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Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

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Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#491

Post by int_19h »

SebastianKra wrote: post #289
eschaton wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were wrong to even attempt to share design language across platforms. You should make your applications good native citizens if you have any respect for your users, because yours isn’t the only software they use.

On desktop that ship has sailed. Maybe 2 of my regularly used apps have a native design. UIs have converged enough that the experience is acceptable I guess. And as a devolper, why in the world would I want to write my app for a locked-in ecosystem with a now shitty design-system.

It hasn't fully done so on the desktop when you consider macOS. E.g. if you ship a macOS app which has the main menu bar inside the window (or missing entirely) instead of using the system menu bar, it will look very jarring and users will rightly complain.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#492

Post by int_19h »

bigyabai wrote: post #397
sph wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be a Gen Z meme because it was traumatic for those that lived it. It reminds me of Windows Vista and, my god, the first few years of KDE 4 - it has taken me until last year to try KDE again (and finally it has shed it’s silly hard contrast black transparency phase) Gen Z like it because of nostalgia, not because of quality or because it actually looks any good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plasma_Workspace…

I have to agree. Windows Aero is a visual mess, especially on Vista, and many of the comparable UXes of the time were not much better. Apple's Aqua UI was the best of the bunch, and it still looked like a child's toy. It was especially confusing at the time because Windows XP was so straightforward and correct. Flat, contrast-heavy UI elements that overlap without interacting when they aren't supposed to. Drop shadow…

Aero was kind of a mess in Vista, but improved substantially in 7 (and a lot of that was due to more frosted glass look / less transparency). I would still rate 7 as the best balance of usability and eye candy that Windows has ever had, and I've used all of them heavily starting with Win 3.1.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#493

Post by int_19h »

disqard wrote: post #362
brailsafe wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The team who designed it should be fired and replaced with people who priorities a professional appearance and usability. Eh, I disagree about who should be fired. The designers and implementers are not (necessarily) the ones who decided it was their job. As far as I know, and probably depending on department, Apple internally works in annual cycles and sort of decides what the mission is up front. Any designer or…

I work at a FAANG (but not Apple) -- your characterization is accurate, and I think it's important to not "shoot the messenger" here. The team of UX+SWEs probably made valiant efforts to reify some "vision" from a higher-up who cannot be contradicted.

It reminds me of Visual Studio 2012, back when some higher ups decided that the way to "align" with Windows 8 and its Metro design language was to switch the main menu to use ALL CAPS.

The dev team immediately hated it, but despite the internal feedback, it was pushed into the public beta, where it turned out that users hated it also. The higher ups behind that decision first tried to push back by writing some aggressive blog posts about how everyone is "holding it wrong", citing internal UX studies on how it actually improved everything etc. That got even more angry comments.

And then it turned out that the devs have quietly snuck in a hidden setting - a registry key - that reverted the change. This was leaked to the public, and spread like wildfire.

In VS 2013, they officially made that an option. In VS 2015 (IIRC), they changed the default to match the original behavior.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#494

Post by int_19h »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #316
ebbi wrote: post #274

I like Liquid Glass on the whole (I will state upfront I have no accessibility issues so I know I'm speaking from my little corner). Putting aside the fact that, yes, there are a few issues with the way Liquid Glass is implemented currently (nothing that can't be iterated on over the next few releases), I will say that some of the critics use really silly examples to prove their point. The messages screenshot would h…

I agree. I think that the criticisms on legibility are extremely biased. In my experience, the real issues with Liquid Glass are in terms of decreased usable space, less discoverability of actions that were previously top-level, and most importantly (and rather objectively), battery life. I started off thinking that the design was ugly (the reflections made it look kinda plastic) but came to like the fluidity after a…

How is criticizing legibility of text-on-text "extremely biased"? This is basic UX.

I still remember Win7 Aero fondly and I really wanted to like Liquid Glass. I had to turn it off as soon as I saw what happened to the notification drawer.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#495

Post by int_19h »

marcosdumay wrote: post #242
array_key_first wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the time the UI is objectively worse. Less functionality, more clicks/swipes to do the same actions, less legibility, etc. It's just that people get used to bad software.

> It's just that people get used to bad software. Or that it improves silently between several versions. Or that it just keeps getting worse, and people are justified every time. I don't know a lot about Apple. Android seems to be partially at each of those camps.

It rarely improves above and beyond the level from which it had plummeted, though. More often you get tweaks to reduce the major annoyances to tolerable level. Which users then tolerate because, well, what other choice do they have when literally everyone is doing it?

What's really bad about this is that we (as in the software industry) have managed to teach people to hate updates, and a significant part of that is all the gratuitous changes to established UI flows. Many casual users dread updates now because they just want their shit to keep working like it always did. And this is how you end up with unpatched security issues.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#496

Post by int_19h »

travisgriggs wrote: post #186

As I read through the complaints, I'll note that two of my (younger) colleagues love it (mostly). I haven't updated yet, but when I made some observations about what I was seeing, it was defended as "making all the products the same". It made me wonder if the whining is less about the particulars of liquid glass (I mean, remember the aquagel days of early mac os x), and more of lamenting the unification of design. I…

If you want an example of well-designed UX that is conceptually about "making everything the same", that would be Metro (of Windows Phone fame).

Liquid Glass is genuinely objectively atrocious on multiple metrics like text readability.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#497

Post by int_19h »

schrodinger wrote: post #246

Poor article. Chose worst-case images to make Messages look as bad as possible. Same with the stacked, floating UI items. And the "search bar" change causing us to re-learn habits? NOT TRUE. The old way works too; but now there's a discoverable alternative.

You literally just need to pull the notification drawer down to see how horrible Liquid Glass is. You know, one of the most common gestures on any smartphone today.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#498

Post by int_19h »

lawgimenez wrote: post #412
kh_hk wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so OP is holding it wrong?

Fo sure, no sane person has a grass as their chat background or any background. That seems silly.

I've been using a grass wallpaper and lock screen on all my devices for something like 15 years now. It works great if you don't go out of your way to break it and then blame the user.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#499

Post by int_19h »

pupppet wrote: post #62

You can almost hear the meeting that spawned this. "We want the interface to get out of the user's way!" macOS 26 is even worse. Suddenly not feeling so smug when I see the Windows complaints.

The only sane desktop UX is on Linux/BSD these days.

The problem, of course, is 1) apps and 2) things like hardware support and battery life.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#500

Post by int_19h »

MarkBagh wrote: post #441

After reading NN/g's iOS 26 critique, I'm sitting here staring at my trading app's deliberately boring UI and feeling... vindicated? ImBuilding a desktop app where users monitor live trades. Originally planned glassmorphic overlays because they look incredible in mockups. Scrapped it after showing a trader friend. His reaction: "Dude, I need to read a stop-loss alert through this? While watching a $5k position move a…

Thank you for taking UX seriously and listening to your users.

FWIW, these days, I would gladly pay extra for that.

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