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Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

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Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#331

Post by neor »

Razengan wrote: post #287

The iPad was my gateway into the Apple orchard. I had never purchased an Apple product until about a decade ago, when I got the first Retina iPad as a gift for someone who didn’t use computers. I was so impressed by how intuitive the device and OS was for them, that I installed macOS in a VM on Windows to try iOS development. I fell in love with macOS (back during Lion) shortly before getting my first MacBook and lea…

I fully agree, there is a steady decline in usability and its a bloody shame because for years the usability is what set Apple apart from the others.

A few things which hugely annoy me;

- Saving a photo from iMessage.... the option has disappeared. I get a popup to airdrop the file, interact with some apps and a huge copy button. In fact, I can scroll down in this menu but there is not a single visual indicator that I can scroll. No scroll bar, no icon... nothing. I've had to read somewhere online that I could scroll there, and I work in IT. How is this usable for people who don't work in IT.

- After updates I'm frequently asked to provide my Apple ID password, and yet iOS doesn't allow me to interact with Password Managers at this moment. I've got a 36 random character password, and it is a pain in the ass to enter this.

- 3D touch has been removed in newer iPhones. Fine, but why cripple older phones which still have the hardware to use 3D touch... Now it takes me an extra action to re-arrange my icons.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#332

Post by Dylan16807 »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #229
Aeolun wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but you do not necessarily expect half your text to disappear when you click accept right?

When a message pops up asking me if I want to undo my typing and I click yes, I do in fact expect the text I typed to disappear.

That's not the question that was asked.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#333

Post by hamhand »

FpUser wrote: post #133

I have a desktop Windows only product that I sell (10s of thousands of clients). It does not have the most eye pleasing UI design but it is very functional and ergonomic. All possible actions are clearly visible and / or discoverable. And every action can be accessed in less clicks then in any of competitor's products. I actually get some praises for it. Still every once in a while I get support email telling me that…

Maybe just slightly change icon colors to similar modern material colors will please them.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#334

Post by JosefAssad »

FpUser wrote: post #248
frank2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider giving the the user some way to configure the text color?

I only make configurable things that MUST be configured. I've long learned that my audience when it comes to handling software for better or worse has the average intelligence approaching that of my cat. Not trying to insult here. Just general observation

I've observed something not too different. I suspect it might be that I and my users are at different levels of zoom with respect to the product.

They really don't think about it at all except for when they need to get specific tasks done that the product does well. They are max zoomed out.

I necessarily am zoomed in to the entire product, from every lowly line of code all the way up to the aggregate product. I am max zoomed in.

This leads to a sense of alienation when I observe the relationship between my users and my product. Sometimes it's simpler to think that I actually don't know my own product, so different is the perspective.

Really it's a matter of how much the product occupies in my mind versus theirs; they are using it opportunistically and would prefer to spend as little time as possible thinking about it. Which I suppose is a good argument against over-engineering; for a mass market product, core features beyond the third will only be used by the developers.

Anyhow, all that is to say I can understand your comment, and I often think that I'm lucky the emacs developers or GvR don't look over my shoulder when I use their software because they would give their cats Nobel prizes. :)

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#335

Post by freetonik »

WillYouFinish wrote: post #329
dmitriid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a joke by the creator of the website :)

I see. A quite ironic approach. I like it. Edit: I feel kind of stupid of thinking everyone is stupid on the internet except me.

Hint: there's a handy icon in the top header (looks like "refresh") that allows to easily access the footer.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#336

Post by Dylan16807 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #309

The original Mac would pop up a dialog with a threatening icon of a bomb with a lit fuse, whenever it crashed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_(icon) >The Bomb icon is a symbol designed by Susan Kare that was displayed inside the System Error alert box when the "classic" Macintosh operating system (pre-Mac OS X) had a crash which the system decided was unrecoverable. It was similar to a dialog box in Windows 9x th…

> Unfortunately, the Mac's error dialog could cause naive users to jump up out of their seat and run away from the computer in terror, because they though it was going to explode!

'''could'''?

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#337

Post by andreitp1 »

overgard wrote: post #201
emidoots wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had conversations with several "designers", some from FAANG, and all have held the general belief that having strong authority over how the UI looks and getting eye-candy at the cost of usability and ergonomics was 'without doubt the right choice'. In my frank opinion, many designers hold a position of subjective judgement and thrive on the power that comes with that. This is like a developer making arbitrary…

The danger with data is it can keep you trapped in a local maxima. Also there's the whole thing with a lot of users seeming to be more and more annoyed with telemetry.

THIS. So many people don't realize that true innovation cannot come from existing data.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#338

Post by stjohnswarts »

r_singh wrote: post #323
FpUser wrote: post #133

I have a desktop Windows only product that I sell (10s of thousands of clients). It does not have the most eye pleasing UI design but it is very functional and ergonomic. All possible actions are clearly visible and / or discoverable. And every action can be accessed in less clicks then in any of competitor's products. I actually get some praises for it. Still every once in a while I get support email telling me that…

> beauty trumps usability/ergonomics I bet that beauty wouldn't have trumped usability (in terms of Apple's preference and an elite buyer's purchase decision) if it also wasn't positioned and marketed as an aspirational / cool product. There's a lot of people that just want to own it because it's the goto for aspirational / luxury electronics. That aside, I always buy only Apple because other products just deteriorat…

It's windows and not the hardware. I've never seen an issue with android though, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. In that case it has been hardware, both Samsung and Google, usually with overheating chips. I still prefer the Android world though, I find the products more intuitive.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#339

Post by rogy »

kccqzy wrote: post #306
JohnTHaller wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you want to updates your apps? That's easy. Open up the App Store and then click on your profile picture. Wait, what?

Hold the App Store icon until a menu appears. Choose "Updates" and done. I'm not defending Apple here. I only accidentally discovered this shortcut. I feel that designers these days expect users to explore a lot of things out of blind faith in order to discover functionality.

only works if you know where your app store icon is. i dont use the icons from the launcher screens anymore, everything goes in one folder bar the 'sticky apps'

find it much faster to just pull down and search for apps

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#340

Post by xattt »

JBiserkov wrote: post #317
krtkush wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that this is a dark-pattern to force users to enable automatics updates.

They just needed the space previously occupied by "Updates" to promote their "Arcade"

Clearly, the solution would be to place Arcade under Profile. Easily accessible!
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