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Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

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Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#141

Post by tinus_hn »

hanniabu wrote: post #122
tinus_hn wrote: post #45

A big part of the problem is people just not following the guidelines. If you have a toolbar with buttons that have labels, it’s not going to fit. But if you’re following the guidelines, you don’t have labels and it fits. If you have a list with a refresh button on the bottom you have to scroll to see that button on a small screen. But if you use the standard pull to refresh control, you don’t even need the button. I…

> If you use these smart hamburger menu overlay or scroll controls, they look bad on untested devices. Don’t use hamburger menus. What is a good alternative to a hamburger menu? I can't think of anything that wouldn't have the similar issues.

The alternative to hamburger menus is to design your app navigation so you don’t need them.

Use the settings app for settings, so they don’t clutter your app. Have the user tap an ‘account’ control to do account related things like logout or change passwords.

The problem is (oversimplified) these developers start with 20 things they want to show, and then they pick 4 things they can cram in the toolbar and the rest is tucked away in the hamburger menu. It’s a lot easier of course but it also looks like the lazy alternative to thoughtful design.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#142

Post by ramraj07 »

chrismorgan wrote: post #56

The Google Maps thing isn’t entirely about screen size (though I would hope it wouldn’t be quite so bad on larger screens—but I’m only familiar with how it looks on a small-by-modern-standards Android phone, where it’s about the same as on the iPhone depicted in this article, or even a little less); it’s about the product’s overarching philosophy, which has changed over the past decade (in a direction I strongly disl…

I have followed the brilliance of google maps from an ux perspective for decades now, and don’t fault them that much for their new changes: it has become much more common now that I actually don’t care much about where a place is, more only about if I found the right place, and how do I get there. If I use public transit then the map becomes even more irrelevant. Given how good Googles places info is, the only time the map becomes relevant is once I start turn by turn directions, at which point it again shows one of the best UIs out there for that purpose.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#143

Post by mgkimsal »

kawsper wrote: post #29
iamben wrote: post #14

We've had this discussion on HN before and I'll make the same point, because this is very similar with responsive websites as well. All too often I see designs that don't think about odd size tablets, or (as here) phones less than 375 or 414, or whatever else. It absolutely boggles my mind, especially when you can attribute a "this is how much these users spend" amount to it (an ecom store, for instance). Most of the…

> It absolutely boggles my mind, especially when you can attribute a "this is how much these users spend" amount to it (an ecom store, for instance). It also happens the other way around, they break it for odd-sized devices and then they go look at their numbers: "It's less than 1% of our revenue", WELL OF COURSE IT IS! It's broken!

EXACTLY! And for some businesses, you may never get me back to try a redesign. That can also be used as justification - "those people won't come back again anyway".

This was some of the same 'thinking' back in the 'designed for netscape / IE' wars of the late 90s. I would routinely hear that "we get more sales from IE users". And me saying "it's because we didn't test on netscape and the form submission is broken" didn't seem to register with anyone.

I actually worked with one client who 'got it', and they were very particular that we tested with all major browsers of the day - they had multiple millions of dollars riding on orders coming in every month, and even small delays meant big ramifications down the line. It was almost all Netscape/IE, but we had to deal with multiple versions, and test accordingly, which wasn't trivial because they were trying to also add new JS functionality. We had a lot of user-agent testing at that time. :)

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#144

Post by frosted-flakes »

chrismorgan wrote: post #69

On the web, people came up with the concept of “mobile-first”, meaning that you should first of all make sure everything can work with the smallest size, and then add whatever adjustments, improvements, extra functionality due to size, &c. for larger screens after that. (Of course, in practice people made a hash of it (as they always do) and it often became mobile- only design, with users of larger screens getting a…

Something that I do that most people seem to miss is disable sticky headers below a certain height. It's super easy to do with a simple media query.

I used to use a square-screened BlackBerry 10 device, and the number of websites that didn't do this was infuriating, and I made frequent use of a "Kill Sticky" bookmarklet. But everyone runs into this issue at some point just by turning their phone to landscape mode, which most web developers evidently don't test with.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#145

Post by furr »

No one designs for IE6 anymore either. If it costs a lot more to support a platform that doesn't bring in money, it would be a terrible business decision.

"This is losing is a LOT of money, but it would be a nice thing to do" is not realistic.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#146

Post by mgkimsal »

dreamer7 wrote: post #26

This is not true. We still use my iPhone SE with a 4" screen as the primary testing device for our iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/vendi-buy-sell-verified-phones... There are many advantages to it. If it looks good on the SE, we can be reasonably sure it will look good on everything else (though this was affected by the introduction of the notch). Also, flagship iPhones can easily handle badly designed apps b…

Just upgraded from SE to 12 mini, but was hitting issues with testing a web app on my SE. I'd also kept it on ios 12, and all new 'large' devices were auto upgraded to iOS 14... hilarity ensued. We hit weird bugs that only showed up on iOS 14.

But... in general, yeah, the size/space/perf issues are more easily spotted on a device like an SE. I re-optimized some JS - reduced memory, speed improvements - was far more noticeable on the SE than the newer flagship devices.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#147

Post by furr »

iamben wrote: post #14

We've had this discussion on HN before and I'll make the same point, because this is very similar with responsive websites as well. All too often I see designs that don't think about odd size tablets, or (as here) phones less than 375 or 414, or whatever else. It absolutely boggles my mind, especially when you can attribute a "this is how much these users spend" amount to it (an ecom store, for instance). Most of the…

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Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#148

Post by hawos »

furr wrote: post #145

No one designs for IE6 anymore either. If it costs a lot more to support a platform that doesn't bring in money, it would be a terrible business decision. "This is losing is a LOT of money, but it would be a nice thing to do" is not realistic.

The iPhone SE 2020 is hardly comparable to IE6.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#149

Post by mgkimsal »

layer8 wrote: post #126
TrueGeek wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried the new Mini? I switched from the Pro and love it.

I have, and it is noticeably heavier and less “thumbable” than the SE1 (and the screen scratches much more easily). The mini size is better than the 6/SE2, plus the return to flat edges, but it’s still a compromise in usability compared to the 5/SE1.

Amen. I'm sticking with my 12 mini for now, but just left the original SE. they're close in size, but more screen means more reaching/stretching for my small hands. SE2 was bigger, but because the screen is smaller, I'm wondering if that may have been the better option? I miss the Touch ID too..
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