad. In fact, they were invented by the same group [3].

On numeric keypads, each button corresponds to ~3 letters. Basic text entry involves pushing each button multiple times to select the index of the letter you want[4], then waiting to confirm the selection before moving to the next character.

T9 sped up this process by allowing you to press each button once. It would determine which word you meant by comparing all possible combinations of letters that could be created from the buttons you pressed against a dictionary of known words.

Swype provides a similar extension to QWERTY touchscreen keyboards. With Swype, you drag your finger across a QWERTY grid, creating a path. This path starts on the first letter of the intended word and crosses all letters in the word, in order. It also crosses lots of letters that aren't in the word, or are out of position. The 'secret sauce' lies in how to compare the ordered set of keys defined by the path to a predefined dictionary and produce a meaningful prediction of the intended word.

I haven't implemented such an algorithm myself. However, you can imagine how it might be done. For example, acute angles in the path probably occur when you reach a letter you want, then angle off to collect the next letter. This provides a signpost that can be combined with the initial letter to reduce the possible words down to the set that starts with the initial letter and includes the key with the acute angle.

[1] First introduced by Swype: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swype

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text)

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/swype-vs-iphone-typ...

[4] e.g. the "3" key corresponds to "DEF", so press "3" twice to enter "E"

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#296

Post by nilkn »

thinkmassive wrote: post #287
nilkn wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sin…

The issue is the previous lock screen didn't require any swipes to enter your unlock pattern. They added a step, making the most common gesture slower than it was before.

Ahh, I see. I guess I wouldn't notice that since I'm so used to already having notifications shown first on the lock screen. I can see how that'd be annoying if you don't care about the notifications list.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#297

Post by jrobbins »

hyperpape wrote: post #45

"There are a bunch of new ‘transitions’ between elements. I don’t know what the battery cost actually is for this, but as a user I just don’t care about cute transitions between elements. I want fast interaction with my mobile device." This is poorly phrased at best. Transitions exist to make it obvious what is happening: e.g. you minimize a window and it zooms into the taskbar/dock, as a visual reminder that it's no…

TIP: If you enable "Developer options" in the settings app (by "About" tapping 7 times), there are options to eliminate, speed up, or slow down the transition animations. I set mine at 0.5x the normal duration.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#298

Post by thaumaturgy »

thirdsun wrote: post #249
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…

I couldn't disagree more. Of course there no sense in moving things around just for the sake of changing something, and implementing those design changes is always prone to making bad decisions. However I pretty much want the applications I use to move forward and if this means iterative design adjustments, then by all means, do it. The people complaining about any kind of change are usually the ones who learn using…

No, what we have to do is educate you on why you cannot expect everyone's brains to work the way you want them to.

For many people, computers are just a thing they use, whether for work or for keeping in touch with friends or whatever. They aren't something that they dedicate very much of their brain to. Computer interfaces have lots of text, lots of images -- some of which are clickable, some of which aren't -- and the rules aren't very consistent from device to device. On top of all that, there are some genuine dark UI patterns, like software from CNet that tries to trick users into downloading useless crap.

What you're basically expecting is for people to dedicate more of their attention to computers. And guess what? Mechanics wish people would dedicate more attention to their cars. Contractors wish people would dedicate more attention to their homes. Landscapers wish people would dedicate more attention to their yards. And in each of their professional forums, you'd hear some of them arguing with equal veracity that people need to be more educated about all of these things.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#299

Post by coldtea »

jackmaney wrote: post #254
jackmaney wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that not turn into WDFGHGFDSASERT?

Okay, so I grabbed my phone and tested it out. It...actually works. It's a bizarre method of text entry, but interesting nonetheless.

See also this for a similarly working, but different approach to the same thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9b8NlMd79w

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#300

Post by tonyhb »

mattmanser wrote: post #102
ToastyMallows wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've managed to completely screw up Chrome by getting rid of tabs and mixing them all in with your other apps To be fair you can turn this off, that's the first thing I did when Chrome notified me of this "awesome" change.

Can you? Oh, thank god! Actually, now doing that, that reminds me of another two WTFs? The new menu system is bizarre. You get loads of random animations of grey appearing for no apparent reason. Put your finger on something to scroll, "grey flash!!!!". Err? What did I do? Oh, nothing... And, this could be just not getting used to it yet, but I am completely flabbergasted at just how crap the new scroll limit indicat…

The first thing chrome said is that tabs show in the task switcher. And that you can disable this in the settings. Then it placed a settings link right under the text to turn it off first-thing.

Personally, I think people just don't like change. A lot of the things — camera shutter sound, out of bounds scrolling — they're not actual complaints. They sound more like "this is different and I'm not used to it". OTOH, some are definitely valid.

I wonder if there's any easy way to roll out design changes for the masses which doesn't cause uproar. I swear this happens every single time.

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