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Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

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Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#11

Post by chiph »

todfox wrote: post #5

For more of these daily annoyances: https://grumpy.website The growing user hostility of UIs makes me want to stop developing software and even stop using computers. I started using computers because they made more sense to me than a lot of things. Now, I'm encountering these little moments of illogic and unreason every hour of the day. It's not just beginners who need little cues. I'm deeply familiar with the APIs b…

Thanks for that link. One related to this one just got me on DVD Netflix's payment settings site.

https://grumpy.website/post/0VkVVuQ6t

There is no button to remove your card info. It had my old ZIP code and updating it wasn't working (it would still fail address verification). So to update the value, you are somehow expected to know to clear the field and then save, then enter the correct value and save a second time.

Except it doesn't work.[0] What does work is entering a different credit card, saving it, then reentering your original card with the correct ZIP code.[1] So bad design with no affordances and a broken help function, lead to a long-time customer wanting to unsubscribe out of frustration.

[0] Neither did the chat function to ask for help. I had to talk to a support person who told me how this was supposed to work. A phone call to support is an expensive cost to a business based on volume.

[1] Which made me think they were storing extra info using my card number as a key. And that's not great.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#12

Post by HKH2 »

chiph wrote: post #6

Not just on phones/tablets. If you have an application running in dark mode, and your Windows desktop is dark, you can't see the edge of the window to resize it. Also - with Windows 10 you don't grab the edge of the window, you grab the shadow. Which is not visible because shadows on dark desktops have no contrast.

In another well-known OS, the pointer can be somewhere inside the corner, and you can press a meta key and click and drag the corner without being on it exactly.

I used to miss that functionality quite a bit when using Windows, but I think I use window snapping more now.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#13

Post by _Microft »

„Doesn‘t familiarize themselves with the UI, complains about not being familiar with it“. That‘s almost meme-ish, to be honest.

What‘s a discoverable UI? Does it count to have options in a context menu? That’s very discoverable to someone like me, much less for some of my less computer-savvy relatives. A toolbar with unlabeled icons is not that different in that regard. I think it really boils down to how familiar someone is with the UI already and half of the solution is being willing to familiarize themselves with it.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#14

Post by Secretmapper »

clearing wrote: post #10

The author links out to a writeup on Safari 15 which I found interesting: https://morrick.me/archives/9368 One of the main bizarre design choices was making the address bar shrink as you add more tabs. It made me wonder if these designs reflect the diminution of sites visited in a modern internet user's session. Seems like we are moving from a mode of research-and-explore to residing in one of a few home bases (reddi…

Previous HN discussion on the topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27559832

That's true regarding 'residing' in home bases. I still remember how much personalities each different forums of specific interests have, but that's mostly filled by subreddits now.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#16

Post by edent »

_Microft wrote: post #13

„Doesn‘t familiarize themselves with the UI, complains about not being familiar with it“. That‘s almost meme-ish, to be honest. What‘s a discoverable UI? Does it count to have options in a context menu? That’s very discoverable to someone like me, much less for some of my less computer-savvy relatives. A toolbar with unlabeled icons is not that different in that regard. I think it really boils down to how familiar so…

I've been using Android since the pre-release versions.

Every Google app has a different share UI. If I hit share in YouTube, the panels scrolls vertically. Google Drive's share looks different, but also shares vertically.

Google Chrome's share panel looks identical to Drive, but behaves completely differently.

So, I'd say that I'm very familiar with Android's UI - but I don't think Google is.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#17

Post by gherkinnn »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #2

UI affordances have been going away for a long time. FlatUI was the first nearly universal obviously-user-hostile movement. It happened out of boredom and the slow intrusion of the contempt-for-the-audience attitude of art and architecture into web design. Unfortunately, unlike art, we can't ignore architecture or UI design.

I don’t think flat design is inherently hostile. The same way I don’t think heavy skeuomorphism is inherently patronising. We went from a violent explosion of visuals to ambiguous interactive elements. Both shite, both a pain to use, both bad design. Both can be avoided within their respective philosophy.

As OP shows, iOS hinting at more content by partially showing the next item is a good example. You can very well create depth and hierarchy with minimal visual cues.

However, what has increased since flat design became the hottest shit ever (2013/2014) are downright malicious interaction patterns, no understanding of the platform (e.g button vs link), and an ever increasing lust for engagement. The design flavour is merely coincidental.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#18

Post by fassssst »

They became less necessary over time as people got used to computers. Nearly everything on your screen right now is touchable or interactive (you can select the text in this comment) but trying to show visual accordances for all that would make the actual content harder to digest.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#19

Post by gherkinnn »

edent wrote: post #16
_Microft wrote: post #13

„Doesn‘t familiarize themselves with the UI, complains about not being familiar with it“. That‘s almost meme-ish, to be honest. What‘s a discoverable UI? Does it count to have options in a context menu? That’s very discoverable to someone like me, much less for some of my less computer-savvy relatives. A toolbar with unlabeled icons is not that different in that regard. I think it really boils down to how familiar so…

I've been using Android since the pre-release versions. Every Google app has a different share UI. If I hit share in YouTube, the panels scrolls vertically. Google Drive's share looks different, but also shares vertically. Google Chrome's share panel looks identical to Drive, but behaves completely differently. So, I'd say that I'm very familiar with Android's UI - but I don't think Google is.

There is no escaping Conway’s Law.

A disjointed company produces a disjointed product. Mind you, this might be well be a deliberate choice made by people cleverer than me.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#20

Post by thrower123 »

These UI standards aren't taught any longer, so unless you grew up with the 90s, when at least first-party developers were somewhat consistent about following them, you might not even know what you're supposed to do.

I came to programming with VB6, and that was an era where even the trash "Teach Yourself Programming in 24 Hours" books made a big deal about tab order and mnemonics and cues like eclipses on buttons that launched new windows.

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