User friendly

A Brief History of User Interface

That is a great video, and nothing here is meant as criticism of it. After all, it is meant to be brief.

It always bothers me a bit, though, when the fact that there was user friendly software before the windows/mouse GUI gets glossed over. The GUI was undeniably a big paradigm shift. (Being graphical by default, discouraging modes, being more event-driven, being more consistent, &c.) But there were plenty of people who wanted to—and did—make computers more accessible before it.

Restaurant menus on the web

If any one out there with a restaurant is listening...

Making me click to view different categories annoys me unless you have different menus at different times. If you have completely different menus for breakfast and lunch/dinner, then splitting them that way on the web is useful. Making me click to view appetizers and then go back and click again to view one subset of entrées and then go back and click again to view a second subset of entrées...this isn’t useful. I want to be able to see all your dishes by merely scrolling instead of clicking.

(You may have read something against scrolling web pages. That was an over-reaction. Scrolling is fine when appropriate. Not scrolling when scrolling is appropriate is inappropriate.)

When should I have to click to get more information? To get the kind of specifics that I can’t get from a paper menu. e.g. a complete list of ingredients and nutritional information. The real power of the web is its ability for you to deliver this kind of in-depth information to your customers. You really should take advantage of it.

And pictures. You ought to have a picture of every dish. Ideally with thumbnails on the main menu page and a full-size image when I click for more information about a particular dish.

Dear Academy

Dear Academy Sports + Outdoors:

I came to your website to find out the hours for my local store. Your website could not tell me. In fact, your website couldn’t find my local store.

Also of note: Your website asked if it could use my current location after asking me for my state and zip code. Yet, despite knowing my state, zip code, and current location, it failed to find my local store.

I went elsewhere.

Can you guess why I’m posting this open letter on my blog instead of sending feedback directly to you? Here’s a hint: It also has to do with a failure of your web site.

Ramblings about skeuomorphs

Amid the revealing of iOS 7, I started using a new app call Do It Tomorrow. This app is very skeuomorphrific. It not only looks like hand-written notes in a paper notebook, it also includes the desk, pen, coffee, coffee stains, &c.

During the WWDC keynote, Apple suggested that the most important thing about a product is “How it will make someone feel.” I argue that skeuomorphs are not about usability but about how they make some users feel. Indeed, I don’t think the skeuomorphs in Do It Tomorrow make the app more usable, but they do make it—for me—more enjoyable.

Rene Ritchie says iOS 7 is most skeuomorphic iOS yet.

One of the key aspects of Apple’s iOS devices is that they become each app.† The app takes up the full screen. The screen is how the user interacts with the app. The hardware beyond the touch-screen is designed to not distract from the app. In iOS 7, there are system things that can temporarily intrude—notification center from above and control center from below—but these are translucent overlays that emphasize the the device is still primarily the app. Well, Apple is actually emphasizing content now, but sometimes the app itself is content. Skeuomorphs can be content.

Speaking of notification center and control center in iOS 7, they appear glass and plastic, respectively, to me.

Guitar effects apps are an area where skeuomorphs are common. While I’d certainly like to see some more entries in that category that take a skeuomorphless approach, the look of guitar gear can be an important part of the feel.

So, despite Apple’s move away from skeuomorphs, I hope that some apps will still provide skeuomorphic options for those users who enjoy them.

†It occurs to me that this works directly against the sort of split-screen mode I have always wanted in iOS.

iOS 7—coherence

...or Jony Ive is the man.

I said that, if it were up to me, I would decide about textures in Apple’s iOS apps on a case-by-case basis rather than blindly making everything flat.

The key word for the design changes in iOS 7, however, isn’t “flat”. It is “coherence”.

They didn’t blindly make everything flat. They created a coherent design language. Which makes the way everything works seem to make sense—even if only subconsciously. Not to mention that it makes it more pleasing. It’s exactly the opposite of a case-by-case basis, but on a deeper level than flat versus textured.

In a sense, the flat versus textured issue simply disappears in iOS 7. The user picks the backdrop image. The content sits in a layer on top of that. Anything on top of that is not flat or textured but translucent to let the backdrop and content shine through.

Ive has shown that the same sensibilities he brings to hardware design can be applied to software with just as—if not more—spectacular results. I can’t wait until fall.

Incidentally, Sunday night I was organizing my RPG files and thinking about how I wish I had tags so I could organize them by source, publisher, and game system. Monday, they’re telling me how Mac OS X Sea Lion Mavericks will have file tags.

Another thing about textures

Thinking more about textures and skeuomorphism, another point occurs to me about textures in iOS.

What purpose does the “Corinthian leather” serve in a Chrysler? What purpose does green felt and wood serve in a casino? These surfaces could be covered with materials of different color and different texture. They could be covered in materials with a flat texture and painted in flat colors. These textures are just as superfluous—or purposeful—as they are in the digital world as in the real world.

You may not like the specific choices in either the real so digital world, but the aesthetic choice is just as valid in either case.

File systems

“It’s a UNIX system! I know this!”

It is well known that users have a difficult time understanding the standard, hierarchical computer file system. I wonder that’s really the case, though.

For example, the Mac—from the beginning—taught users how to use the file system though the Finder. The Finder was the Mac “shell”—the program the user used to get to and organize their documents and applications. But when the user interacted with the file system within an application, it presented it in a completely different way than the Finder did. This was always the biggest stumbling block I witnessed new users stumble over on the Mac. This dichotomy tended to be repeated in most GUIs that followed.

Perhaps the problem isn’t with file systems themselves but with the ways we’ve expected users to interact with them.

The screenshot above is not actually from fsn, which was used in Jurassic Park. It’s from fsv.

Textures, skeuomorphism, etc.

From “Tail Wagging” by Matt Gemmell...

At first glance, making the interface visually resemble a physical object seems like a reasonable way to create that immersion.

I think we are long past when these elements where argued to make software more immersive or more usable.

The textures in Game Center aren’t there because it makes the app more immersive or more usable. The textures are there because some of the people at Apple like the way they look. Some of Apple’s customers like the way it looks too.

The page flip animation in iBooks isn’t there because it makes the app more immersive or more usable. It’s there because some people like it.

The reel-to-reel tape player animation wasn’t put there to make the app more immersive or more usable. It was there because it was fun.