[HN Gopher] Software should convey a sense of calm ___________________________________________________________________ Software should convey a sense of calm Author : pajuc Score : 193 points Date : 2021-09-13 14:23 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (patrickjuchli.com) (TXT) w3m dump (patrickjuchli.com) | Stampo00 wrote: | I find reading this in a web browser to be ironic. But then I | immediately shared it with people via Slack, too, so... | ruchin_k wrote: | Absolutely agree. We probably spend more time looking at and | interacting with software than the real world! Love apps like | Superhuman which prioritize calmness and serenity in the user's | experience | rustybolt wrote: | I don't know if I'm old and bitter, or that software becomes | harder to use, but so many software seems to degrade in user | experience. | | HTTP is a relatively easy thing, let's replace it by an | overengineered clusterfuck called HTTPS. Good luck implementing | THAT on your homebrew OS. (don't get me wrong, it's good thing | that it exists, I just don't see why all the sites have to use | it) | | Well, git+github seems to work nicely, lets disable logins using | your password! Took me about an hour to take care of this (there | is a nice guide for it, but that doesn't mention what your | 'github email' is -- there is no such thing, and it doesn't | mention that you have to change your remote to an ssh connection, | and it also teaches you to copy-paste commands from the browser | to your terminal). | Tainnor wrote: | > (don't get me wrong, it's good thing that it exists, I just | don't see why all the sites have to use it) | | Because regular users don't know how to distinguish between the | level of trust they need for visiting "Justin's travel blog" | vs. their online banking website. If we don't display red error | messages if a site they visit has an invalid certificate, they | don't know how to tell it's not safe to enter their credentials | there. | | The web was once mainly used by academics, programmers and | other geeks, now it's used by marketers, scammers, hackers, and | a bunch of other malicious actors. I wish we could go back but | that ship has sailed. | iamstupidsimple wrote: | > I just don't see why all the sites have to use it | | https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140908/07191228453/comca... | mdoms wrote: | A lot of modern software makes me feel stressed, confused and | aggravated. When I open Youtube Music I never know what I'm going | to get - sometimes Your Favourites is at the top, sometimes Mixed | for You, sometimes something else. When I open Netflix it's | almost always the case that I want to continue watching | something, but will I find that in row 1 or row 4? How long will | I need to scroll to find it? | thedogeye wrote: | Even Headspace has gotten this 100% wrong. It's so sad. | grey_earthling wrote: | I'm not sure "software" is useful as a category in this context. | | If you're trying to make a useful tool these principles apply, | but if you're trying to farm users for ad money they don't. | | People will say they want the former, but in practice they often | choose the latter (and then grumble about it not being more like | the former). | gnramires wrote: | I think it's less users choosing it, but market forces | pressuring most tools to turn into ad-ridden nightmares. | | There are secondary effects like the ad-ridden product may have | more money for development and deliver better features. But at | this point we're all wondering if there isn't a better funding | model that can deliver both good experience and sufficient | development funds. | agumonkey wrote: | Calm Oriented Development, why not | | In festina lente | discordance wrote: | Going back a bit further, Mark Weiser came up some principals | around 'calm computing' [0]. As we transitioned into the | ubiquitous computing age, computers were supposed to disappear. I | wish that were the case but we seemed to have designed them to | need more attention than ever. | | 0: | http://quicksilver.be.washington.edu/courses/arch498cre/2.Re... | jd3 wrote: | "The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They | weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they | are indistinguishable from it." | | Calm Technology is "that which informs but doesn't demand our | focus or attention." | | for those unfamiliar with Weiser/"Calm Technology": | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology | | http://web.archive.org/web/20180604010109/http://www.ubiq.co... | | https://people.csail.mit.edu/rudolph/Teaching/weiser.pdf | | https://web.archive.org/web/20141022035044/http://www.ubiq.c... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weiser | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jwLWosmmjE | | https://web.archive.org/web/20080905233018/http://www-sul.st... | | https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=51 | amelius wrote: | That's probably why we get a blue screen, as opposed to a red | screen. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Sounds like fairly bog-standard Usability. Folks like Jakob | Nielsen have been calling this kind of thing out for decades. | They have not always been popular. | | I think a lot of this depends on the target audience. If it is a | wide-distribution consumer application, then I like the "swimming | duck" analogy, where it looks smooth and calm, above water, but | is paddling like hell, underneath. That's what I strive for, | myself, in my standard consumer-level apps. Many of my apps look | quite "boring," but actually have _a lot_ of moving parts, | invisible to the user. Selecting a screen may result in multiple | server transactions, and the user only sees a throbber for a half | second. No progress report. | | The other side, is that, if you are marketing to engineers, or | specific types of professionals (not all "pros," though. That's a | wide net), you may want to present a very complex and "raw" UI. I | have done this for admin dashboards. | throwaway09223 wrote: | I remember decades ago building a menu system for a homebrew | media center to launch game emulators and so on. I wanted it to | have a loud arcade style feel. All menu text was rendered in 3d | and would bounce and vibrate. Lots of flashing lights, noise, | music and high energy. Functionally, it was just a simplified | file explorer. It was very fun to use. | | I agree with most of the opinions in this article, but I don't | like the idea that all software should convey calm, or the | conflation between a simplified intuitive interface and calm. | Video games are a great example of simplified, intuitive | interfaces which are often the polar opposite of calm. | | Elements like calm and intuitive are also extremely subjective. I | find emacs calm, intuitive and extremely accessible. People with | different context will have a comically different response. | Humans need interfaces that cater to their different experiences. | varikin wrote: | > Video games are a great example of simplified, intuitive | interfaces which are often the polar opposite of calm. | | Video games are interesting in terms of usability. I thought a | lot about this the past couple years after a UX course. A lot | of UX principles are about making things easier, like large | clickable areas, not moving clickable areas, contrasting | colors, proving plenty of time to react or undo, and making | things obvious and as easy as possible. But in a game, many of | those principles are flipped. In a shooter, the enemies are | smaller and move. They may be difficult to see. Solutions are | not always obvious, especially if they are extras or hidden | power ups. | | But at the same time, a lot of the UX principles are very | important. An enemy about to attack should telegraph that | attack so you have time to react. Menus should be very clear | and obvious. Inventory management should not be a chore, the | map and HUD should be easy to use. | Zababa wrote: | > Video games are interesting in terms of usability. I | thought a lot about this the past couple years after a UX | course. A lot of UX principles are about making things | easier, like large clickable areas, not moving clickable | areas, contrasting colors, proving plenty of time to react or | undo, and making things obvious and as easy as possible. But | in a game, many of those principles are flipped. In a | shooter, the enemies are smaller and move. They may be | difficult to see. Solutions are not always obvious, | especially if they are extras or hidden power ups. | | The goal of usability is to be able to accomplish your goal. | In a lot of games, the feeling of getting better or | overcoming an obstacle is part of the goal. So the UX is not | surprising, it's following the goal of the product. | handrous wrote: | Valve (in particular) even pioneered UX in level design--if | it doesn't improve gameplay, why let the player wander around | trying to find the way they're supposed to go (a situation | common even in relatively on-rails shooters of the past)? And | just putting in HUD arrows sucks, and those can be | misleading. Instead, they use lighting, color choices, and | level layout to direct the player's attention and direction | of movement, while maintaining the illusion that the levels | are part of a larger space. | varikin wrote: | I've heard that Ghost of Tsushima does this well with the | direction of the wind. But I don't have a PS4/5 to play. | | I've also heard about of platformers giving a couple pixels | after walking off a platform to jump, like Celeste. It is | very small thing to give better feel to the controls and | make up lack of precise timing. | handrous wrote: | There's also the idea of the tutorial level masquerading | as a regular level, so it doesn't feel like a tutorial. | Earliest example I know of is Super Mario Brothers 1:1, | but it may not be the first. It's distinct from simply | ramping up difficulty, because it involves things like | deliberately presenting challenges & opportunities in a | certain order, and, at first, in isolation. | | [EDIT] incidentally, here (many) games have an advantage | over other software, because they play linearly rather | than presenting a large space of possible actions all at | once. Games that are more similar to productivity | software (city builders, say, or grand strategy games) | have trouble doing this without it being obvious that | you're in a tutorial. | dTal wrote: | Portal was designed so that nearly the entire game was | "the tutorial level". The gradual introduction of novel | elements such as beams, turrets, and more advanced | movement challenges kept up the interest, but it also had | the hidden agenda of preparing the user for the climactic | finale which brought all of those elements together. | btbuildem wrote: | I think "calm" might refer to the user in that context, as the | opposite of "frustrated to the brink of violence". | | A game UI might be wacky and as twitchy as a rodent dosed with | recreational stimulants, but the user feels calm, capable of | navigating through it and never doubting they can accomplish | what they set out to do. | BobBagwill wrote: | Ideally, software should help you to enter and maintain an | activity _flow state_. | [deleted] | bgibson wrote: | He's basically writing about discoverability in UI/UX. | | https://duckduckgo.com/?q=UI%2FUX+discoverability | | There's also the Calmtech movement, somewhat related to the post: | https://calmtech.com/ | dgb23 wrote: | Related: | | - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology | | - https://calmtech.com/book.html | haskellandchill wrote: | Does the "calm tech" movement have much to say? I feel like a | theory of learning for software is more important. Of course it | should be done in a pleasant way but I wasn't able to get much | actionable insight out of calm tech writings. | dgb23 wrote: | First, there are parallels to some Software Design | heuristics. The focus on simplicity, complexity hiding, | graceful error handling, generalizing and reducing the | surface of interfaces etc. come to mind. | | So the way you structure and write your code has very much to | do with wanting to reduce the mental taxation of the reader | (you included). | | In the UI, UX and HCI world the concept has obviously a lot | to say as well. | Wistar wrote: | I'd prefer a sense of trustworthiness. | [deleted] | question002 wrote: | Who is seriously clicking on this headline? Really? Come on , | it's bots. | jimmaswell wrote: | > I want to find the same things in the same places | | How else will designers justify their jobs? | | I wonder if designer should be reworked to be a seasonal or | consultancy job only, to only hire them when you're making a new | product/big feature or there's a drastic need to change things | but never otherwise. Having them as permanent staff leads to our | present usability and accessability nightmare of everything | constantly being redesigned and completely changed around for no | good reason other than padding designers' resumes. | patternMachine wrote: | Pointlessly reworking software is the hallmark of a poor (or | green) contributor. Designers can redesign features that work | fine, engineers can refactor code that doesn't need | optimization, PMs can come up with features that nobody needs. | Designers might do this more often since there is a somewhat | lower barrier to entry than the other two disciplines, but that | doesn't mean the whole profession should be ditched. A good | designer knows when to pull out the big design guns and when to | leave em holstered. | sizzle wrote: | Visual UI "graphic" design, full of fleeting design trends and | dark patterns, sure I agree, bundle them up and send them to | the moon. UX =/ UI | | Human-centered design professionals who went to school | for/taught themselves from the field of Human Computer | Interaction, which involves a multitude of qualitative and | quantitative research methodologies for assessing usability and | bringing the voice of the user early into the development | lifecycle on the otherhand... now that is sorely lacking and is | historically underinvested in. Their job makes your job as a | developer easier, not having to redo work and waste time if | they are plugged into your dev team and focusing on your users. | | Ask yourself, as a developer, do you feel you have the | specialist skillset and expertise to truly validate designs | with real people (users)? Is this something you would want to | do, if only those pesky UX "design" professionals didn't take | them over to justify their jobs? | | Let's put you in front of 10 different users of your product | for an hour each, give you a facilitator guide, and have you | guide them through a task-based usability review of your | product. Make sure you aren't asking leading questions or | biasing their responses, then synthesize the essence of all the | interviews into insights to improve the product design. Finally | create a read out report that you have to present to senior | leadership for another hour on what you learned and how to | improve the product design. Oh yeah, you now have 0 hours to | code in your fulltime 9-5 job. Good luck! | | Note: I acknowledge a UX researcher is a full-time specialist | role, however any UX designer worth a damn should be T-shaped | and able to use qualitative research methods to interview users | and evaluate their designs.. otherwise they are a UI designer | and guessing at best. | tmp_anon_22 wrote: | > from the field of Human Computer Interaction | | This is how you get death by a thousand A/B tests a la | Google, Facebook, and other ultimately user-hostile | interfaces that optimize for ad engagement. | | Give me a compassionate, thoughtful, designer who isn't an | ass hole any day of the week. | ElFitz wrote: | Is this issue here how they optimise their interfaces or | what they optimise them for? | 3np wrote: | Obviously the latter is a major issue but additionally I | think great detriments are coming from an obsession to | quantify and reduce everything into arbitrary models. | sizzle is talking more about qualitative than | quantitative studies, though. | sizzle wrote: | A/B tests are more of a thing in the ecommerce and ad-tech | space and only a small aspect of the UX research | methodology landscape, see: | https://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/ | | The field of HCI (and Human Factors before it) pioneered | the application of qualitative research methods from | adjacent fields e.g. anthropology, cognitive/social | sciences, etc. towards computers and information | technology. Optimizing for 'ad engagement' seems to be a | recent phenomenon in the timeline of HCI and arguably is | being written by the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, | etc. and the people on their payroll who sold their soul to | make this their life's work. | nbzso wrote: | You are essentially right. That's why I switched my focus from | UX only to UI and front-end implementation. | | Fighting for 20 years to educate programmers and investors on | the importance of Human Centered Design and Function over Form | approach, is hard. And I and everybody in the Design Industry | have failed miserably. | | Now when every startup has a boilerplate, templates and | libraries in hand and "that's enough". | | Designers (or I may say - Decorators) are "thousands a dime", | they are racing themselves to the bottom of the pit. But I am | cool with it. After all SaaS design software is here to collect | and label enough data for big Neural Model to emerge and remove | design from the picture. So your dream will come true, and you | will be next in line of removal from production pipeline. | | Having programmers as permanent staff when you need the same | CRUD paradigm is unnecessary, and you can hire as a consultants | when you're making a new product/feature but never otherwise. | scollet wrote: | Designers often have a much more intimate view of the | application as an abstraction. | | I don't think you want to be benching that knowledge very | often. | | Having extended research phases or personal development would | be great to cycle in between major releases. | | In the interim they might develop better tooling or A/B a | subset of features, or strategize with the analytics dept. | | We really all should have a designer mindset, but truly | professional designers are product gurus. | ysavir wrote: | Assuming for the sake of argument that this is at all true, is | the problem that designers are out to justify their jobs, and | making changes as a consequence, or that designers are being | put in a position where they have to justify their jobs, and | are making changes to satisfy their managers? | | If anything, the problem in this scenario is that culturally we | need everyone to be contributing all of the time, even for | positions that may experience occasional downtime. Let's not | assign blame to a particular group when they're simply | responding to the pressures put on them. | jrm4 wrote: | If this is the _best_ argument one can come up with for not | being critical here, for me it absolutely proves we need to | be more critical here. Of course, I don 't wish to see anyone | suffer, but I'm seeing something like: | | "Hey, we're paying a guy to dig holes and fill them back up | with no value whatsoever, why are we doing that?" | | "Hey, man, stop attacking hole-diggers, they're just trying | to make a living." | ysavir wrote: | Can you go into more detail of why you think we need to be | critical of designers? The GP makes no effort to justify | their criticism of designers, perhaps you can provide some | reasons for it, and thereby allow people to respond to | actual arguments. | jrm4 wrote: | Not necessarily of "designers," but perhaps of "design." | | In my opinion, "design" does two things at the same time | that are presently fundamentally incompatible without | being honest about it -- namely "usability" and | "fashion." | | It's absolutely possible to do both, but you can't | pretend you're doing one when you're doing the other. | Architecture comes to mind. They do this right, most | often by putting usability "first." You can make your | design as pretty as you want, but if the damn wheelchair | ramp doesn't work as intended, the whole design is | _broken_ and if that means your pretty thing must die | because of it, then kill it and start over. | Zababa wrote: | A good example that was discussed recently: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28504573 | | The justification isn't "It helps users" or anything like | that. It's "This is not a new idea either -- pretty much | everyone else is doing it, e.g. macOS, Windows, iOS, | Android, elementary OS, KDE.". Reducing usability and | breaking habits to follow trends is a bad thing. | anchpop wrote: | This is a purely aesthetic change, it doesn't break any | habits. In this case, it probably also improves | usability, because there's less visual noise connected to | those buttons, which lets you draw attention to buttons | the user might not already know about using the same | technique while staying within a certain 'visual noise | budget'. Users expect that icons on the header bar are | buttons (what else would they be?), so there's no need to | call attention to that fact with an extra visual | indicator. | | "Following trends" is a good thing because users | appreciate when a piece of software looks like software | they're already familiar with. It is maybe slightly | annoying to people who already are used to the software, | but every new user benefits from it. | Zababa wrote: | > In this case, it probably also improves usability, | because there's less visual noise connected to those | buttons | | Yes, because there are no buttons anymore, just icons. | Icons are not button. Icons are icons, buttons are | buttons | | > which lets you draw attention to buttons the user might | not already know about using the same technique while | staying within a certain 'visual noise budget'. | | That "visual noice" is the zone where you can click on a | button. I also don't believe that "visual noise budget" | thing at all. Maybe it helps a bit first time users, but | most software shouldn't optimize for first time users. | I'll add that not everyone has a perfect eyesight or | perfect mouse control. That new style is bound to be | frustrating for a few people. | | > Users expect that icons on the header bar are buttons | (what else would they be?), so there's no need to call | attention to that fact with an extra visual indicator. | | Actually, having fallbacks and multiple ways to signal | something is a great thing. For example, if you only use | color to indicate something, colorblind users may have a | hard time using it. Icons and tooltips when you hover | over it is also a good way to achieve that. | | > "Following trends" is a good thing because users | appreciate when a piece of software looks like software | they're already familiar with. It is maybe slightly | annoying to people who already are used to the software, | but every new user benefits from it. | | So they're focusing on new users instead of people that | actually use their software. I don't see how that is a | good thing. If this was just one change, I may agree with | you, but this is a sign of a larger trend of constantly | changing interfaces for absolutely no benefit to the | user. | brendoelfrendo wrote: | I think, then, that software devs need to be more critical | of themselves, too. I see people in the comments often | bemoan that we are too reluctant to call projects "feature | complete" when adding new features stops adding value. | Instead, we get new versions and features for no reason | other than to justify the continued existence of a full- | time development team. | pc86 wrote: | Are you suggesting that designers keep getting paid for work | they've already done? | ysavir wrote: | I'm suggesting that if a company has designers that know | their product, branding, team members, philosophies, | values, and that have proven quality of work and ability to | get along with the team, that they not eliminate their | position because there isn't any design work needed _right | now_. When you do need design work, you don't want to have | to go through the trouble of hiring, on boarding, etc. | | The same applies for software engineering. | pc86 wrote: | Software requires maintenance and can benefit from | refactoring. What's the equivalent for design? | tnzm wrote: | Royalties, man, yeah. | pc86 wrote: | Royalties don't really apply when you're being paid a | wage for the work in the first place. The cognitive | dissonance in both railing _against spec work_ then | demanding a piece of profit in perpetuity is, well... | impressive. | magicink81 wrote: | Design is misunderstood, often by designers, and it seems like | you also may have some misunderstandings based on your | assessments of what _should_ designers do (vs what they do). | Based on your comment it sounds like the designers you work | with have an over-emphasis on visual UI design. I don 't think | you are to blame though - I have observed a consistent dumbing | down of design discourse and practices among people that don't | take the time to learn the depth of what is available. This | includes most practicing designers. I have observed that | designers are less interested in educating the world about | their practices than perhaps they need to be in order to change | this situation. Design in most cases is essentially a set of | knowledge work processes, the best of which is built on solid | research practices informed by psychology and cognitive | science. | | For anyone interested in up-leveling their own understanding of | design I recommend the articles, videos, courses and other | materials available from the Nielsen Norman Group | https://www.nngroup.com/ | milkytron wrote: | This is such a great comment that adheres to exactly what my | SO experiences. She is a UX designer, and she was the first | one hired at her company. They had no idea what UX design is | and all the processes, research, etc that takes place. | | > I have observed that designers are less interested in | educating the world about their practices than perhaps they | need to be in order to change this situation. | | She has found her job has become mostly informing and | teaching others how to go about these practices, and if she | has spare time does the work herself. But it was such an | ordeal when they hired her because they didn't even know what | she was supposed to do. She has acted very much like a | consultant in this regard, but also does the work involved. | dtjb wrote: | I'm sure there are designers making parallel arguments about | developers :) | sodapopcan wrote: | Yeah, there is certainly a parallel argument to be made about | constantly introducing new tech even if the currently used | tech is GoodEnough. | bitwize wrote: | Indeed, this is how game developers work: hired in legion | strength to push a game to release, then laid off once it's | released. | Transfinity wrote: | I've heard that DLC has made this less of a problem in | recent years. Since there's a stable, predictable revenue | stream and delivery channel for new content, iit's much | easier to justify keeping devs, designers and artists on | full time. Presumably this varies by studio / publisher / | genre, but my impression is it's much better than it was. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | I actually think the mid 1990's Mac and Windows GUI programs were | much better at fulfilling this ideal. We have regressed from | there. | | I am most familiar with Windows, so I will speak from that | perspective. | | Because software was an application, and the path of least | resistance was to use the OS provided controls and menus, there | was a sense of uniformity in how you accessed features. Keyboard | shortcuts just worked and were pretty much the save (Ctrl-S, | saved the document, etc). | | OLE provided a uniform way to embed documents into other | applications. Cut and paste worked consistently. | | There were also a limited amount of frameworks (bare Win32, MFC, | OWL, Visual Basic, and Delphi probably covered 95%+ of apps). | | It seemed that most user interfaces at the time were actually | made by programmers and not graphic designers. In addition, for | the most part there was a lot of continuity from version to | version in how a program looked. | | Now it seems that every web app wants to look different for the | sake of looking different. People want to change how an app looks | on a regular basis, often for no other reason than that it needs | to look "fresh.". There are a myriad of every changing front-end | JS frameworks. | | It seems that UI is driven by graphic designers looking to make | something unique and standout and not programmers that just want | to make a standard, low friction way the user can access the | functionality and be done with it. | | Also, all you data is siloed a lot more because it is stored in | the "cloud". Whereas before you could easily have access to the | raw output from all your programs (and if they supported OLE | embed documents from one program in a completely different one), | now it is somewhat of a pain if you want to get raw access to | your data. | | Web based apps do have a lot of advantages, but I feel we have | given up a lot when we went from native desktops apps to web | based. | quelltext wrote: | A lot of the user interfaces we use today are "better" than | what we had in the old days. The old generic windows and | buttons and whatnot don't work on a finger touch input. | Switching apps via gestures, visual cues by animation, use of | space, effects to bring things in and out of focus, a lot of | things have been refined and evolved over the years. | | Yes, things are not perfect but claiming that designers are | making everything difficult while programmers would have just | made everything better albeit not as pretty looking is really | not a fair assessment. I mean, preference and general | nostalgia, I get it, but it's a bit much. | | Getting raw access to your data also wasn't a breeze in the | past with program often having their own binary formats and not | exposing any programmatic interface at all to get data in or | out. Not sure how this relates to the cloud. | cbanek wrote: | This just reminds me of the composer Soyo Oka, who did the music | for some great games, like SimCity (SNES), SimCity (NES, | unreleased), Super Mario Kart (SNES), Pilotwings (SNES), etc. She | said that in making the SimCity music she wanted it to feel comfy | while building the city, not hectic or frustrating. And god, what | a masterpiece of a game and music. I still play it 30 years | later. | UweSchmidt wrote: | I'd be glad to check out any examples of software that come close | to this ideal. | layer8 wrote: | The Windows 2000 user interface. Uniform look and behavior, | very discoverable, clearly identifyable controls, "boring" | gray. | emadabdulrahim wrote: | Maybe Tempo comes to mind? a Minimal and calm email app for Mac | OS https://www.yourtempo.co/ | phailhaus wrote: | > Words like simple or intuitive are misleading here. They can be | attributed to a solution in retrospect, but they don't form a | principle from which clear recommendations for action can be | derived. | | Fantastic nugget of wisdom here. Saying that you want a product | to be "intuitive" or "simple" is as useful as saying that you | want it to be "good, not bad." | quelltext wrote: | I disagree. A product might be visually appealing, serve | hundreds of functions, be inexpensive, be sturdy, etc. | | These are all things that affect whether a product could be | perceived as good vs. bad. | | Importantly, intuitiveness is not relevant for some products, | or not what makes it good or bad. The tradeoffs between other | aspects of your product could be such that trying to achieve | intuitiveness would actively reduce value. | | Identifying intuitiveness as something you can optimize for or | not is not pointless. I'd also argue that intuitiveness can be | measured and strategies for more intuitive designs/patterns can | be formed. | brundolf wrote: | I agree with the goal, I have mixed feelings about the listed | solutions | | I'd like to add one: using consistent metaphors. A user of | software is constantly trying to form a mental model of how this | ethereal, formless thing behaves. A state machine. What can and | cannot happen, what will and will not happen after a given | action, what can and cannot happen once we're in a different | state. The shakier and less scrutable and/or reliable this mental | model, the more anxiety is felt. | | As programmers we're partly insulated from this effect. We may | not know the exact inner-workings of a piece of software we | didn't write, but we know some general things about software and | the way it does and doesn't behave that soften the huge void of | scary unknowns. This helps us form our mental model. | | Physical metaphors of objects, continuity, permanence, locality, | persistence, independence, are often used in GUIs for this | reason. If I click a tab and then click back to the previous one, | I expect to return to the same state I was in. If I change the | text in one field, I expect that unrelated fields won't be | impacted by that. Etc. This is a good starting point. Desktop | platforms and then mobile platforms have built additional semi- | consistent UX expectations on top of those largely physical | intuitions. This helps too. But your application needs to go | beyond that: it needs to present a simplified model of its | internal state-machine to the user, and then it needs to _hold to | that_. That mental model, once formed by the user, needs to have | predictive power about the way the system behaves under different | circumstances. | qmmmur wrote: | Well written and a nice way to conceptualise the problem and | zoom out a bit. | quadcore wrote: | I absolutely believe the importance of this specifically because | the desktop is failing at that in todays standard. In other | words, maybe there is an apple or microsoft to be created around | turning android or ios devices into work stations. I think that | would require a new vm, i dont think you can code html 5 app on | such a device for example. | zubspace wrote: | The thing is, most software starts simple and easy to use. It's | the introduction of new features and edge cases which slowly | kills usability over time. | | And this applies to desktop, web, mobile and commandline | applications as well. | | A tool needs a strong focus of it's maintainers and the courage | to say 'No!' to things which are out of scope or not user | friendly. This seems to be quite rare. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-14 23:01 UTC)