Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UI Design Dos and Don'ts

developer.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 121 posts

Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts

#21

Post by MaysonL »

radley wrote: post #13
Mandatum wrote: post #12

These are common sense design "do's" and "don'ts". Most developers, and any designer worth their salt should know these.

Sadly, Apple is guilty of these often, with too many examples to list (but particularly contrast). (eg. @eli_schiff - he's been ranting about them today).

That very page would definitely be improved by darker, larger text.

Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts

#23

Post by jamesdelaneyie »

on_and_off wrote: post #9
shogun21 wrote: post #3

Many of these are blatantly obvious. Most bad design isn't because people don't know better; it's due to laziness.

Most of the stupidly bad design decisions I have seen come from somebody high in the hierarchy (product manager, CEO or founder) demanding a change, even if both designers and developers rally on how awful it would be. I have not yet found a solution to this problem.

would A/B testing, in some capacity, the decision in some form or another, help with this?

Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts

#24

Post by Mandatum »

johnnyo wrote: post #22

Agree with these, but in my opinion, the date selector wheels in iOS are a terrible design. Three rolling wheels just doesn't map to most people's concept of a calendar

Do you have a better example? I don't find the select diag's like in Desktop Chrome easier to use especially on a mobile. I think what they've done is better than anything else I've seen. With enough following it'd become the norm like anything else.

Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts

#25

Post by ffn »

shogun21 wrote: post #3

Many of these are blatantly obvious. Most bad design isn't because people don't know better; it's due to laziness.

Well, good design is obvious once you know it. But before you know it, it's as opaque and obtuse as anything else. It's just that design has this strange property with us humans in that, when done right, it feels so natural and emergent to us to the point we automatically take it for granted the instant we "get it".

In the realm of modern-day web-design, most bad design is because the website was built before a lot of these good design principles and conventions were invented (e.g. responsive grids, tons of padding, flex-direction(column), etc.). Next followed by prideful "designers" who steadfastly refuse to use a design framework because the site they're building must be a special snowflake. Next followed by the missing-the-point-followers of RMS (that is, they're not following RMS for the free software philosophy) who plainly look down on CSS and design as something that is beneath them. Finally, I'll give you laziness.

Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts

#30

Post by themartorana »

Mandatum wrote: post #24
johnnyo wrote: post #22

Agree with these, but in my opinion, the date selector wheels in iOS are a terrible design. Three rolling wheels just doesn't map to most people's concept of a calendar

Do you have a better example? I don't find the select diag's like in Desktop Chrome easier to use especially on a mobile. I think what they've done is better than anything else I've seen. With enough following it'd become the norm like anything else.

I actually wanted to state the same thing the GP did - the date selector is terribad. It was much better before "The Flattening" in iOS 7. IMHO.

I find sometimes I have difficulty understanding where the bounds of the control actually are. That's not good design, and it seems far from obvious.

Post reply on HN