Apple has been a driving force for better UI in a number of areas, but some of their choices are baffling. Even in this page, the "Contrast" section uses a large black header, but a small grey font on a white background for the content. Who chose Shift-Command-] for switching tabs in Safari? Why include the power switch in the keyboard, which makes it challenging to clean? Could their glossy displays be any more reflective?
UI Design Dos and Don'ts
31–40 of 121 posts
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#32Agree 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
Agree. I would rather try my luck tapping a too-small calendar date as pictured on the right. I'll often get it right the first time, but even accounting for the extra time of an error and a retry (2 extra taps) it will still be faster and less frustrating than setting 4 separate scroll wheels.
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#33Apple has been a driving force for better UI in a number of areas, but some of their choices are baffling. Even in this page, the "Contrast" section uses a large black header, but a small grey font on a white background for the content. Who chose Shift-Command-] for switching tabs in Safari? Why include the power switch in the keyboard, which makes it challenging to clean? Could their glossy displays be any more refl…
I also feel like iOS has gone downhill. I know they were trying to get away from skeuomorphic design, but I feel they went too far in the opposite direction. Everything is flat, it's hard to tell what is a button that can be clicked on sometimes (usually it's just a blue label with no distinguishing background), and there seems to be a frequent lack of contrast generally.
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#34These 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).
Back in 1999 the Interface Hall of Shame did a takedown on the Quicktime 4.0's interfact - and noted it violated Apple's own human interface standards. Worth a read. http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtimeno.htm
(I also saw irony in a page with poor color contrast telling you to avoid poor color contrast)
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah I agree, the date and time selector was MUCH better before the flattening!
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#36Many of these are blatantly obvious. Most bad design isn't because people don't know better; it's due to laziness.
Often due to client decisions or pressure in my experience.
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#37Many of these are blatantly obvious. Most bad design isn't because people don't know better; it's due to laziness.
Most design sessions during WWDC last week was pretty much "Apple-stating-the-obvious-for-40-minutes". I don't know what the target audience was.
The D in WWDC doesn't stand for Designers...
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#38Apple has been a driving force for better UI in a number of areas, but some of their choices are baffling. Even in this page, the "Contrast" section uses a large black header, but a small grey font on a white background for the content. Who chose Shift-Command-] for switching tabs in Safari? Why include the power switch in the keyboard, which makes it challenging to clean? Could their glossy displays be any more refl…
I also feel like iOS has gone downhill. I know they were trying to get away from skeuomorphic design, but I feel they went too far in the opposite direction. Everything is flat, it's hard to tell what is a button that can be clicked on sometimes (usually it's just a blue label with no distinguishing background), and there seems to be a frequent lack of contrast generally.
Yeah, also I feel the rainbow colours with a Gaussian blur looks pretty dated too - reminds me of Aero Glass. Android at its best looks much nicer, though it can be very inconsistent, even within Google-developed apps.
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#39Many of these are blatantly obvious. Most bad design isn't because people don't know better; it's due to laziness.
I'd find it more forgivable if it was laziness, but I've seen too many cases where designers put in extra effort to make things worse to believe that. I think it's ego. Good design is about doing what the users want rather than what the designer wants; bad design is the reverse.
Re: UI Design Dos and Don'ts
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that most of them are obvious. I don't agree that bad design is because of laziness. There are many reasons for bad design and most of the time I'll only find one or two of the "dont's" in a given app, but this will ruin my experience. Case in point: I can't even count the number of HN readers I deleted because they didn't display the content without vertical and horizontal scrollbars or had really small text…
Good design is hard. It takes research and effort, and often has to go through many iterations. I say it's due to laziness because if the developers had the time, they would adjust the text and scrollbars for a better experience.
I don't think the reason is any need for research. There have been quite a few occasions when I've made suggestions regarding how to fix obvious, major flaws. I've stopped bothering, because the response in all cases has been - not "sorry, we don't have time to implement the fix," which would be entirely forgivable, but some polite variant of "no, this is our product not yours, so we'll do things the way we want, not the way you want, so get lost."
On the bright side, that means if you are willing to set ego aside, you gain an immediate and substantial advantage over the competition.