Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

lobste.rs

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 326 posts

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#301

Post by codingdave »

grimman wrote: post #232
codingdave wrote: post #177

Khan academy is the worst offender in my mind. This past summer, it seemed like there was a change in how to navigate around the site every week. And changes to how reports displayed, even how questions were answered... across the board, constant changes. My kids, who range from 5-9, and use it to learn math, had to ask me for help constantly. 2 of my kids stopped using the site,as did I. One still uses it. I went fr…

Are there any alternatives in the same "range" as Khan Academy?

Yes, there are dozens of choices. But few are free. And although I have no problem paying for my children's education, I have not found a correlation between the cost of online education and its quality.

I like Khan's vision - I really like their Mastery system, and their mission system. Frankly, if they worked out all the kinks and had similar mechanisms for all primary education subjects, homeschooling could be done with nothing but Khan.

They just aren't quite there yet.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#302

Post by acdha »

unterstrom wrote: post #59
acdha wrote: post #22

This happens every time something changes. Wait for the next release and the same guy is probably going to be complaining about changes to the current UI. One phrase I hear a lot is “The future is longer than the past”. It's relevant here as well – spending all of your time worrying about existing users have to spend a couple minutes getting used to a new keyboard design isn't a good reason not to make improvements w…

>Wait for the next release and the same guy is probably going to be complaining about changes to the current UI. Off course he will. It's his point. He alreadey stated that it is not the ui that is bad. It's the practice of constantly changing things for no good reason that is bad.

You're both begging the question of whether this was in fact done for no reason other than to change things. It's rather unlikely that someone at Google spent time and money developing something for no reason – that post would have been interesting if it'd actually discussed why things changed and why the reasoning behind those changes was wrong rather than simply assuming it.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#303

Post by acdha »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #27
acdha wrote: post #22

This happens every time something changes. Wait for the next release and the same guy is probably going to be complaining about changes to the current UI. One phrase I hear a lot is “The future is longer than the past”. It's relevant here as well – spending all of your time worrying about existing users have to spend a couple minutes getting used to a new keyboard design isn't a good reason not to make improvements w…

"The future is longer than the past" seems like the perfect excuse to justify pretty much anything.

If you think it through more, it's only about being excessively driven by fear of change. UI changes inspire a lot of reactionary opposition but once you're looking on a perspective greater than minutes or hours, the big problems usually turn out to be less significant than originally claimed.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#304

Post by Retric »

andybak wrote: post #256
Retric wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"A transition is an animation usually used to move content in or out of view" http://semantic-ui.com/modules/transition.html

It's a common element of game Menu systems ex: rolling up an in game paper when closing a menu. But, games rarely add a delay before basic gameplay like walking. Granted, there are built in delays used for balance ex: reloading a gun or to give time for a video to play etc. But, they don't really fit the UI defining for transitions. Which is pure UI window dressing aiding usability.

ED: Ok, their also commonly used on game loading screens but again adding more loading screens does not improve a games gameplay.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#305

Post by mirkules »

pjc50 wrote: post #173
iancarroll wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web interface convinently logged you in and you stop using it because of that?

Logging into youtube will, by default unless you know about it and turn it off, associate every video you view with your G+ profile for your gmail account, so every person you correspond with can look up your video history.

The other really frustrating thing is when you log out of Gmail, you are not actually logged out. You will be presented by a pseudo-looking login screen, which is really just an authentication screen to get back to Gmail.

What really happens is they keep you kind of logged in to collect as much data on your searches, videos, etc. The way to actually log out is:

- Click logout in Gmail

- Click "Sign in with a different account" (!)

- Click "Remove"

- Click the X next to your name.

- Click Done

It feels like they are trying to trick you into staying logged in by making the logout process extremely obscure and difficult, and I really hate it when I'm being blatantly tricked like that. With existence of evercookies (http://samy.pl/evercookie/) I am somewhat skeptical that even that obscure logout process actually logged me out.

This is pretty much the strongest reason why I don't use the GMail UI anymore (there are others, but this alone would have made me stop).

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#306

Post by pjc50 »

hahainternet wrote: post #245
pjc50 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logging into youtube will, by default unless you know about it and turn it off, associate every video you view with your G+ profile for your gmail account, so every person you correspond with can look up your video history.

Sorry, where do I go to see this because it sounds like you're talking absolute nonsense.

It appears to have changed in the last few months, and it didn't show full history, so I'll take it back slightly, but you can still see other Youtube users favourites/subscribed: https://www.youtube.com/user/whoever

Some people have a link from their G+ to their youtube, but it seems not to be there for everyone any more.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#307

Post by throwawayaway »

mirkules wrote: post #305
pjc50 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logging into youtube will, by default unless you know about it and turn it off, associate every video you view with your G+ profile for your gmail account, so every person you correspond with can look up your video history.

The other really frustrating thing is when you log out of Gmail, you are not actually logged out. You will be presented by a pseudo-looking login screen, which is really just an authentication screen to get back to Gmail. What really happens is they keep you kind of logged in to collect as much data on your searches, videos, etc. The way to actually log out is: - Click logout in Gmail - Click "Sign in with a differen…

One could use chrome's incognito mode to get around such irritations if one were so inclined.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#308

Post by archagon »

protomyth wrote: post #289
archagon wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't like the new Safari tabs? Have you tried using your trackpad or mouse wheel to scroll them horizontally? To me, it's the best solution out of all the browsers. Firefox has a scrolling list, but all the tabs are the same size so they go off the screen. Chrome shrinks tabs down until they're illegible. Safari kind of does both, but you can spread them out in an analog way just by using your mouse. To me, it f…

The scrolling is interesting, but it scrunches the tabs on the left as I add them and then I have extra actions to go to the first tab I opened. I see no purpose in this behavior.

Well, it doesn't do that if all your tabs fit in the window, right? It only happens once you run out of space, and at that point you need to do something.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#309

Post by protomyth »

archagon wrote: post #308
protomyth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scrolling is interesting, but it scrunches the tabs on the left as I add them and then I have extra actions to go to the first tab I opened. I see no purpose in this behavior.

Well, it doesn't do that if all your tabs fit in the window, right? It only happens once you run out of space, and at that point you need to do something .

yes, and that something is to scrunch the right side not one tab to the left of the left side. Act like every other program on the platform using tabs.

Re: Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason

#310

Post by mirkules »

throwawayaway wrote: post #307
mirkules wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other really frustrating thing is when you log out of Gmail, you are not actually logged out. You will be presented by a pseudo-looking login screen, which is really just an authentication screen to get back to Gmail. What really happens is they keep you kind of logged in to collect as much data on your searches, videos, etc. The way to actually log out is: - Click logout in Gmail - Click "Sign in with a differen…

One could use chrome's incognito mode to get around such irritations if one were so inclined.

When I have to use Privacy Mode, I do. But the sheer fact I have to is mildly infuriating.
Post reply on HN