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Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

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Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#161

Post by mixedCase »

jackson1442 wrote: post #114
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…

I can see how this one might be confusing- https://grumpy.website/post/0Vp0pSilq but the site is misrepresenting the state. That user's state is still "muted," the red line indicates that it is a client side mute (so the user who checked the mute box can't hear them, but everyone else can) while the mute icon without a red line indicates that the other user has muted themselves; they're not transmitting audio. There…

The Discord mute icon having three states is no excuse for it being bad.

Unmuted -> The mic, no diagonal line.

User muted -> Red diagonal line.

Server muted -> Could be the muted icon with a lock next to it; or the diagonal red line replaced by vertical bars like a jail cell; or even a cross instead of a diagonal, maybe within a circle for further distinction.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#162

Post by perl4ever »

cratermoon wrote: post #156
teucris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of grounding UX in physical analogues, in my view, is incredibly important. No matter how much we interact with digital screens, we still walk on ground, pick things up with our hands, etc. Just because we can do anything in a digital experience doesn’t mean we should. Skeuomorphism may have gone too far, but the pendulum seemed to swing back too far.

At some point skeuomorphism becomes anachronism, though. The canonical example is the continued use of the floppy disk icon for save. A mechanical stopwatch for a timer. A telephone with a switch hook and dial. A desk calendar with rings and pages. A pencil and paper for text editor.

The problem with trying to get rid of those "anachronistic" symbols is that when you task someone with it, they will come up with a bunch of very arbitrary symbols that are also simple permutations that are hard to distinguish.

There was an example in a previous HN thread on this topic. For "save", they had a rounded rectangle and an arrow, and then a bunch of operations had something similar, but with the orientation and details of the two elements changed.

Or, another example that made an impression on me when OS X first came out, was when the basic window controls became circular, jewel like bubbles, only distinguished by color - instead of each having a distinctive pattern/symbol.

It's so easy to fall into the trap as a designer of applying a pleasing uniformity that undermines the user experience. Imagine the nuclear power plant controls with hundreds of identical switches in rows and columns. Or an aircraft.

Nothing would mean anything without the past providing context, so complaining about anachronism is paradoxically complaining that a meaning is too well established.

The letter A is thought to come originally from a diagrammatic ox head, but should we eliminate it because we no longer use it in relation to livestock?

Just because people don't like a floppy disk icon shouldn't count for anything unless it can be demonstrated there is in fact some other symbol that is more associated with saving.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#163

Post by [deleted] »

amatecha wrote: post #149
webwielder2 wrote: post #91

It’s very funny to me that people think “the past” was a UX wonderland.

I mean… in the 90's, software didn't harass me to update every 15 minutes or pop up extraneous notifications that are irrelevant to my interests. Interactions were, in general, far more discoverable. You could come to rely on simple, consistent design cues to understand how something might work. A whole new piece of software was instantly usable because it adhered to the expected interface guidelines[0] defined for t…

[deleted]

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#164

Post by hnick »

systemvoltage wrote: post #112
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…

I tried reading the footer to get the contact information for on https://grumpy.website but it keeps doom-scrolling and only visible for a fraction of a second. What an irony. I dream of a day when we go back to pagination. No, not just pagination numbers on the bottom of the page to flip through pages, but also the URL should reflect that and be able to share the 7th page with someone using a link.

Still remember trying to browse fonts on Google Fonts and my browser crashing as I scrolled too far. Shame on me for wanting to look at too many! At the very least they need a way to unload the earlier entries and reclaim resources.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#165

Post by hnick »

Macha wrote: post #159
logbiscuitswave wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you’re being serious or not, but these stories seem awfully apocryphal to me. I can’t imagine anybody - not even a total novice - running away from their computer upon seeing a cartoony image of a bomb. It reminds me of the made-up but often used story of terrified audiences running for the exits upon watching a film of a train for the first time.

I definitely encountered novice users puzzled and worried about the "illegal operation" message.

I have always hated this phrasing. I prefer invalid or something that doesn't invoke legality.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#166

Post by perl4ever »

yen223 wrote: post #135
webwielder2 wrote: post #91

It’s very funny to me that people think “the past” was a UX wonderland.

It's like how no matter when you're born, the best music was always the ones from your teenage years (when your taste in music was being formed). And how music sucks these days because kids don't know to make good music (and not because musical tastes has changed around you and you don't like that) Same thing with UI I guess.

I don't think the comparison works.

Music generally is what people want to listen to for its own sake.

UI is disconnected from what people want; everybody wants to do something, and UI is how you get there. As is in-app advertising, electricity, and so on.

And not only is UI tied to other things that aren't available a la carte, but the whole package is frequently chosen by someone (corporate software) who will never experience the UI and didn't talk to anyone who will on the subject.

So I think it's a fallacy to assert that UI is in general what the public prefers. The same fallacy as saying consumers want binding arbitration, or melamine in their milk, or surveillance advertising.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#167

Post by jonas21 »

On my Android phone, and probably the vast majority of Android phones, there is a UI affordance that the share options are scrollable. The rightmost icon is only partially visible, which makes it clear that there is more content that lies offscreen. This is the same affordance that's used on iOS devices. The author's phone happens to have a screen width that displays an exact number of icons, so this affordance breaks for him.

This is clearly a tradeoff. Either you tightly control the set of valid screen sizes (like iOS does) and guarantee that the affordance works across all devices. Or you allow for flexibility and accept that on some percentage of devices, this affordance will not work as intended.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#168

Post by professoretc »

npinguy wrote: post #98
logbiscuitswave wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you’re being serious or not, but these stories seem awfully apocryphal to me. I can’t imagine anybody - not even a total novice - running away from their computer upon seeing a cartoony image of a bomb. It reminds me of the made-up but often used story of terrified audiences running for the exits upon watching a film of a train for the first time.

> It reminds me of the made-up but often used story of terrified audiences running for the exits upon watching a film of a train for the first time. The cultural recontextualization of stories like this in my lifetime has been one of the most fascinating aspects of our modern world for me. Of course, as I get older, I've seen my own stories and stories about events I participated in get told, re-told, and twisted and…

> What prevented people from being more introspective and curious about these subjects 10, 20, 30 years ago?

Perhaps we should be asking, what subjects are we failing to be introspective about now, that will fall into this category 10, 20, 30 years in the future?

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#169

Post by betwixthewires »

jonas21 wrote: post #167

On my Android phone, and probably the vast majority of Android phones, there is a UI affordance that the share options are scrollable. The rightmost icon is only partially visible, which makes it clear that there is more content that lies offscreen. This is the same affordance that's used on iOS devices. The author's phone happens to have a screen width that displays an exact number of icons, so this affordance break…

Or you pick a better way to indicate more options, and not have to worry about a trade off at all.

Side note, I personally hate sideways scrolling stuff 99% of the time. I can't imagine I'm alone.

Re: Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

#170

Post by [deleted] »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #143
andai wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I've used them in my own designs. It just sounded like he saw a hamburger menu now for the first time 5 weeks ago! Or maybe it is some kind of joke?

I don't think I'd seen a hamburger menu rendered on a list, for each item, before. Normally a "hamburger menu" appears once, probably at the top of the page, in some kind of navigation bar. In that context, that icon definitely reads "drag to re-order list item" to me.

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