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Confusing UI in iOS7

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Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#61

Post by Osmium »

andyhmltn wrote: post #2

Nice post. The one that REALLY annoys me is reminders. If I want to add a reminder, I would assume subconsciously I have to press the add symbol. But that adds a new list. To add a new item you have to tap an empty white box with no visual cue . Brilliant.

Yep. Discovered this one today. Completely ridiculous.

If anyone wants evidence that iOS 7 was rushed, all they need to do is see things like that (and the parent post). All this is fixable though, rather than something endemic in the design of iOS 7, so I'm hopeful it'll get fixed soon enough.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#62

Post by lcnmrn »

debaserab2 wrote: post #60

With all of these iOS7 bashing articles I've read, I really expected to be perturbed by the upgrade. So far I've found very little to complain about. To me, the call to actions are now clearer than they've ever been because so much of the interface is simplified. I simply don't have these problems of being thrown off by an "incorrectly" used color. There's just not a lot of detail to mentally parse when looking at th…

Little to no problems. There are a couple of miss alignments here and there, but overall they did a great job on iOS 7 from an UX point of view. There's even a countdown timer on the lock screen when snoozing an alarm. There's more important information shown to the user thanks to this over simplified interface.

"Content first" was one of the main topics in the UX crowd lately, and frankly, iOS 7 is a good example of this concept.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#63

Post by jamra »

melange wrote: post #38
gfodor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the major points of iOS7 is that grandma is getting kicked to the curb. iOS devices are designed for people who already know how to use them, or for young people, who will figure them out.

Except this doesn't seem to be borne out in reality. I have installed it for people in their 60's, 70's and 80s who find a Mac barely usable, who have had no trouble at all with moving to iOS7 after using iOS6.

Any change can be construed as kicking a percentage of users to the curb. I just don't think it's reasonable to hold back design for them. If they learn, great. If not, maybe it's a sign that you should be spending more time teaching your grandma.

PS. Your grandma says you never call. She knows you're busy but still, a phone call once a week never killed anyone.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#64

Post by liquidise »

LarryMade2 wrote: post #19

Apple lost intuitive when it went to OSX. Things were just there, and worked, menus had understandable names dialogs were terse and to the point. Sometimes it was messy but you never felt lost.

Just to be clear: you are seriously suggesting the intuitive usability of went down in OS X? As opposed to the label-less icon buttons in the control strip that you had to click/drag to get it to show and hide?

The release of OS X, and the subsequent program rewrites to support it, put apple back on the tech map. I find it hard to believe this doubled as their usability death sentence.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#65

Post by rescripting »

Pxtl wrote: post #12

I'm actually surprised that there's so little visual consistency there... this stuff usually would be handled by reusable widgets - which, of course, gives you consistency for free. Still, people bag on Apple's design problems because Apple's stuff often feels almost perfect. I tried out a BB Q10 the other day and I couldn't even figure out how the heck you get to the home screen. I got stuck in the voice-search app…

To speak to your point about the Q10, the lack of affordances for moving between apps was a deliberate design choice. It creates a small learning curve when you first get the device, which is supposed to be ramped up through a short tutorial after unboxing (I'll admit the effectiveness of this is problematic and there needs to be more effort spent here). The gesture for moving between apps is consistent everywhere so user interface and hardware design can be drastically simplified. It allows for a focus on content and not 'administrative' UI or hardware buttons, and speeds things up drastically.

I think that kind of UX contributes to the divisive nature of BlackBerries; people either love them or hate them. The ones who love them are all well past the initial speed bump of learning the gestures and the ones who hate them pick it up in the store, get in to an app, get stuck and throw it down in frustration; the same people who stumble on to Vim would (and no doubt do every day).

The difference between iOS7 and BB10 is that the lack of consistency and affordances in iOS7 seems to result from inconsistent design choices, while in the Q10 it's a deliberate design choice designed to speed users up.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#66

Post by hippee-lee »

vvhn wrote: post #55

The next Apple statement placating congress about jobs created can probably also include " With iOS 7, we have also created the largest number of design critics, UI designers and UX experts in history - Everybody is now an expert and we believe the world will be a better place for it. "

Hopefully those said experts will also out their money where their mouths are and get busy making a competitive alternative that addresses the issues identified.

As bad as the critics make it out I wonder if they have seen it used in the wild by someone non-technical. My mother in law asked me about upgrading her iPad on Sunday. She did so and I expected a bunch of confusion and questions re: photo's and email; the two apps she uses most (besides mindless games that aren't affected by any OS changes whatsoever).

Her comment last nigh? "It's really different I really like how they organized my photos for me."

So that's an n of one. But it's closer to observing it in the wild vs. a small circle of tech savvy perfectionists.

If the critics want me to take them seriously they should not focus on themselves so much but the average person and their experience immediately after upgrading, a day later, a week later and a month later. Otherwise, IMO it's just a whiney tech pundit fishing with link bait.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#68

Post by jmcatani »

Pxtl wrote: post #12

I'm actually surprised that there's so little visual consistency there... this stuff usually would be handled by reusable widgets - which, of course, gives you consistency for free. Still, people bag on Apple's design problems because Apple's stuff often feels almost perfect. I tried out a BB Q10 the other day and I couldn't even figure out how the heck you get to the home screen. I got stuck in the voice-search app…

In my UX design classes, we would use the phrase "You can't polish a turd" to describe this situation.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#69

Post by arrrg »

masklinn wrote: post #14

> I have no idea why the calendar is in German although the rest is in English I had the same issue (with a different language). I really hope it's a bug because it makes no sense. Here goes: In General > International, you can set "language" to english. So far so good. Then you can set "region format" for things like date and time formatting to use a sensible local format instead of e.g. the crazy US date format. Bu…

Not a bug, working as intended.

German region format obviously also emtails German day and month names. That's really quite obvious.

Re: Confusing UI in iOS7

#70

Post by nobodysfool »

Pxtl wrote: post #12

I'm actually surprised that there's so little visual consistency there... this stuff usually would be handled by reusable widgets - which, of course, gives you consistency for free. Still, people bag on Apple's design problems because Apple's stuff often feels almost perfect. I tried out a BB Q10 the other day and I couldn't even figure out how the heck you get to the home screen. I got stuck in the voice-search app…

My wife just got an iPhone 5C a few days ago, for all the hype that they are so easy to use, she had a hard time figuring things out. For example, how do you download a photo on facebook or other social networks? It's different for every app. On Android, you open the photo, then press the 'menu' button, and 'save photo'. It's the same in all apps. Apple seems to be missing on the developer documentation concerning common UI patterns. In one app, you have to press a small icon which looks like a box with an arrow pointing right (as if that's supposed to symbolize something like downloading?) and in another app, you have to hold down your finger on the photo for a second, and then use the menu to download. There's no consistency at all on this device. She chose 'Russian' as her language, and half the built-in apps are still in English.
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