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Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

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Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#41

Post by adthrelfall »

dvdhsu wrote: post #27
stephth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My work involves designing interfaces and this discussion could help me understand this topic better; but like the author of the article, your post shows some intense frustration towards rollover-only elements, but none made it very evident to me as to why it's so frustrating and why it's so "stupid". We all experience things differently, and I'd love to picture a perspective where it's so frustrating. Here's how I s…

I don't know anything about design. The solution that I propose seems obvious though; am I missing something? > Too many elements are a distraction. > What is the affordance of invisibility? There is a middle though: instead of either making it invisible OR cluttered, couldn't you just design it with a small clue, such as an arrow, which would open a drop-down menu when rolled over (on a computer) or tapped on (on a…

Yes, there is definitely the middle ground.

Hide all but the most common actions on a page, but make it clear and consistent where the other actions will be found.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#42

Post by droithomme »

ugh wrote: post #31
droithomme wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely so. Amazingly, iReader, from Apple, for the iPad, uses this antipattern in the critical main navigation bar! It disappears instantly and one has to click randomly at the top of the screen to get it to reappear, then try to press the tiny button that takes you back to the table of contents before the whole thing rolls up again after a delay of a second or two. Very frustrating. This sort of nonsense is…

That’s not how iBooks actually works. (That doesn’t get Apple off the hook, though. You encountered the problem so it’s a valid one. Confusion about how something works is definitely not the user’s problem, it’s the developer’s.) The navigation bar only disappears automatically after you selected a book in your library. It is displayed for a few seconds to show that there are controls. After it disappeared you can ma…

Ahhhhhhh. Thanks. OK, so actually I now see that single (one-finger) clicking makes it go away AND makes it come back. It wasn't actually fading on its own because of a fade out hideaway timer, it's just that I was touching the pages.

And I wasn't having success bringing it back consistently because it doesn't listen to clicks along the very top of the page.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#43

Post by YuriNiyazov »

pferde wrote: post #32
geuis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

position: fixed was added in iOS 5. However, it becomes unstuck when pinch/zooming.

This kind of problems amazes me. It's year 2011, almost 2012 - we should have had flying cars and forcefield doors by now. Yet we are still struggling with getting a web page to work identically in different web browsers.

I am willing to bet that when we have flying cars and forcefield doors, there will still be problems of this kind in "information management", or whatever name you want to give to the problem that the web tries to solve.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#44

Post by stephth »

dvdhsu wrote: post #27
stephth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My work involves designing interfaces and this discussion could help me understand this topic better; but like the author of the article, your post shows some intense frustration towards rollover-only elements, but none made it very evident to me as to why it's so frustrating and why it's so "stupid". We all experience things differently, and I'd love to picture a perspective where it's so frustrating. Here's how I s…

I don't know anything about design. The solution that I propose seems obvious though; am I missing something? > Too many elements are a distraction. > What is the affordance of invisibility? There is a middle though: instead of either making it invisible OR cluttered, couldn't you just design it with a small clue, such as an arrow, which would open a drop-down menu when rolled over (on a computer) or tapped on (on a…

couldn't you just design it with a small clue, such as an arrow, which would open a drop-down menu when rolled over (on a computer) or tapped on (on a touch device)?

I really, really like this idea as a solution to fix possible hidden rollovers usability issues. Like the best ideas it sounds obvious once you hear it. If it is well executed (I would imagine something clean and simple yet recognizable like a point within a circle) and when/where it does work, then - like you said - it's a solution that works for both touch and rollover, and that's exciting too.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#45

Post by droithomme »

stephth wrote: post #38
droithomme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of the term affordance, as inferred from your usage of it, is not the standard use. You use it as if it means the reason for something. Affordance is a clue something gives regarding its use. Doors with handles are pulled, with plates are pushed. Just seeing the interface component intrinsically describes its use. This is not possible for invisible components, therefore they have no affordance at a…

Affordance is a clue something gives regarding its use. I misinterpreted your "What is the affordance of invisibility?" question as in "what are the benefits of invisibility?". Thanks for clarifying. I didn't know (and couldn't find) that specific definition of affordance. Is it a technical term? Just seeing the interface component intrinsically describes its use. This is not possible for invisible components, theref…

Affordance is a used extensively in the usability field and is a fundamental part of the vocabulary. Don Norman, Jakob Nielsen and Alan Cooper all use it quite a bit in their writings, so anyone who has background studying the literature of the field will be familiar with it. Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession. It would be difficult to be in the usability field for long without having read works by one or more of the three practitioners mentioned, or having met them at conferences, or run into discussions with others about their work. The term is also used by many other designers as well, I just mention those three since they are pretty big names and I happen to see books by Norman and Cooper on the shelf directly above my monitor.

Yes, usability testing confirms this, which is why you do it. Put key functions in hidden controls and then ask people to perform tasks that require discovering the controls. Most won't find them. In another comment here I mention my experiences with usability testing and finding that the much more well known paradigm of context menus is used or thought of by extremely few users. Advanced users will use it a lot, especially after the first time they look for context menus and find they are there and robustly designed in a given app, but non-advanced users, which is the vast majority, will never look there. In working with customers, some find the existence of features in context menus only after many years of work with a given program. One absolutely can not depend on users to assume that needed functions can be found in invisible items.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#46

Post by droithomme »

kjhughes wrote: post #19

On the one hand, it's better to reduce clutter for the less common case of editing rather than reading. On the other hand, it's better to indicate availability of functionality without requiring hovering. What do you think of a modal solution whereby individual editing interface elements are shown collectively only when the user indicates editing intent through a single, master control?

Personally, I like those. I assume you are talking of the interface on some sites with let's say a user profile and there is a visible [EDIT] button in the upper right. Click on it, and all the nice formatted readable content is replaced with editable text elements that can be tabbed through, and these might have formatting bars in them or section delete buttons. Different from the discussed scenarios where basic functions are hidden and one must move the mouse around to different places to see if they may or may not exist, which is bad and smacks of video game treasure finding design, which is fine for video games and absolutely not fine for other applications. With the proposed [EDIT] design it is quite clear what is going on by examining the page visually. A related issue would be that the same profile viewed by other than the owner of the profile would show no [EDIT] button at all, nor would such button appear to them under any circumstances. No features hidden because for non-owners, there is nothing to edit.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#47

Post by stephth »

droithomme wrote: post #45
stephth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordance is a clue something gives regarding its use. I misinterpreted your "What is the affordance of invisibility?" question as in "what are the benefits of invisibility?". Thanks for clarifying. I didn't know (and couldn't find) that specific definition of affordance. Is it a technical term? Just seeing the interface component intrinsically describes its use. This is not possible for invisible components, theref…

Affordance is a used extensively in the usability field and is a fundamental part of the vocabulary. Don Norman, Jakob Nielsen and Alan Cooper all use it quite a bit in their writings, so anyone who has background studying the literature of the field will be familiar with it. Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession. It would be difficult to be in…

Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession.

I appreciate that it isn't too much of a shibboleth for you and that you could stick around, I'd be interested in knowing a little more about the literature you mentioned. Do they propose specific techniques to usability testing? Which one do you use? In my case it's watching friends/family/expo attendants interact with the app but I don't have much of a formulated technique, it's casual, but I'd be interested in knowing more (and in the process I may be convinced that I should actually read that literature).

One absolutely can not depend on users to assume that needed functions can be found in invisible items.

I don't think it's that simple. It depends on the context and on the target. On a professional tool targeted to software developers like github, and being a consistent pattern, then yes, I think you can depend on that. If on the other hand you use that pattern in a context where it's not frequently seen, and/or it's not a consistent pattern in your app, you probably shouldn't depend on it, no.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#48

Post by Someone »

stephth wrote: post #38
droithomme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of the term affordance, as inferred from your usage of it, is not the standard use. You use it as if it means the reason for something. Affordance is a clue something gives regarding its use. Doors with handles are pulled, with plates are pushed. Just seeing the interface component intrinsically describes its use. This is not possible for invisible components, therefore they have no affordance at a…

Affordance is a clue something gives regarding its use. I misinterpreted your "What is the affordance of invisibility?" question as in "what are the benefits of invisibility?". Thanks for clarifying. I didn't know (and couldn't find) that specific definition of affordance. Is it a technical term? Just seeing the interface component intrinsically describes its use. This is not possible for invisible components, theref…

'Affordance' is a term due to Gibson. I cannot describe it better than " rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance>.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#49

Post by sbov »

stephth wrote: post #47
droithomme wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordance is a used extensively in the usability field and is a fundamental part of the vocabulary. Don Norman, Jakob Nielsen and Alan Cooper all use it quite a bit in their writings, so anyone who has background studying the literature of the field will be familiar with it. Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession. It would be difficult to be in…

Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession. I appreciate that it isn't too much of a shibboleth for you and that you could stick around, I'd be interested in knowing a little more about the literature you mentioned. Do they propose specific techniques to usability testing? Which one do you use? In my case it's watching friends/family/expo attendants…

But it's not consistent on github. I wanted to change a project description and expected to find it in admin - that's where everything else is for changing a project. I actually gave up until I read this post.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#50

Post by ZenPsycho »

stephth wrote: post #47
droithomme wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordance is a used extensively in the usability field and is a fundamental part of the vocabulary. Don Norman, Jakob Nielsen and Alan Cooper all use it quite a bit in their writings, so anyone who has background studying the literature of the field will be familiar with it. Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession. It would be difficult to be in…

Not knowing it is something of a shibboleth that suggests one isn't familiar with the basics of the profession. I appreciate that it isn't too much of a shibboleth for you and that you could stick around, I'd be interested in knowing a little more about the literature you mentioned. Do they propose specific techniques to usability testing? Which one do you use? In my case it's watching friends/family/expo attendants…

All this and more is available at your local library.
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