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Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

lobste.rs

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Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#251

Post by jongraehl »

smackfu wrote: post #38

I find the new Google Maps UI to be frustrating. The number of taps to just find directions to something after you search for it seems to be increased, for no good reason. I think it's mainly because there are multiple paths through the app to do the same thing, and some of them are optimized flows and others are not. So tapping the search bar is not the most efficient way to get directions anymore... you should tap…

Anyone have a hint for using G-Maps (or making a homescreen shortcut) to navigate home address that won't send me to the wrong place, or make me wait, in case of slow internet?

This seems fairly basic functionality so I may be missing something. I've even been sent toward a place 30 miles east of home, repeatedly, trying to select the autocompletion of 'home'.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#252

Post by sangnoir »

jackmaney wrote: post #243
coldtea wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said it has to be adjacent? To type WHAT just click W, swipe to H, then to A, then to T (and that roughly).

Why would that not turn into WDFGHGFDSASERT?

Because the keyboard has a dictionary and can choose the most likely word you meant from your swipe waypoints

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#253

Post by andybak »

shanemhansen wrote: post #199
incision wrote: post #98

What are there, 1B Android users? I'm sure Google would like that to be 7B. I'd wager the complaints of the sort of people who frequent lobste.rs or HN are not representative of the majority of current users and almost certainly not of the next 6B potential users. Overall, it's everything Google said they would do with material [1]. It's fine to dislike these things, I don't necessarily like them myself, but claiming…

> Animations are really valuable anytime someone doesn't come to the table with a complete mental model of how something fits together already. This argument conflates the problem (lacking a mental model) with a solution (animations). This Mr Programmer is confused by elements flying around in front of them. Maybe regular users get confused too?

> This Mr Programmer is confused by elements flying around in front of them.

Try it out for yourself and see if you find it confusing. In many places it's designed to enhance ease of use and does a fairly good job of it.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#254

Post by jackmaney »

jackmaney wrote: post #243
coldtea wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said it has to be adjacent? To type WHAT just click W, swipe to H, then to A, then to T (and that roughly).

Why would that not turn into WDFGHGFDSASERT?

Okay, so I grabbed my phone and tested it out. It...actually works. It's a bizarre method of text entry, but interesting nonetheless.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#255

Post by c22 »

collyw wrote: post #206
deciplex wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I like what they did with maps, finally. I hated the design they came out with about a year ago or so. It was awful and I basically stopped using the app except when absolutely necessary because I always felt like a dumb idiot trying to use it. Nothing was discoverable. I never got used to it. Much better now. Part of this, is that even if you come up with a design that is better than what you have, it ought to…

I have the opposite experience. I liked the maps that came with my phone a year and a half ago. It keeps getting upgraded. I lost the zoom buttons (pinch to zoom is very dangerous when driving, so basically a major feature loss for me). And recently the whole thing goes so slowly on my older phone that I have usually found the destination before the phone has managed to load the screen. Recently I founds that I can u…

You can zoom with one hand by double tapping and then sliding down or up on your second tap.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#256

Post by andybak »

Retric wrote: post #201
hyperpape wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X and iOS both extensively use transitions. What's your model of a good UI that doesn't exploit transitions?

How about the vast majority of games out there. Don't get me wrong there a useful tool and can mask a slow UI, but just becase a cruch is useful to mask problems does not mean you should see more heathy people walking around with them.

Game UIs feature transitions extensively.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#257

Post by TeeWEE »

xienze wrote: post #11
TeeWEE wrote: post #2

I thinks this guy is missing the point. Google did uix research and come up with a more usable design philosophy, which makes all apps more consistent. They are now executing those grand-design rules. In the end, apps should be more familiar, and easier to use. The change itself is always frustrating, people who are used to an uix (by learning it), hate change, even if the new uix is simpler.

> Google did uix research and come up with a more usable design philosophy, which makes all apps more consistent. They are now executing those grand-design rules. That's all well and good, but they seem to do this every two years or so.

Thats indeed a good point. The question remains. How often should you redesign your app? Sometimes an innovation (such as touch screens) forces you to rethink the uix.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#258

Post by andybak »

asgard1024 wrote: post #65
shawnwall wrote: post #30

Google is making a huge amount of progress in UI and UX; the company has historically been rather mediocre in terms of it's UI and UX, while Apple was always the star. Over the past year or so the roles have reversed, and Google continues making strides towards unifying their applications in a single user experience and ui paradigm that allows for simpler app use, particularly for new users. It's easy to get upset wh…

> allows for simpler app use, particularly for new users Are you kidding me? So called "flat design", with nondescript icons indistinguishable from the surrounding text, is the worst thing ever for new users. How am I supposed to know that I can click (er, I mean, touch) something?

I've had Lollipop for over a week and I generally don't find lack of affordance in the UI. It's very clear what is clickable and what isn't. (there are a couple of very minor exceptions I can think of)

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#259

Post by stinky613 »

exodust wrote: post #188
remon wrote: post #28

The problem with arguments like these is that there being "no good reason" is highly subjective. Excessive change is generally better than no changes at all. Things have to evolve and even if we miss the mark every now and then it should always improve over time on average when new ideas are tried and tested.

* 'Excessive change is generally better than no changes at all.' Can't agree with that. If the change isn't needed then change can't be better. The burden of responsibility for justifying the change is on the person wanting the change. To identify why the change is needed and how it's an improvement. It's a weakness of the production team if there's a "must evolve no matter what" mentality on repeat-cycle. You could…

> If the change isn't needed then change can't be better

I'm curious... when you say 'change' is there a contextual limit to what counts as a change? That is to say, am I taking you too literally if I consider an A/B test a change? Or is there a pervasiveness of rollout that you think is necessary to consider something as a change?

In either case, I wouldn't want to underestimate the value of studying reactions to a change--especially the negative reactions. There's a lot to be learned from mistakes.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#260

Post by declan »

nickbaum wrote: post #211

A few thoughts: * Google has a large and very competent design team. They are not changing things "for the sake of changing them." More often than not, changes are made in response to issues discovered during usability studies. * You are not the user. I am not the user. The designer is not the user. In fact, for a project as large as Android or Gmail, there is no "the user". You're always making trade-offs between po…

> You're always making trade-offs between power vs. common, new vs. existing users.

Well put. Google is a data-driven company with the ability to test designs over millions of users (although Jakob Nielsen's work has shown that you reach the point of quickly diminishing returns after testing with 5-10 users).

I've spent quite a bit of time implementing Material Design for http://recent.io/, and then testing the design with normal, not especially tech-savvy users. My impression is that Material Design is a way to simplify and standardize app UIs (to increase app usage overall), and import visual cues from the paper world. It's very thoughtful approach, probably better than iOS, and I say this as someone whose primary mobile device is a new iPhone and who has owned an iPhone since the day it went on sale.

But what works for most people may not work for HN power users. Hence the complaints on this thread.

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