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Designers Criticize Apple's User Interface For OS X and iOS
Hugh Pickens writes "Austin Carr notes that a number of user interface designers have become increasingly critical of Apple's approach to software user interface design. Much of their censure is directed against a trend called skeuomorphism, a term for when objects retain ornamental elements of the past that are no longer necessary to the current objects' functions, such as calendars with faux leather-stitching, bookshelves with wood veneers, fake glass and paper and brushed chrome. A former senior UI designer at Apple who worked closely with Steve Jobs said, 'It's like the designers are flexing their muscles to show you how good of a visual rendering they can do of a physical object. Who cares?' The issue is two-fold: first, that traditional visual metaphors no longer translate to modern users; and second, that excessive digital imitation of real-world objects creates confusion among users. 'I'm old enough, sure, but some of the guys in my office have never seen a Rolodex in real life,' says Designer Gadi Amit. 'Our culture has changed. We don't need translation of the digital medium in mechanical real-life terms. It's an old-fashioned paradigm.' One beneficiary could be Microsoft, where the design of Windows 8 distances itself from skeuomorphism by emphasizing a flat user interface that's minimalist to the core: no bevel, no 3-D flourishes, no glossiness and no drop shadow."
http://skeu.it/ has some cracking examples and a good bit of snark to boot.
CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
We all know that self-described UI designers are never wrong when it comes to making things intuitive and easy to use.
*cough* *gnome* *cough*
So many things to criticize about Apple's UI direction (the tabletization of OS X, for example), and they criticize the thing Apple is doing right.
People like old fashioned aesthetics. Nobody had a need to use a sundial these days, but many people still decorate their yards with them. Seeing a wood bookshelf with real books stacked looks pretty and people see it as part of Apple's software polish.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
The Windows 8 UI is too minimalist. The flat squares look dull and amateurish. The Aero interface has just the right amount of little extra spice here and there.
Seriously, as a designer myself I can only shake my head when I read stuff like this.
It may be true that "traditional visual metaphors no longer translate to modern users", but what about older users? Should we just dismiss their needs? Are interfaces really encumbered because they feature a wood-textured background?
Also, I challenge you to come up with a symbol for saving files without using a diskette or something like that. These symbols have transpired from metaphors of real objects to metaphors of actions, and people who have never even seen a diskette learn their purpose by context. Granted, this creates a certain standard by convention, and you could argue that any symbol could be used for that. But again, that would dismiss the users who grew up with that symbol. Currently, everybody is happy, why challenge this?
Imho, articles like this and blogs like skeu.it are just cleverly-disguised marketing by Microsoft. Ask any designer, and they'll tell you that well-used skeuomorphisms are not problematic, but even necessary to reach most of your target audience.
The icon that fucks me off the most is the one for the iOS Maps application. The US interstate route sign in the icon (ie route 280) makes absolutely no sense to anyone young or old outside of the United States. A globe or something similar would make more sense....
Yeah, I was with the summary right up until it proposed Windows 8's mixed-up hash of an attempt to bolt a tablet UI and a desktop UI together as a superior alternative.
Oh no... it's the future.
Touching objects on a screen that look visually like what the physical representations of the function being peformed used to look like before we had PDAs and smartphones is ludicrous!
/usr/bin" then "./phoneapp dial -domestic +13125551212" whenever I want to make a phone call and "./phoneapp hangup -log /var/log/calls.today" when I hang up and want to add the details to a log file. That's much easier for me to understand, and should be self-explanatory to anyone if they just read the command. :)
I'd much prefer a CLI so I can type "cd
If that's just too hard for some people, I guess we can have a GUI with red and green icons with antiquated pictures of analog handsets on them, for now. But those should eventually be deprecated in favor of some newer, more modern representation of what a phone looks like.
At the top:
Apple's one-menu-to-serve-them-all approach is decidedly unfriendly when you have more than one monitor, as more and more of their machines come out of the box ready to operate with (and a machine like a Mac Pro can trivially be configured to run quite a few monitors.) But even a Mac Mini or a laptop will run two. What happens is that you're off on one monitor, you need a menu operation for the app you're working with, and the menu is 1,2 or perhaps six monitors of mouse-travel away. Menus on application windows make a great deal more sense.
Typists -- by which I mean people who really type a fair bit, like writers or serious programmers -- are not served well by Apple's low profile "chiclet" keyboards. Apple gets the shivers by making their devices thin; but this means that keystroke throw is short, and what we end up with is a mushy keystroke.
In the middle:
Apple's one-app-at-a-time system UI messaging approach means that you can only send keystroke events to the active application. So, for instance, were you to attempt to write program B to automate program A, and the user happens to be using program C, any attempt to control program B from program A will require you to shift the user's focus from program C to program B, which is decidedly unfriendly. Applescript's mechanism for automation requires activation of this app, then that app, which means that the user can't be trying to use the machine when the Applescript is running. Which is kind of a serious faux pas for what is nominally marketed as a multitasking machine.
There's no inter-program messaging paradigm other than the network. No named ports, etc. This also has severe implications for automation.
At the bottom:
UDP messaging is used to send network events in a broadcast manner. Apple's implementation of UDP only allows one program on a machine to bind to a UDP port, meaning that only one program on that machine can catch a broadcast -- which in turn means that if your implementation really needed a broadcast mechanism, you can't use UDP for it.
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That's just a sampling of UI issues with the OS. Against these rather immediate problems, I find the whole issue of make-it-look-like-[object] to be silly.
Don't know what the [object] is? It's a one-time learning trip down memory (or history) lane, and you're up and running. Operation is easy, even if, lawd forbid, you had to learn something.
On the other hand, when you need to get at a menu across a bunch of monitors, you're kind of hammered. It's time to go hunt for a third-party fix. If you need to really type, it's time to go buy a keyboard from a third party. If you need broadcast, I hope someone warned you the UDP stuff is broken so you don't waste your time trying to use it. If you're trying to implement IPC, well... [hollow laughter] I bet you'll wish you were working under Amiga OS before you even get seriously started. And no, Applescript won't get you even close because of the above-mentioned application focus issues.
Indeed. Besides it is just textures. Architects went nuts in the 20s ripping out all texture and decoration to create a clean pure look. But in the end people found it cold and inhuman, and cold concrete and metal gets boring. So it just helps to have a bit of variety and decoration. Not everyone wants to live in MUJI world or a Rietveld Schröder House. Besides the textures offset the clean simple hardware. And when looking at a screen all day, a bit of variety helps. Of course one might not like the particular textures, that's a different matter.
Before Disney, you could find a whole variety of animation styles.
Disney was established in 1923. Animation was in its infancy. Filmmaking was in its infancy. Such a statement needs clarification.
But the vision of Disney was to make everything round and smooth and beautiful. Every animation cel was to look like a masterpiece portrait -- because that was the general populace's desired art at the time.
Citation needed. Disney has almost ninety years of animation history with a range of divergent styles. I can't say what 1920's American looked for in its art, but I can certainly say that animation was a novelty at its time.
And that's what Disney was trying to make, animated art.
Again, citation needed. And also clarification ... Disney the company? Disney the man? Disney the man started making shorts such as Steamboat Willie. 1928. The point of this short wasn't to make art, but to entertain. Disney the company has been making a range of animated films for years of many different styles. All can be described as "art". Even Steamboat Willie.
You might have found a sharp edge on a villain like Jafar in Aladdin but the main character would be round and warm.
Now we are in the Eisner era. This needed to be noted at the start of the argument.
Others tried to mimic the stylings and it became a de facto standard mostly because it sold.
What others? And seriously ... do you think Disney was the first to use lines, curves and edges as a way to depict stylistically character? That's a ludicrous statement which needs a citation.
That's just the first paragraph. It may make great banter for cocktail parties, but it means nothing.
Agreed. The problem is most people don't understand the reason WHY Metro is a horrible UI -- hint: it has to do with context.
When you have a "flat" UI you have no *secondary* _visual_ cues to tell you what you can interact with or not. You see this effect in many iPhone apps where they will have this absolutely beautiful graphics (and backgrounds) and you have no clue what the hell is an actual UI "widget" that you can push, slide, etc.
OSX Mountain Lion is starting to fall for this trap by hiding scroll bars. When I need to scroll, such as dragging the slider up/down, I can't even tell where it unless I first do a dummy scroll. This is retarded.
With a more "traditional" approach with *some* 3D elements such as drop shadows, beveled corners, these widgets "stand out" so we have a more natural intuitive sense to make the *critical* distinction between 2 UI elements:
* what is purely static which conveys information
* what can I interactive with.
UI is *supposed* to be about making it EASIER for users by *helping* them think less and act more by streamlining their judgement process. 3D Buttons are a perfect example of this: Users internally are thinking "Ah, here is a button I can push -- OK, what does it do? Does it do what I think it does? Does it do what I need it to do?"
ALSO note that TOO many 3D elements is a hinderance. 3D Studio, Blender, etc, are HORRIBLE UI's simply because they *overload* the user with too *many* widgets. It is an design art-form to maximize minimalism and minimize functionality. Sadly, too many UIX don't have a freaking clue about the fundamentals.
Without recognizing this deep contradistinction UI designers are completely screwing users over making them play the what-can-I-interact-with-game. This is 5 steps backwards. *sigh* Somebody everyone will realize we need to change the computer to fit US, instead of trying to change humans to fit the computer.
I love their idea that we should update the application icons to be represented with more modern tools. Here are some icon suggestions for different apps that people might use based on the tool that they now use for that functionality:
Phone - cell phone
Calculator - cell phone
Note taker - cell phone
Music player - cell phone
Camera - cell phone
Web browser - cell phone
Photo viewer - cell phone
Facebook - cell phone
Calendar - cell phone
Alarm clock - cell phone
Contacts - cell phone