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If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

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Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#41

Post by tekla »

ignoramous wrote: post #23
jcgrillo wrote: post #16

This was actually not the conclusion I was expecting: > Don't bother improving your product unless it results in visible changes the user can see, find, and hopefully appreciate. I couldn't disagree more strongly. I can't think of the last time I encountered a UX change I thought was actually worth it. They're always bothersome, because now I notice the tool --it's no longer an extension of my mind and body, instead…

> I can't think of the last time I encountered a UX change I thought was actually worth it I mean, I am terribly glad we're done with Windows 95 and Android 4 style UX; aren't you?

What what, Android 4 Holo was the pinnacle of Android design, it was beautiful. Material design is so much worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_KitKat

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#42

Post by jcgrillo »

nadagast wrote: post #40
jcgrillo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I think mostly nothing has substantially changed. Windows 95 isn't substantially different from Mac OSX 14 or Gnome or whatever. They're all the same clunky pointy clicky distracting paradigm where you have to memorize a bunch of visual rituals. The problem is that they change not which changes are "better" or "worse". By contrast, emacs has improved dramatically from v26, to v27, 28, and now 29. It's go…

I use and love emacs, but pointing to it as an example of how to evolve UX over time is indicative of your perspective. iOS/Windows/Android are used by the majority of people on the planet, emacs is not. Which UX do you think young people today and in the future will most understand? iOS/Android or emacs? Why is that?

It depends what these people are using a computer for. If they're writing software, then a shell, a text editor, and a language toolchain are what they'll be using. Bash/zsh/fish, emacs/vi(m)/whatever, gcc/llvm/cargo/babel/etc. These are all tools with UX. But these tools--the ones programmers use--don't change willy-nilly. Doing so would hurt us, so we don't do it. Why do we treat "non-technical" users differently?

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#43

Post by hackable_sand »

zootboy wrote: post #15
binarymax wrote: post #11

There’s a flip side to this. If you change the UI for no reason, people get upset. For example, the latest iOS update flipped the speaker and mute buttons during a call. Why? No improvement was made, it’s just frustrating.

I'd go a step further: if you change the UI for no functional reason, you are a bad person who is causing needless consternation, confusion, and productivity loss. Even if you believe you have a functional reason, you had better think really long and hard about whether the supposed improvement you want is worth the pain of every single user needing to adapt to that change.

Disagree. It's a lot more involved than that.

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#44

Post by jpc0 »

nadagast wrote: post #40
jcgrillo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I think mostly nothing has substantially changed. Windows 95 isn't substantially different from Mac OSX 14 or Gnome or whatever. They're all the same clunky pointy clicky distracting paradigm where you have to memorize a bunch of visual rituals. The problem is that they change not which changes are "better" or "worse". By contrast, emacs has improved dramatically from v26, to v27, 28, and now 29. It's go…

I use and love emacs, but pointing to it as an example of how to evolve UX over time is indicative of your perspective. iOS/Windows/Android are used by the majority of people on the planet, emacs is not. Which UX do you think young people today and in the future will most understand? iOS/Android or emacs? Why is that?

Familiarity

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#45

Post by jcgrillo »

mk_stjames wrote: post #26
jcgrillo wrote: post #16

This was actually not the conclusion I was expecting: > Don't bother improving your product unless it results in visible changes the user can see, find, and hopefully appreciate. I couldn't disagree more strongly. I can't think of the last time I encountered a UX change I thought was actually worth it. They're always bothersome, because now I notice the tool --it's no longer an extension of my mind and body, instead…

I just wanted to say I agree and I was thinking this would be the conclusion as well. I cannot count how many times a major versioning of a large piece of software that was tied in with a UI redesign signaled a massive overturning in positive usability and focus of the authoring company but.... it's been almost every time. The greatest 'power user' focused engineering programs I formed my career around all had someth…

I agree the "more technical" UIs (generally--except for egregious examples like CATIA V6) suffer less from sort of arbitrary breakage.

> the MBA's and 'Designers' doing the rocking are under the impression they are smarter than the people who built the boat in the first place.

Exactly. It's a function of power and incentives. In the organizations we build there are people who have the power to hurt users, and the incentive to exercise that power in a visible way. They aren't intending to hurt users, that's just a by-product. Instead, they're trying to "delight" users, as if the user is some kind of infantile homunculus instead of a thinking person doing important work.

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#46

Post by mech422 »

ignoramous wrote: post #22
binarymax wrote: post #11

There’s a flip side to this. If you change the UI for no reason, people get upset. For example, the latest iOS update flipped the speaker and mute buttons during a call. Why? No improvement was made, it’s just frustrating.

> If you change the UI for no reason... This appears to be not true for the OS (but only for Apps / websites). I'd say, for personal devices, folks expect a shiny new UI every OS update. For ex: iOS and Android are always in contention for who changes UI the most, from one version to another. Besides, styling changes and form changes are not the same.

Personally, I'd prefer not to get a shiny new UI every update... I do the same things with my phone I always did, I don't want to relearn the UI/Workflow just to get back to where I started.

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#47

Post by awelxtr »

eterm wrote: post #7
politelemon wrote: post #3

Notepad has had some surprising improvements. I've not used it in so long that when I did open it and saw it had tabs, and recover unsaved documents, and dark mode, I wasn't sure it was notepad.

I remember when Ctrl+S in notepad didn't save, that one took a surprisingly long time to arrive.

In Spanish doesn't, and it never did.

However I remember hitting Ctrl+G to save often

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#48

Post by jcgrillo »

thih9 wrote: post #36
jcgrillo wrote: post #16

This was actually not the conclusion I was expecting: > Don't bother improving your product unless it results in visible changes the user can see, find, and hopefully appreciate. I couldn't disagree more strongly. I can't think of the last time I encountered a UX change I thought was actually worth it. They're always bothersome, because now I notice the tool --it's no longer an extension of my mind and body, instead…

What if it improves your experience with the tool? For example, the page that annoyed you because it would load 3 seconds now loads instantly? This could be even not because of some flawed initial design, but due to unrelated technology advancements that are available just now.

Performance improvements that don't force me to adapt my workflow are great! Making a page load faster is always a good thing. They're also not super visible. I think there's a theory of this from game design where something like 100ms is just as annoying as 500ms, but get it below ~30ms and you're golden. I've forgotten what it's called.

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#49

Post by nadagast »

jcgrillo wrote: post #42
nadagast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use and love emacs, but pointing to it as an example of how to evolve UX over time is indicative of your perspective. iOS/Windows/Android are used by the majority of people on the planet, emacs is not. Which UX do you think young people today and in the future will most understand? iOS/Android or emacs? Why is that?

It depends what these people are using a computer for. If they're writing software, then a shell, a text editor, and a language toolchain are what they'll be using. Bash/zsh/fish, emacs/vi(m)/whatever, gcc/llvm/cargo/babel/etc. These are all tools with UX. But these tools--the ones programmers use--don't change willy-nilly. Doing so would hurt us , so we don't do it. Why do we treat "non-technical" users differently?

I think there have been and will continue to be UX improvements to programmer tools. GitHub is one example.

You think tools that stagnate will continue to see the same levels of adoption in new generations of programmers? It's an empirical question, I guess I just don't see it, and I say that as someone who loves vim & emacs.

Re: If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices (2009)

#50

Post by nadagast »

jpc0 wrote: post #44
nadagast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use and love emacs, but pointing to it as an example of how to evolve UX over time is indicative of your perspective. iOS/Windows/Android are used by the majority of people on the planet, emacs is not. Which UX do you think young people today and in the future will most understand? iOS/Android or emacs? Why is that?

Familiarity

You think the only reason vim & emacs aren't used as much as iOS/Android/Windows (or equivalent defaults on those platforms) is familiarity?
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