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

How we built the new Exec iPhone App

blog.iamexec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 38 posts

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#11

Post by justjimmy »

eps wrote: post #3

I'm sorry, but I don't like this UI at all. It looks foreign on the iOS as if it were designed for some other device and the ported over. Such neglect for the consistency with a native look and feel is not a "fun experience", it's really quite annoying. My iPhone is not an empty canvas for you to drop an arbitrary UI style on. It comes with Helvetica and a whole bunch of well designed controls. I insist you use them.

Eh…wut?

Custom UI is common in most apps - this isn't a bootstrapped app or something quick and dirty. Why would they use the default/built-in/native UI design?

Now, if you meant it's foreign because of the design style, then you may have a point. iOS apps tend to designed with elements such as textures, gradients, drop shadows, inner glow/shadow etc. While Android tends to be flat and borderless.

There were parts where it definitely felt Android/Flat (icons), other parts felt iOSish (buttons).

The custom alerts were definitely a nice touch - don't see alot of apps with custom alerts. I didn't mind them - but some may not find it as impactful as a 'real' alert (it's like a warning usually comes in red, but it's now in blue. Just doesn't carry the same weight/feeling.)

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#12

Post by potatolicious »

eps wrote: post #3

I'm sorry, but I don't like this UI at all. It looks foreign on the iOS as if it were designed for some other device and the ported over. Such neglect for the consistency with a native look and feel is not a "fun experience", it's really quite annoying. My iPhone is not an empty canvas for you to drop an arbitrary UI style on. It comes with Helvetica and a whole bunch of well designed controls. I insist you use them.

That ship has sailed a long time ago. Pull-to-refresh, that-slide-out-navigation-from-the-left, fan-out-navigation, parallax scrolling, all are now common iOS UI tropes that originated nowhere near Apple.

Personally I hate that back button - it's huge, but that's a pretty minor gripe in the grand scheme of things. This UI is clean, functional, and its functionality is intuitive. Pretty decent win, all things considered.

Not to mention at the very core it doesn't stray very far from Apple's guidelines - it's very clearly built around the standard navigation stack, uses segmented buttons for radio choices, puts large oversized buttons towards the bottom of a flow for completion, defaults finishing actions to the right side of the screen, uses a minimally styled version of UIActionSheet...

I'm struggling to find anything here that hasn't been seen in a hojillion other iOS apps, or even functionally different than the "standard" iOS flow. But all I see is a fairly minimal, tasteful skin over the default elements.

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#13

Post by codyko »

Downloaded the app earlier today. The 'Sign up or sign in' with Facebook button does nothing. Does this happen for anybody else? If this is a reoccurring bug you should work to fix this ASAP.

iPhone 5 running iOS 6.0.1

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#14

Post by jazzychad »

codyko wrote: post #13

Downloaded the app earlier today. The 'Sign up or sign in' with Facebook button does nothing. Does this happen for anybody else? If this is a reoccurring bug you should work to fix this ASAP. iPhone 5 running iOS 6.0.1

Yes, this is a known bug for a certain set of users (iOS 6+ with logged in Facebook credentials in Settings app) - we have shipped a fix today already. For now the only workaround is to use the "sign in/up with email" flow.

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#15

Post by codyko »

jazzychad wrote: post #14
codyko wrote: post #13

Downloaded the app earlier today. The 'Sign up or sign in' with Facebook button does nothing. Does this happen for anybody else? If this is a reoccurring bug you should work to fix this ASAP. iPhone 5 running iOS 6.0.1

Yes, this is a known bug for a certain set of users (iOS 6+ with logged in Facebook credentials in Settings app) - we have shipped a fix today already. For now the only workaround is to use the "sign in/up with email" flow.

Cool, glad you guys are aware. I like the custom UI implementations. Seems like you guys spent some good time polishing up all of the core animation and stuff. Nice job!

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#17

Post by jh3 »

eps wrote: post #3

I'm sorry, but I don't like this UI at all. It looks foreign on the iOS as if it were designed for some other device and the ported over. Such neglect for the consistency with a native look and feel is not a "fun experience", it's really quite annoying. My iPhone is not an empty canvas for you to drop an arbitrary UI style on. It comes with Helvetica and a whole bunch of well designed controls. I insist you use them.

> My iPhone is not an empty canvas for you to drop an arbitrary UI style on.

Sure it is. Anyone can design and implement whatever kind of UI they want. If it's usable and/or accepted by Apple is a different story. You don't need to download apps you don't like on _your_ iPhone.

The UI for this app does not look all that "foreign." I am not too sure what freaks you out about their UI.

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#19

Post by ericdykstra »

eps wrote: post #3

I'm sorry, but I don't like this UI at all. It looks foreign on the iOS as if it were designed for some other device and the ported over. Such neglect for the consistency with a native look and feel is not a "fun experience", it's really quite annoying. My iPhone is not an empty canvas for you to drop an arbitrary UI style on. It comes with Helvetica and a whole bunch of well designed controls. I insist you use them.

It's disappointing that this is the top voted comment.

If there's enough budget/time, UIs should always be built from the ground up. At every page and every element in the design process, the designer has the decision to go with:

1. Stock OS elements 2. Non-stock OS elements that follow current UX paradigms 3. Completely custom, designed from the ground up elements

As long as the designer is looking at the purpose of each page and element first and foremost, she can choose any of those options and be correct. You're right that your iPhone is not a place to drop arbitrary UI styles on, it's a place for well-designed UIs that contribute to a great user experience. Calling the design decisions arbitrary is an insult to the designer; I personally think it's a really slick-looking app with a distinct personality.

Re: How we built the new Exec iPhone App

#20

Post by gurkendoktor »

potatolicious wrote: post #12
eps wrote: post #3

I'm sorry, but I don't like this UI at all. It looks foreign on the iOS as if it were designed for some other device and the ported over. Such neglect for the consistency with a native look and feel is not a "fun experience", it's really quite annoying. My iPhone is not an empty canvas for you to drop an arbitrary UI style on. It comes with Helvetica and a whole bunch of well designed controls. I insist you use them.

That ship has sailed a long time ago. Pull-to-refresh, that-slide-out-navigation-from-the-left, fan-out-navigation, parallax scrolling, all are now common iOS UI tropes that originated nowhere near Apple. Personally I hate that back button - it's huge , but that's a pretty minor gripe in the grand scheme of things. This UI is clean, functional, and its functionality is intuitive. Pretty decent win, all things conside…

> That ship has sailed a long time ago.

But has it? The most common apps that I see people interact with are Facebook, WhatsApp & variations thereof and Apple's own apps, and they all look a lot "more native", i.e. like UIKit with very superficial appearance tweaking. (Even though FB seems to use a custom nav bar, the swipe-to-go-back gesture of iOS6 is broken).

I wish we had public app usage data... I really suspect that the average iOS screen looks a lot more old-fashioned than the average HN front-page app does.

Post reply on HN