The Decline of Usability

Post by alpaca128 » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

Leherenn wrote: post #441

ordu wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anecdote: The first time this happened, I had no idea why it wasn't working and naturally started clicking on things and pressing buttons to try to get it to do the thing. I thereby discovered that you can get the password prompt by pressing Enter. One more anecdote. I found this screen for the first time when I got my laptop to demonstrate something to a student. I didn't know what to do, started to do random thin…

Windows 10 has the same mechanism, she might have learnt it from there first and just applied it here.

Post by ulisesrmzroche » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #106

ardy42 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rapid iteration was a potential source of improvements (never going wrong since you can always adjust next week vs potential big fail every N years) and that it would yield better understanding of users by throwing every possible solutions at them. > It will have to pop and rebalance itself because it leads to fatigue and false sense of progress. Totally agree, it's ended up turning into a stream of pointless side-…

It's doubly odd because as many (I suppose) I firmly believed that faster pace and smaller changes would lead to global improvements (same goes for ajax web..). I think we just blew some social limit. People prefer stability, stability allows for more complex but riskier constructions, society enjoys the working ones even better. I like the notion of seasonality these days.

Post by bbx » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

lvillani wrote: post #487

jiehong wrote: post #479

On desktops, I wish we could just stop wondering “where is that icon?” or “what does this icon do?” entirely. We should be able to search for any feature within an application in a standardised way instead. Maybe something like what Ctrl-P does in Sublime Text / Sublime Merge. If this shortcut would work for any application within the same OS, we could get rid of most icons by default, while adding more consistency a…

On macOS you can search menu items via Shift–Command–QuestionMark (or by opening the Help menu). Most toolbar actions are also exposed as menu items, so this lets you essentially search for almost every function of every application that plugs into standard macOS frameworks. Some applications have features that extend beyond what can be surfaced through the standard menu bar but the infrastructure is there for "norma…

Post by enobrev » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #10

Ubuntu got worse at 18.04. Logging in on desktop now requires "swiping up" with the mouse to get the password box. The "swiping" thing is to avoid problems with unwanted activation when the device is in your pocket. It's totally inappropriate to desktops. Then there's icon mania. I've recently converted from Blender 2.79 to Blender 2.82. Lots of new icons. They dim, they change color, they disappear as modes change,…

Post by andrepd » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 9:38 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #10

Ubuntu got worse at 18.04. Logging in on desktop now requires "swiping up" with the mouse to get the password box. The "swiping" thing is to avoid problems with unwanted activation when the device is in your pocket. It's totally inappropriate to desktops. Then there's icon mania. I've recently converted from Blender 2.79 to Blender 2.82. Lots of new icons. They dim, they change color, they disappear as modes change,…