481–490 of 641 posts
Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…
Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…
It always amazes me how even just regular every day users will come to me with something like this: Overly simplified example: "Can you make this button do X?" where the existing button in so many ways is only distantly connected to X. And then they get stuck on the idea that THAT button has to be where the thing happens, and they stick with it even if you explain that the usual function of that button is Y. I simpli…
Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…
Not only is it hard to figure out the use-case, but the correct use-case will change over time. If this were made in the iPod touch era, it would probably make 240p files for maximum compatibility. That's ... probably the wrong setting for today.
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Don't fall into the trap of responding to the user's request to do Y a certain way. They are asking you to implement Y, and they think they know how it should be implemented, but really they would be happy with Y no matter how you did it. https://xyproblem.info/
On the other hand, I've not uncommonly seen this idea misused: Alice asks for Y, Bob says that it's an XY problem and that Alice really wants to solve a more general problem X with solution Z, Alice says that Z doesn't work for her due to some detail of her problem, Bob browbeats Alice over "If you think Z won't work, then you're wrong, end of story", and everyone argues back and forth over Z instead of coming up wit…
I generally try to answer the Y but also indicate that it suggests there may be an X that could be better achieved some other way, and mention Z if I'm reasonably confident in what X is. It might increase the chance that the person asking just does Y anyway even if Z would be better, but frankly that's not really my business.
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the "modal disruption" is misguided - he cites as the challenge a very poor implementation in a MS app where the modes were barely visible!!! That's not a proof that modes are bad, just a statement that invisible information makes it hard for the users to adapt! Brushes (another mode he cites as great) are great precisly because their state is immediately visible in your focus area - your primary pointer changes Now…
> wasted some space that could be used for information The space is used for information. The fact clips in Audacity finally have names and you can see those names is a fantastic improvement. The space taken up by the clip title is the handle.
"Audio 1 #1" "Audio 1 #1" "Audio 1 #1"
"Audio 1 #1" "Audio 1 #1"
names replacing the audio wave height!
But sure, if you need names permanently right there and are ok to lose space to show them, and if the handle is inconveniently small to only fit the text, then yes, you wouldn't lose space in that case. You'd only have other issues.
But that coupling likely has other design implications, e.g., you're unlikely to get an option to only show names on hover instead of having a bar, or to show names as an overlay (in many cases the names aren't that long to need to take the height of the the whole segment)
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> creating good interfaces (for people that aren’t developers.) This is the part where people get excited about AI. I personally think they're dead wrong on the process, but strongly empathize with that end goal. Giving people the power to make the interfaces they need is the most enduring solution to this issue. We had attempts like HyperCard or Delphi, or Access forms. We still get Excel forms, Google forms etc. Ha…
I have nightmare stories to tell of Access Forms from my time dealing with them in the 90's. The usual situation is that the business department hires someone with a modicum of talent or interest in tech, who then uses Access to build an application that automates or helps with some aspect of the department's work. They then leave (in a couple of cases these people were just interns) and the IT department is then cal…
Love the assumption "when it inevitably goes wrong." In real life, many of these applications work perfectly for years and assist employees tremendously. The program doesnt fail, but the business changes - new products, locations, marketing, payment types, inventory systems, tons of potential things.
And yes, after the original author is gone, nobody is left to update the program. Of course, a lot of programmers or IT folks probably could update it, but ew, why learn and write Access when we can create a new React app with microservices-based backend including Postgres in the cloud and spin up a Kubernetes cluster to run it.
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See, I feel this is where programmers just don't "get" good UI design. Photoshop is good UI design. A normie can use photoshop the same way they use MS paint. Albeit it just loads slower. A normie doesn't need all the bells and whistles. They can just use photoshop like a glorified MS paint. You can't do that with GIMP. It's actually really fucking annoying, if you try to use GIMP to do a MS paint job.
Clearly this is not true. Photoshop is difficult to use. I have opened it and tried to use it many times. Its UI is super complicated. There are endless buttons and I have no idea how to do anything. There are heaps of Photoshop tutorials on YouTube, which wouldn't be necessary if what you said were true. I used GIMP to do MS paint stuff years ago when I used it fairly regularly. GIMP is always a whipping boy for UI…
Yeah, big button "Create project" and another, albeit smaller, button for "Run" puts a really high bar for the user to jump over.
Nothin as good as plain old cc followed by a bunch of cryptic flags.
Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…
(Commercial software is far from immune to this as well: professional tools like CAD are notoriously arcane and often have a huge number of special-purpose features, and they're not incentivised to improve their UI model because it would alienate their existing users, as well as not show up on the feature lists which are often used to drive purchasing decisions)
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It is a common misconception that the "expert" knows the best. Expert can be a trainee, or may be motivated to make more for its organisation or have yet to encounter your problem. On the other hand, if you are using your car for a decade and feel it needs a new belt - then get a new belt. Worst case scenario- you will lose some money but learn a bit more about an item you use everyday. Experts don't have your instin…
If you don't trust the expert then why are you asking them to fix your stuff? It's a weird idea that you'd want an idiot to do what you say because you know better.
I agree though it sets up a weird dynamic where folks might come back to the expert and complain a problem isn't fixed, but that's not what they asked for / they broke the typical expert and customer dynamic.