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The Decline of Usability (2020)

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Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#231

Post by JohnFen »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #105
grishka wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft in particular seems hellbent on putting touchscreens in everything. They REALLY want to make it happen but seemingly no one is having it. There's ONE person I know who owns a touchscreen laptop and genuinely touches its screen on purpose. On your scrolling complaint — well, there's this desktop-specific thing that OP doesn't mention but that becomes very apparent once you start looking for it in old-school…

I've had touchscreen laptops for about 7years now. The only time that the touchscreen gets used is when somebody is showing me something, doesn't realize it's a touchscreen, and accidentally borks whatever we were looking at. It's strange - I love to optimize my flow, but I just haven't yet hit a situation where my hands leaving keyboard and touching the screen is faster. (I'm a die-hard and proficient track point us…

> is when somebody is showing me something, doesn't realize it's a touchscreen, and accidentally borks whatever we were looking at.

It's funny -- I've been using my work laptop for over a year and only yesterday discovered that it has a touch screen by doing exactly this.

I haven't bothered to figure out how to disable the touchscreen yet, but it's on my todo list.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#232

Post by JohnFen »

grishka wrote: post #223
premysl wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DLUs solve the wrong problem. You actually want autolayout, so that different languages only need translations and otherwise don't need almost any extra work. Linux has, I think, proved, that fixed window sizes are needless.

> You actually want autolayout, so that different languages only need translations and otherwise don't need almost any extra work. What kind of extra work DO they need? I can only think of RTL layouts but I don't remember whether win32 "dialogs" loaded from resources automatically mirror the layout for RTL languages. > Linux has, I think, proved, that fixed window sizes are needless. Desktop Linux is an unfixable dum…

> Desktop Linux is an unfixable dumpster fire UX-wise.

This is exactly how I feel about Windows. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#233

Post by JohnFen »

the_af wrote: post #167
grishka wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's that as well. Imagine you've already designed everything that needs designed across all your products, but you still employ an entire department of graphic designers that need something to do . You wouldn't just fire them, right? That's how all those UI redesigns happen. I've seen it myself. "We need to change it because it's been a while since we last changed it." The omnipresence of high-speed always-on i…

I'm sympathetic to developers trying not to get fired -- I'm a developer myself! But from the user's side it's often ridiculous.

As a developer, I'd much rather look for a job doing something meaningful than have to waste my days doing make-work BS.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#234

Post by JohnFen »

silvestrov wrote: post #63
the_af wrote: post #54

I cannot prove it, but I think some of these UI and UX horrors are caused by the ever present need for software to change in order to demonstrate it is alive. Imagine you reach peak usability in $YourApp, in the year of our lord 2023. It's maybe not perfect , but there's no conceivable way your app's usability can improved past this point. Users are reasonable proficient, everything mostly clicks into place past the…

I think architecture has the same problem. The best way to stand out in the 50s/60s was to break with every good rule of traditional architecture and create the Brutalist style. They completely ignored the human emotional aspect of buildings and living spaces.

> They completely ignored the human emotional aspect of buildings and living spaces.

But it turns out they didn't, since the majority of today's architectural design is even more alienating. Brutalism often seems downright cozy in comparison.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#235

Post by JohnFen »

yawaramin wrote: post #88
ho_schi wrote: post #71

Apple? The people which removed the menu from the window and keep it separate to tease all users? Maximized windows and full-screen are itself a pain. I cannot use MacOS. Finder is especially bad. The partially weird idea of GNOME (Hamburger-Menu) is also a copy of CSD-Style. Putting that aside GNOME did some really good things (keyboard-centric usage, dash and overview instead of a desktop, no desktop-icons and syst…

The separated window menu which is always attached to the top of the screen, is a usability win. It gives you much more leeway to move your mouse and hit the target you're aiming for. See: Fitt's Law.

> The separated window menu which is always attached to the top of the screen, is a usability win.

Not for me, it's not. I curse it heavily.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#236

Post by IIsi50MHz »

mbar84 wrote: post #230
Ensorceled wrote: post #127

The past decade or so, I've found myself in a constant battle with UI/UX team members. A big part of the battle seems to be a shift from power/tool user to consumer design paradigms. 20 years ago, most software was tools for professionals, now most software (on a usage level at least) is consumer software (literally consumers of video, social media etc.) Designers can't seem to switch modes and keep trying to apply "…

One of the most wonderful developments of the last decade is the "Command Palette" UX pattern. You can have a tool driven predominantly by keyboard and also make all the keyboard shortcuts discoverable (display them next to the command in the dropdown). Maybe just let the UX guys do whatever they want, just so long as I can press Ctrl-K and type the first letters of the command I want to do.

I use Excel's "/, Q, " frequently, because I'm often searching for a feature whose name I remember, but whose place or existence in some menu or panel of the Ribbon is ephemeral or not memorable, often changing with window size.

If only activating the search box weren't so slow!

It feels like I'm starting a moderately large app and waiting for it to load (while still being faster than clicking through Ribbons and opening various subpanels by clicking on teensy "arrow in a corner" widgets).

I'd expect it to be a tiny array of text held in memory for instant access, with no perceived delay between when I finish typing "/Q" and the search interface appearing.

But then, I'd also expect the first search result to be selectable by just hitting . Having to use an arrow key to navigate down one, then press is unfortunate, especially when using an MS Surface's keyboard's half-size up/down arrows.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#237

Post by IIsi50MHz »

dgb23 wrote: post #118
jt2190 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MacOS plays a sluggish animation when switching between screens... Perhaps: System Settings... Accessibility > Display: Reduce Motion

That just switches from one slow animation to another.

And I don't want or need, for my own use, some Accessibility-defined systemwide setting that tells all apps to try not having motion. It sounds nice to have…should I ever need that. But at least from Apple's description it seems invasive and like it might possibly disable untold things that I don't want to mess with.

I want to speed up or eliminate certain decorative things, like this particular animation. Since there's no obvious no-side-effects way, I just grumble and occasionally rediscover UI performance when I use some other system.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#238

Post by rmellow »

raffraffraff wrote: post #180

One of my frequent hobby horses is the area of portable music players (formerly called Walkmans or MP3 players, currently "DAPs"). I simply don't understand who would want to buy any of the currently available players because they'll are so terrible to use . The good ones were killed off by a combination of streaming services and Android devices. There are no more light-weight, simple players with high capacity, phys…

Your comment sent me on a multi day journey into DAPs.

Indeed, it's heartbreaking how otherwise capable hardware is ruined by bad design decisions (UI, form factor, touchscreens, ...)

I found a workable solution after many hours:

1. Bought a Hifi Walker H2 on Amazon. It suffers from poor UI design, including typos. Otherwise, the hardware is great.

2. Installed RockBox on it. After a little customization, it resolves the crappy UI. The one pain point is RockBox will not support Bluetooth or USB DAC, if you care about these features.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#239

Post by raffraffraff »

rmellow wrote: post #238
raffraffraff wrote: post #180

One of my frequent hobby horses is the area of portable music players (formerly called Walkmans or MP3 players, currently "DAPs"). I simply don't understand who would want to buy any of the currently available players because they'll are so terrible to use . The good ones were killed off by a combination of streaming services and Android devices. There are no more light-weight, simple players with high capacity, phys…

Your comment sent me on a multi day journey into DAPs. Indeed, it's heartbreaking how otherwise capable hardware is ruined by bad design decisions (UI, form factor, touchscreens, ...) I found a workable solution after many hours: 1. Bought a Hifi Walker H2 on Amazon. It suffers from poor UI design, including typos. Otherwise, the hardware is great. 2. Installed RockBox on it. After a little customization, it resolves…

So I have an update! I bought the HiBY R2 II directly from their website it shipped immediately (on a weekend!) and I had it in my hands (in Ireland) less than a week later. It's basically everything the Shanling Q1 should have been. It's slimmer, almost half the weight, has a sane OS (so there's no need for Rockbox) and sounds great. Also had better battery life than the Q1 and you can play/pause using an inline remote on your wired headphones (and yes, Shanling screwed that up too). Bluetooth is rock solid. All in all I love it. I can even sync my music and playlists to it with MusicBee (on Linux) with very little messing around, and with a huge SD card it holds all my music.

Edit: the walker was my next choice but I thought they were discontinued? Anyways, the HiBY is available.

Re: The Decline of Usability (2020)

#240

Post by rmellow »

raffraffraff wrote: post #239
rmellow wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment sent me on a multi day journey into DAPs. Indeed, it's heartbreaking how otherwise capable hardware is ruined by bad design decisions (UI, form factor, touchscreens, ...) I found a workable solution after many hours: 1. Bought a Hifi Walker H2 on Amazon. It suffers from poor UI design, including typos. Otherwise, the hardware is great. 2. Installed RockBox on it. After a little customization, it resolves…

So I have an update! I bought the HiBY R2 II directly from their website it shipped immediately (on a weekend!) and I had it in my hands (in Ireland) less than a week later. It's basically everything the Shanling Q1 should have been. It's slimmer, almost half the weight, has a sane OS (so there's no need for Rockbox) and sounds great. Also had better battery life than the Q1 and you can play/pause using an inline rem…

My own update: decided to dust off my old iPod and repair the fault LCD, battery and hard drive.

The (minor) downsides: modern features like Bluetooth and USB-C are possible, but only through soldering.

Rockbox unfortunately lacks polish, and it for some reason turns itself off after a while playing music.

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