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How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

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Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#71

Post by Ao7bei3s »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #61

My pet peeve: when I try to click a button and just before I touch the screen it changes, so I hit completely another button (on Androod - but it is the same everywhere). So instead of cancelling a call I place another one, to a different person. No I didn't intend to call my mother in law! The solution is so simple it hurts: if a clickable area has been shown less than X ms before the touch / click, ignore the event…

Can you give a more concrete example? I'm on Android, and I've never experienced that.

Your suggestion would only work for very undeterministic parts of the UI, though.

Good UIs are predictable, and sophisticated users "know" where to click and don't need to read buttons, so they're very fast. Enforcing some delay will make the system seem "laggy".

So now you have to make a distinction between "predictable parts of the UI" and "unpredictable parts of the UI" and everything's not all that simple anymore.

A better solution is to not to pop up random things at random times in random places.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#72

Post by k_vi »

The aritcle is just vaguely describing user experience from a "first time user" point of view, which is clearly wrong, like someone is going to throw away his idevice after his first use. As a counter-point this might be true for websites or even some kind of apps, but not really for a device that is going to be your everyday thing.

I've been a regular user of windows and linux and while back, until I switched to a Mac a while back. It took some time tinkering and reading to get used to it, but once I got the hang it has become really productive - some gestures like three finger drag, switch panes, two finger tap to double click are some time savers.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#73

Post by drumdance »

frik wrote: post #60
drumdance wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember being confused by the drag-to-trash metaphor too, except in my case we were still using floppy disks and I thought "are you sure this won't erase my term paper?"

Floppy drives had a mechanical eject push-button and there was no unix-style "mount" afaik.

To my knowledge the Mac has never had an (easily usable) eject button. I remember it being really annoying because a couple times I had to get the disk out and the computer wasn't working, so I had to push one end of a paper clip into a tiny hole next to the drive.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#74

Post by tmd83 »

My foremost example of apple's form over function is actually the 'Form' of the hardware. Every apple product that I have touched the phones, pads and macbooks are a slippery nightmare. They are often thin enough to be impossible to grip and trying to get even thinner for no reason. They have clean slippery lines everywhere, edges sharp enough that I think it will give you deep cut if it falls in the proper angle again for no reason. The only saving grace I found with iphones is that for the thinner width the grip isn't as bad it would be otherwise.

I remember my fear of dropping my office macbook every time I had to move it the first few weeks and while I got rid of the fear mostly the device didn't get any safer to use.

The biggest crime of apple probably (if I'm attributing this right) is it has pushed the idea so much and corrupted the whole market and other companies that everyone now tries to be a 1mm thinner as if that makes it look any nicer and just makes it hotter or slower or lowers battery. I think the surface book (I have only seen pictures) might have better grip on the hinge side but even its edges look sharp if not as bad as the apple product.

Now if you talk about weight than at least has the benefit of usability when it gives you 3lb full power laptop. But even for a phone does it matter if its 135g vs. 145g?

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#75

Post by musesum »

Using iOS means learning how to finger dance. Press-Press-Tap-Pause-Swipe-Pull-and-Slide!

For a laugh, I walked into a UX lab at this year's WWDC. I started to talk about my app in terms of GOMS - specifically Fitts law. There were two Apple UX engineers. He didn't know what the hell I was referring to. She did - and really enjoyed exploring the tradeoffs from a user-centered-design perspective. We discussed personas. Gesture cost. And the tradeoff of breaking an idiom. I hope she gets promoted.

I was introduced to GOMs by Jef Raskin. He also left when Jobs came back. I wonder if there is a tradeoff between product and UX. Parc had rigorous design during its downturn. Apple had great designers during its downturn. Maybe part of the magic is hiding the rabbit under the hat.

And then there's Apple Music [shaking head] geez.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#76

Post by Bud »

tatx wrote: post #37
koyote wrote: post #27

Am I the only one who has always thought of the Apple UI to have always been form over function/usability by a long shot? I remember the first time I used an iMac: I spent about half an hour trying to figure out how to eject a CD. A context menu might not look very elegant but it's insanely useful and powerful and very easy to get the hang of. In the end I had to be told/taught that the way to eject the CD on a mac w…

That Apple was ever good at design was probably the relative side effect of other software and hardware developers being abysmally bad at it (probably due to monopolistic inefficiencies). And now that the competition is heating up and challenging Apple on the design front, the flaws that earlier would have been swept under the carpet by ardent fans, including me, are becoming difficult to disregard.

Uh, no. It's because they valued design highly, made it an indispensable part of their company, hired great designers, and gave designers like Jony Ive extraordinary power to shape products.

BTW, what flaws, precisely, have now magically become "difficult to disregard", but were entirely invisible before? Just a couple examples will do.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#77

Post by Bud »

radicalbyte wrote: post #69
jonhohle wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why iTunes is the way that it is, except that was already available on Windows, so it seemed like a good vector for devices. It really is a jumbled bag now though, and seems to go through significant UI changes every release for no good reason (hearts? stars? iTunes has them both!) OS X used to have a separate syncing application, iSync, for PDAs that was simple and generally worked. I was dusap…

The lack of stress relief which means that the cables break very quickly. It's a well known design defect in Apple products. I'm very careful with my technology but I'm already on me 2nd MBP power supply and my wife is on her 3rd USB cable for her iPad. This all in 18 months.

Uh, there is strain relief. On every cable. You're probably doing what everyone does, which is to wind that cable on the power supply as tightly as you can around the charger, which is going to eventually break the cable. Instead, make a small loop where the cable begins, then wrap gently. It will last essentially forever.

And no. This isn't a "well known design defect". In fact, Apple's cables are inevitably designed and manufactured better than competitors'. Have you even seen the awful mess that passes for PC power supplies lately? At all? Well, I have, since I administer about 200 Macs and around 75 PCs. I can tell you that there is no comparison in design or quality.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#78

Post by OopsCriticality »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #61

My pet peeve: when I try to click a button and just before I touch the screen it changes, so I hit completely another button (on Androod - but it is the same everywhere). So instead of cancelling a call I place another one, to a different person. No I didn't intend to call my mother in law! The solution is so simple it hurts: if a clickable area has been shown less than X ms before the touch / click, ignore the event…

A similar problem happens on iOS CarPlay.

If you're getting navigation directions in Maps, and then go back to the home screen (say, to play music), there's a temporary notification dropdown that appears from Maps with your next turn info. The problem is that the dropdown covers the top row of app icons, so if through muscle memory you (as I do) hit home and then hit Music, you hit the notification instead of Music and end right back in Maps. It's infuriating.

This problem makes me question if anyone from Apple's CarPlay team has actually used their own product in a real setting.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#79

Post by analog31 »

mattkevan wrote: post #44
david-given wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has historically has really excellent keyboard support, at least back in the Win3.1 days, where driving an entire app from the keyboard was simple, easy, obvious and frequently easier than using the mouse. This slipped a bit with later versions of Windows, with too many apps having unnavigable widgets. But, despite Microsoft's many mistakes, this was something they got absolutely right back at the very beginn…

Well, that was kind of the point. The original Mac OS was designed to be mouse-first. Keyboard shortcuts were there, but only to be used as well as, not instead of the mouse. Windows had to be completely usable by keyboard as it began as a graphical overlay to a keyboard-only interface - and it wasn't possible to guarantee every machine it was on had a mouse. It's a bit like now I suppose. iOS was designed to be touc…

The keyboard shortcuts are such a blessing. Truth be told, I learned all of them even when I used a Mac in the System 7 era. For me, the mouse [0] is not just an ergonomic problem by itself, but using it with graphical software gives me pounding eyestrain headaches and neck fatigue. The keyboard lets me divert my visual focus away from the screen, yet know "where" the commands are.

To this day, programming is my favorite design activity because it doesn't require interacting with a graphical display. I can't do CAD.

I always just assumed that Windows kept the keyboard shortcuts because they were such a good idea.

[0] or touch pad, track ball, whatever. I've tried 'em all. The best of the bunch is the touch screen.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#80

Post by tmd83 »

thejew wrote: post #36
cja wrote: post #13

Moved from Windows to OSX a couple of years ago after hearing for so long how much better the Mac experience and usability was. Some examples of why this was wrong: 1. Cmd-Tab lets me select a hidden window but it won't show it! 2. Many frequently used click targets are too small. For example, the close, minimise and maximise buttons. 3. The close minimise and maximise buttons reveal their functions only when the mou…

I agree with all of your points. I have done tons of research on how to use the keyboard only. 1. If the window is minimized (minimize with Cmd-M) you can Cmd-tab to it let go of Cmd hold tab and press option and let go of tab and the window will reappear. 2. I use Cmd-W to close windows and Cmd-M to minimize windows. If you hold Shift while double clicking the title bar of the window you can maximize it in the same…

Thanks for the Cmd-Option-I, never even thought about googling for this.

I know some of the shortcuts including how to open something but some of the defaults here are not about mac being different from windows (commenting on the parent) but stupid at least to my understanding. No one renames file more than they open it in a file browser so making the most frequent operation in a file browser a two key shortcut is irrational. Same goes for multiple files showing multiple info window. I think windows/linux now even shows you warning when you have too many files selected and you press return. OsX the first time I tried Cmd+I on multiple files opened 140 info windows. How many times in your lifetime do you want that when pressing Cmd+I on files?

And lets not talk about highly expert commenters on apple forum explaining why cut paste is supposedly something that can make you loose files :(

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