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GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism

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Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism

#231

Post by kyouens »

mattmanser wrote: post #150
ajross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redesigns of a heavily-used UI are always "usability disasters". People spend many hours perfecting their workflow in one environment and FLIP THEIR LIDS when someone changes it. It's not a rational thing (nor, frankly, an unjustified one). What surprises me is that we haven't figured this out yet and rehash the same flame war every time. The desktop environments show this best: c.f. Gnome 3. Also Gnome 2. And Gnome…

You're begging the question. If we take what you say is true every redesign is good, which is patently false. A perfect example is the Office Ribbon UI, an unmitigated disaster. Also putting Vista in your list there, mmmmmm. Wasn't exactly a great redesign was it. The Google redesign is also pretty much a disaster.

I actually like the ribbon, especially when working on tables, charts, and the like. My only complaint is that it takes up so much vertical screen real estate.

Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism

#232

Post by pasbesoin »

gruseom wrote: post #227
pasbesoin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same boat. I was a very proficient Excel user. The ribbon completely fucked my workflow. In addition, they broke just enough of the shortcut keys to break my flow.

What shortcut keys did they break?

I don't recall exactly. I'd been away from much use of Excel for a few years, then had occasion to use it helping someone else. Whereupon I suddenly went from an early 200x version (lastly 2003, I think?) to 2007.

The ribbon was annoying enough. But then I started manipulating using shortcut keys. And a subset didn't product the expected results.

I spent some years working heavily in Excel, including extensive on-the-fly worksheet structure modification (shoving data around, adding and deleting rows and columns, copying values or just the "text" portion of cells, etc., etc.). So those shortcuts were second-nature, or "muscle memory", as they say, if a bit stale.

It was a one-off, helping that person. I currently do a little budgeting in Excel, but without much such manipulation, so I haven't continued to trip across and so recall in detail what broke.

I do continue, in my more spiteful moments, to hope they reserve a special level of hell for the people who make such UI changes. For a subset of people, Excel is a heavy-duty industrial tool, and dicking with the UI is tantamount to dicking with their livelihood, not to mention peace of mind. At a minimum, implement and insist on backward compatibility (as an optional mode, at least), no matter how much your "rock star" designers piss and moan, or your Management pisses and moans about supporting multiple interfaces. You have a responsibility to the user base that has propelled your product to such success while integrating its functionality into their subconscious actions.

Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism

#234

Post by pbiggar »

anthonyb wrote: post #223
pbiggar wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who says they're awful? You just don't like them. Well yes, but he is the guy who wrote Gmail, and that does add a little bit of strength to his argument.

It shouldn't be a free pass though ;) "A big red button is awful." isn't much good compared to "A big red button is awful because ..." or "Instead of a big red button you should do ..."

I think the reason was implicit. Red has a meaning in UIs, and it's not "Compose".
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