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Suck On Skins And UI
kisrael writes: "Today's Suck.com talks about how the freedoms designers now have in UI appearance-- starting with the the Web, moving to Skins for WinAmp, ending with the latest versions of QuickTime and the
preview release of Netscape 6-- are ignoring visual and interface standards that users have come to rely on." A lot to think about and discuss here: personally I'm a big fan of skins and themes, but it only takes seconds to find countless awful themes. There are exceptions, but they're rare.
While I like skins as much as the next guy, I have some serious problems with some projects which are using them as a replacement for good UI design.
For example, Mozilla. For months myself and others had been providing dozens of reasons to implement native UI widgets instead of the hacked up bitmaps they are currently going with. Reasons?
- Non-native UIs are generally slower than native ones, for whatever reason. I guess this could be fixed with enough work.
- The 'look' of the UI is not consistant with the rest of the OS for those who choose not to use themes. Most people, believe it or not, will probably never switch their theme - or want to. Why should their browser stick out like a sore thumb?
- If the look matches, the 'feel' usually does not. This is more important than it may appear to be at first. Something as subtle as how hierarchial menus are handled will often annoy or frustrate even advanced users.
- Using non-native widgets (basically, bitmaps) often stops system-wide skin/theme programs from working. Your non-standard look and feel is rendered internally inconsistant.
- Using non-native widgets is usually done so that less effort is needed to go cross-platform. Laziness. Do you want your Linux or MacOS program to behave like a Windows one, or vice versa?
In the end, I have rarely/never seen a non-native interface, outside of the occasional game, that didn't look like a really ugly port.
After much time conversing with the Mozilla folks, who presented a laundry list of reasons for the UI that were refuted time and time again by myself and others, the truth came out: AOL is giving these guys very little in the way of a budget to make an acceptable cross-platform browser. The way it was explained, we'd only end up with a Windows version if they DIDN'T go this route due to funding shortages. I fully blame AOL management for this.
However, I still feel it is a mistake. Already reviews have been very mixed, even for a beta quality release (Netscape 6). It's not the obvious bugs and performance issues that bug me, but the so-called 'features' that appear very poorly thought-out from the start. Some of it is very very cool, but without a decent UI design, it's not looking good.
I just hate to see AOL/Netscape's internal politics breaking the browser before it ever had a chance. If only Mozilla were truly 100% autonomous...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
i think this site was posted as a quickie a while back, but i'll post it here since it applies to this story:
http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
this site is loaded with examples of poor UI design. they do a good job explaining exactly whats wrong with each example; its actually quite educational. its mostly windows and mac stuff, but i think i remember one or two examples from linux apps...
--Siva
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In my opinion, those people who most use themes and stuff of that nature are the kind of people who enjoying using their computer for hacking and learning. Those who just see the computer as a tool for typing documents are not going to go mad over a pretty new widget look. Therefore, those that are most likely to use themes are the most likely to adapt to the changes without any problems.
Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.
Most skinnable applicaations Suck(tm) because:
- They require skins. I can't make WinAmp look like a normal Win32 application. Skinning should be an option.
- Being bitmaps, they are resolution dependent. WinAmp on a 1280x1024 desktop is ridiculous, the controls are about a micron high. Double-size? Oh great, ugly pixel jaggies. You say I can just get a "bigger" skin? Well, what if I switch res? Why can't I just use it without having to go find these silly extras!?
- They don't use standard controls. Oops, you can't use tabs, alt-accelerators, or the arrow keys,to navigate the controls. (Sure, accelerators work, but they are hidden, unlike the visual cues.) How many times have you been typing in a stupid homebrew text widget, and all the standard keys like Home/End/etc. don't work? GTK doesn't even always get this right.
- People with visual or motor disorders probably can't use it. If I use a standard control, I can make the font larger if I can't see it; or if I might be blind I can attach voice navigation to it. Not on a skin.
- They tend to ignore components of good UI design as much as most cruddy web sites do.
UIs are UIs, including the web, including apps, including skins. A lot of UI research has taken place over the years. As computers go mainstream, we shouldn't be ignoring it, but heeding it even *more*.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I am personaly starting to get concerned about the advent of skinning along with some of the other changes in UI design. A couple of years ago you could sit down at a windoze machine and use just about and applications main features without thinking. Now even microsoft break their own UI guidelines (Have you noticed the way the latest office bypasses MDI?). GUI's under Linux has been struggling with the lack of any decent rules for UI design (At least none anyone pays any attention to) and I feel that something should be done to create a more consistent interface.
For the rest of us who want to get things done, something simple would be enough. I propose that judging on useability standards be applied to the DEFAULT (or default few) skin/desktop/window manager. For all others, go ahead and customize it to your desire. (It is customizable, right?)
There is no reason to bitch about skins. The thing to bitch about is poor UI design.
The average user wouldn't know what the hell I meant by "skinned app." If you're going to get into skins, you probably know enough about computers to not get terribly frightened when suddenly the 'look' of your program changes.
If there's anything that can be rightfully bitched about it's poor design in the default interface. We Geeks may know enough to get a better interface/skin, but the average user may not. If the default breaks consistency, the average use is stuck with a crappy UI. (example: Sonique though cool looking isn't rectangular in it's default start-up state; they make up for this in coolness and still putting the X in the top-right)
The ability to change the interface/shape of the app is a little worse, cause things will have both moved and changed looks when you change a skin (eg: Sonique, K-Jofol), so even a Geek will get lost from time to time. It's a hazard we put up with.
The biggest advantage to skins/shape changes is they allow you to update the interface about as easily as you update the program. If I release an app that's got full skin/theme/shape support and my design is royally crappy, I can shift stuff around based on user feedback really easily. It's almost like the OOP applied to UI design.
Computers are fast becoming the multi-purpose appliance of today. They are the typewriter, the fax, the e-mail, the internet, the jukebox, etc. If you look at all of those equivalents in real life you will find totally different designs. I see no reason why this can't be in a computer. The best design of all would be to make the computer totally transparent to the user, but that is a far way off.
So.. do not bitch to me about how skins are the downfall of useability. It's just the fact that we're entering a period where computers are used by everyone, not just those of us willing to 'train.' Programs are still being programmed and designed by programmers, not UI experts and designers. Hell, the easiest way to remedy this is to make it as easy as possible for the aforementioned to change stuff about the app and move it around and.. hey! Isn't that what skinning is?
Apparently various versions of Unix (mainly the BSDs -- I don't think anyone who cares about data security is quite ready for free software yet) are the weapon of choice in go-ahead legal and corporate planning departments. The cluelessness of most VPs is greatly overexaggerated; half of them had PCs as status symbols in the old days, so they can use DOS (which works just like Unix), and they quite like the idea of a CLI. And the old Hewlett Packard Financial Analyst calculator is another example of how tech-savvy finance suits can be if it's something they care about rather than something dull and non-revenue generating like network adminisatration
It's getting to the stage where Unix is reaching the corporate desktop -- I've seen a couple of job ads for secretaries and receptionists which state "must be able to use basic Unix commands". So I guess it's probably time for me to throw the good old Mac away and get with the winning side. I don't understand why all the techie elite types are keen to throw away their only unique selling point at all
--montoya
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Never do that. Just because they're your parents, doesn't mean they can get a free ride. Lawyers learn this early on in their training -- if you want your advice to be considered valuable, charge for it. Ask the most popular cheerleader in your high school -- once you've got a reputation for giving something away, it's difficult to charge for it in later life.
Yeh, but it's your mom and dad, you say. You think you have a point, but you don't. First it's mom and dad. Then it's bro and sis. Then it's Aunty Murtle. Pretty soon you're getting woken up at four AM (after being out drinking martinis to three) in order to get down to some fucken city drunk tank to knock out a misdemeanour plea bargain, gratis, for your third cousin twice removed's stepchild from her third marriage. And it's always "Oh Johnny, could you do this just once? We're faaaammmilleeeee! Have you forgotten where you came from?" Yak yak yak. No, I haven't forgotten where I came from, it's just that now I don't have to fucken go back to that craphole in South Bklyn, I choose not to.
The way I play it, is that I don't make my family sign a check. But if they want my professional services, they should be prepared to give me some of theirs. So I get my car washed, my plumbing done, my dinner cooked, and on occasion a little recreational fellatio (only from relatives no closer than first cousin, naturally -- I'm not a fucken pig).
With more and more people having net connections, and all manner of what have you, it strikes me that technology types are going to be almost as much in demand as lawyers in the next few years. So I'd advise you guys to learn a few lessons from the legal profession. We learned the lesson from the teamsters -- Gas, Grass or Ass, nobody rides for free.
--just call me streetlawyer, ma'am
-- the most controversial site on the Web