I can see the new commercial for Energizer now: The pink fluffy Energizer bunny wearing a suit with wingtip shoes and a fedora beating a scientist, in a white lab coat, to death with a drum mallet in front of the sign at UC Irvine.
Soon after the bunny's arrival at UC Irvine you will find a pile of Coyote poo with pink fluff in it in front of the sign. UCI borders nature reserves and creek/river beds that are heavily trafficked by coyotes. They are frequently sighted around campus and adjoining neighborhoods.
My thought as well. We won't see this in our devices any time soon unless it comes from Elon Musk via Tesla.
Not true. The University of California (UC) owns this patent. They don't allow their patents to be buried by licensees. They also favor smaller and more local licensees. UC has a pretty good system wide policy and a dedicated staff to handle everything for faculty and student researchers. Doing a social good is part of their mindset. These are the same people that gave you BSD Unix without any real strings attached.
... buy the patent for a few million dollars and sit on it until it ran out...
You can't. The people who made the discovery are at the University of California (UC). UC owns the patent. They don't sell, they license. They don't license to people who sit on it, you will lose your license, or at least any exclusivity. Matter of fact their policy is actually to favor small local companies. So if you are a giant national or multinational corp you have a disadvantage even licensing.
Greedy bastards will patent it and demand huge fees to license the technology... Greedy fuckers will make sure this never makes its way into anything I own.
Wrong and Wrong.
As these researchers are part of the University of California system (UC), UC owns the patent. UC's policy for licensing considers the nature of the company seeking the license. Some preference is given to smaller local companies over large multinationals for instance. Also UC retains ownership, they only license. So there is no burying the technology problem.
You are trying to align your opinion with Apple's on the basis of you having read the HIG. But I'm arguing with you, not your idea of hat Apple thinks. Apple would accept that embedding a manual in their phone productivity apps was an unfortunate compromise. One that follows from having to support editing of desktop office documents.
The point you are missing is that the unfortunate compromise happens in complicated solutions. Its not an Apple specific thing, nor an "office" app thing. Again, your suggestion of breaking things into multiple apps demonstrates a lack of understanding of the problem. One can not always go down the ideal path, be that small simple apps or all features/functionality intuitive. And thats sometimes true for smaller apps too. The more you claim otherwise the more my flashlight app satire seems spot on.
You have misread, I have not suggested commenting on opinions.
If you provide the facility how are you going to stop them? App Stores have enough work approving the apps themselves without approving the review responses too.
Actually you consistent demonstrate a failure to understand. Let me repeat it for you again. If a developer abuses the response feature that too is information. Information regarding how a developer views and treats customers. And that information is valuable in determining whether one wants to use a particular vendor's products. There is no need to filter such developer misuse, it too is data.
If anyone is making rookie mistakes here, it's not me. I've been in mobile apps for 17 years. You don't appear to be in the mobile app development industry at all.
Your comments suggest you may want to re-think things, perhaps contradicting Apple is not the best way to demonstrate your knowledge gained in those 17 years. I.e. Some apps do complicated things, not everything can be intuitive, sometimes an embedded manual is useful. See Apple's productivity app Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
What makes you think only hearing one side is a benefit to the public?
Because a review writer is entitled to give their opinion without being contradicted by the vendor.
You have misread, I have not suggested commenting on opinions. Only correcting erroneous information, as in feature X does not exist when in fact it does.
And it's not just a benefit to the public, but the developer too. Though many won't realise it. As I've tried to get across to you because it means their answer to a bad review is to make a better app rather than make an excuse or imply the user is wrong in not finding some unintuitive functionality.
You have got across little because you are misreading and misunderstanding. No one is saying simplicity and intuitive interfaces are not important. No one is saying customer opinion is to be contradicted. You are reading things in that are not there.
Again, what I have said is that:
(1) Sometimes a feature or functionality can not be intuitively apparent to a user. Especially minor rarely used features. The user has to explore and experiment, and an integrated manual can help in such cases.
(2) Correcting erroneous info in a review assists other readers.
It wasn't satire. It was a line within a post were you were making a straight argument.
Whoosh...
Context: Your suggestion that everything can be intuitive.
I never made any such suggestion.
You argued against the notion things aren't always so simple. What impression does that leave? You argue that Apple failed because they too embedded manuals in their productivity apps. You suggested complex apps be broken into multiple simpler apps. Again, things aren't always so simple.
Actually some do, they are embedded, see Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
Very much the exception. And yes, a failure.
Its not the exception when dealing with apps addressing complicated problems, apps that need to offer a wide variety of capabilities.
And various tutorials that take place on the first run perform a similar role, as well as other methods.
You mean onboarding. That's an entirely different thing, and is not a failure. It's very much one of the tools in the armoury of making apps intuitive. All good games do this.
Embedded manuals are tools too, because some things are inherently complicated. And a public response to a public criticism is a tool too, especially for 3rd parties reading along. See below.
Myopic.
Clearly you aren't in the mobile development industry. This is basic stuff.
Actually its a rookie mistake to think that basic guidelines and design principles are universally applicable, that there are no exceptions. Again, go read the Apple UI guidelines, go look at Apple's premier mobile productivity applications, Pages, Numbers, Keynote.
There is no magic bullet, user confusion is inevitable. It will always happen. The ability to correct some confusion when it is offered in public is a useful service to other users doing research.
Non trivial apps have support pages. Review sections of stores are not support pages.
Again, you offer a straw man. What has been repeatedly said is that replies can correct an erroneous piece of information that someone researching a product came across. Once again, the goal is more accurate information available to the public. What makes you think only hearing one side is a benefit to the public?
...of L. Ron Hubbard and claim it as his holy book. Oh. Wait.
He never publicly admitted his book/faith was a satire, a joke, etc. He smiled and kept a straight face and said that its real. That's why the FSM didn't make the cut, they admit the farce, they did not take the farce far enough.
My PC is 6. I put a "higher" end CPU ($300'ish) and "plenty" of RAM in it when I built it. I'm on my third video card upgrade. Its still good for videos games. Not the best, won't win the "pissing contests", but it still offers fun gaming experiences with current games.
No, you completely misunderstood and oversimplify.
Says the guy using a flashlight app as his example.
Clue: Satire.
Context: Your suggestion that everything can be intuitive.
Focus, and not succumbing to featureitis is very much a part of intuitiveness. Mobile apps don't come with manuals.
Actually some do, they are embedded, see Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote. And various tutorials that take place on the first run perform a similar role, as well as other methods. Why, because not everything can be intuitive. As Apple concedes in their UI guidelines.
And their active time per use is typically measured in seconds rather than minutes or hours.
Myopic. Again, you focus seems to be at the more simple end of the spectrum. Again, see Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
If you can't find a way to make an element of an app intuitive, hire a UX designer who can. Or consider that the feature does not belong in the app. (It may be that it deserves an app of it's own.)
There is no magic bullet, user confusion is inevitable. It will always happen. The ability to correct some confusion when it is offered in public is a useful service to other users doing research. That is the point of this thread, not UI design.
I went to take a real example rather than take one you selected or made up.
Right, because some things being unintuitive in Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote are not real world examples.
Your statistical sample of 1 does not invalidate the idea that a developer can do feedback right. And doing so offers useful information to a user researching an app.
Your idea that more information is necessarily better is another clue that you couldn't design a decent app to save your life.
You suggested everything can be intuitive, contrary to Apple's own UI guidelines and app implementations. And now you are confusing web page type information for a user doing research on an app with what an app actually puts on its screen via its UI. You might want to reconsider who needs a clue in this conversation.
And they only spent 100M recovering the said gold. Bargain and twice the price
Your missing something. Apple's 100M effort to remove used phones from the secondary market (used) in order to reduce competition for the primary market (new) is subsidized to the amount of 40M by recycling the phones removed from the market. Plus there is a further subsidy through public relations and brand image from the greening this program offers.
And the upcoming robotic disassembly may yield to more efficient recycling/recovery than shredding and other current methods.
Its not just about greening Apple's image and making customers feel good. It is also about removing used phones from the market. To interfere with a secondary market (used) that is competing with the primary market (new).
Thanking for the feedback and giving the support email address over and over again is not adding to the experience of reviews for people reading the reviews.
And that is not the type of response I offered as examples is it? Some developers do responses right, some do it wrong, and that too is information for the potential user of their products. Google does it better than Apple. They create an ecosystem where more information can be available. Apple is inferior in this respect.
That's a BS answer. Some apps are more complicated than a flashlight app.
An argument that only makes sense if you think that only flashlight apps can be intuitive.
No, you completely misunderstood and oversimplify. Not every element of an app can be intuitive. Look at Apple UI guidelines, they concede this and the focus needs to be on the most common operations. Look at Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Not everything is intuitive.
The movie / theatre thing is a poor analogy. We're essentially talking about the equivalent of a web page and Google has shown it to be quite feasible and useful to give devs a chance to reply. Its a solved problem. Google does it better than Apple.
If developers are posting unhelpful responses or otherwise inappropriate responses that tells you something about the dev and their attitude about customers. That too can be useful info.
So in the first case the app isn't intuitive enough.
That's a BS answer. Some apps are more complicated than a flashlight app. And see your own caveat below "Of course customers...". A dev response allows for more accurate information. What is wrong with more accurate info?
The best dev response is to improve the app, not argue with the review.
Its not a debate of opinion, its a statement of a fact.
In the second, the review comment will have disappeared into the "comments on older versions" section,
Show comments for all versions is a popular option.
... and the fact that the feature is now in the app will be listed in the description of the
That lacks the "intuitiveness" you championed earlier. So in your opinion a user viewing all reviews needs to cross reference all software update descriptions, rather than a simply read an informative attachment to the complain of omission?
Of course customers aren't always right. Sometimes they say stupid things. But if it's a good app, they will be outnumbered, and sometime corrected by reviews from other customers.
And hence the utility of example 1.
Fact is good apps will get more positive reviews than bad apps. Regardless of devs getting a right to reply.
Its not about review numbers, its about providing accurate information.
Its also possibly a step back to the old brick and mortar days where small devs had to compete with large corporations for shelf space, in other words rarely get shelf space. It might undo the somewhat equalized footing of a good set of keywords in a search showing both the large and small developers. Where the difference may be brand recognition and not so much visibility to potential customers (as with brick and mortar shelf space).
Devs lie through their teeth on android review replies. I don't trust them at all.
And you see through it? What's the problem?
The problem is we're only hearing from one side, and that side is likely to misinform as well. At least with a developer followup one can hear both sides, more info is available. And if the response is BS marketing/sales stuff then that is info too.
Examples:
Cust: Doesn't do X?
Dev immediate response: We do support X, please see page YY in our manual, available on our website as a PDF.
or
Dev response two months later: We have added support for X in version 1.Z. Thank you for your suggestion.
A trade off is a cost-benefit analysis. In this case, the benefit is not very large.
No. The big benefit is unlikely. But the "big" part is what outweighs the "unlikely" part.
Benefit = amount of benefit TIMES probability of occurrence.
Yeah, "big" refers to amount. "unlikely" refers to probability. You've not seen one operand in a multiplication make the greater contribution to the result, "outweigh" the other?
The benefit is not very large, because the probability that there's anything useful on the phone is small.
No, in the unlikely event it indicates an unknown jihadi that is large, note the connection can be indirect, friend of friend. Again, criminals make mistakes that implicate others all the time.
As for people being unqualified to render an informed opinion. Well in matters of what the law is, yes, they are. Including and sometimes especially technical people.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I'm worried about the griefers who are now going to try to crash the sim.
I can see the new commercial for Energizer now: The pink fluffy Energizer bunny wearing a suit with wingtip shoes and a fedora beating a scientist, in a white lab coat, to death with a drum mallet in front of the sign at UC Irvine.
Soon after the bunny's arrival at UC Irvine you will find a pile of Coyote poo with pink fluff in it in front of the sign. UCI borders nature reserves and creek/river beds that are heavily trafficked by coyotes. They are frequently sighted around campus and adjoining neighborhoods.
My thought as well. We won't see this in our devices any time soon unless it comes from Elon Musk via Tesla.
Not true. The University of California (UC) owns this patent. They don't allow their patents to be buried by licensees. They also favor smaller and more local licensees. UC has a pretty good system wide policy and a dedicated staff to handle everything for faculty and student researchers. Doing a social good is part of their mindset. These are the same people that gave you BSD Unix without any real strings attached.
... buy the patent for a few million dollars and sit on it until it ran out ...
You can't. The people who made the discovery are at the University of California (UC). UC owns the patent. They don't sell, they license. They don't license to people who sit on it, you will lose your license, or at least any exclusivity. Matter of fact their policy is actually to favor small local companies. So if you are a giant national or multinational corp you have a disadvantage even licensing.
Greedy bastards will patent it and demand huge fees to license the technology ... Greedy fuckers will make sure this never makes its way into anything I own.
Wrong and Wrong.
As these researchers are part of the University of California system (UC), UC owns the patent. UC's policy for licensing considers the nature of the company seeking the license. Some preference is given to smaller local companies over large multinationals for instance. Also UC retains ownership, they only license. So there is no burying the technology problem.
You are trying to align your opinion with Apple's on the basis of you having read the HIG. But I'm arguing with you, not your idea of hat Apple thinks. Apple would accept that embedding a manual in their phone productivity apps was an unfortunate compromise. One that follows from having to support editing of desktop office documents.
The point you are missing is that the unfortunate compromise happens in complicated solutions. Its not an Apple specific thing, nor an "office" app thing. Again, your suggestion of breaking things into multiple apps demonstrates a lack of understanding of the problem. One can not always go down the ideal path, be that small simple apps or all features/functionality intuitive. And thats sometimes true for smaller apps too. The more you claim otherwise the more my flashlight app satire seems spot on.
You have misread, I have not suggested commenting on opinions.
If you provide the facility how are you going to stop them? App Stores have enough work approving the apps themselves without approving the review responses too.
Actually you consistent demonstrate a failure to understand. Let me repeat it for you again. If a developer abuses the response feature that too is information. Information regarding how a developer views and treats customers. And that information is valuable in determining whether one wants to use a particular vendor's products. There is no need to filter such developer misuse, it too is data.
If anyone is making rookie mistakes here, it's not me. I've been in mobile apps for 17 years. You don't appear to be in the mobile app development industry at all.
Your comments suggest you may want to re-think things, perhaps contradicting Apple is not the best way to demonstrate your knowledge gained in those 17 years. I.e. Some apps do complicated things, not everything can be intuitive, sometimes an embedded manual is useful. See Apple's productivity app Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
What makes you think only hearing one side is a benefit to the public?
Because a review writer is entitled to give their opinion without being contradicted by the vendor.
You have misread, I have not suggested commenting on opinions. Only correcting erroneous information, as in feature X does not exist when in fact it does.
And it's not just a benefit to the public, but the developer too. Though many won't realise it. As I've tried to get across to you because it means their answer to a bad review is to make a better app rather than make an excuse or imply the user is wrong in not finding some unintuitive functionality.
You have got across little because you are misreading and misunderstanding. No one is saying simplicity and intuitive interfaces are not important. No one is saying customer opinion is to be contradicted. You are reading things in that are not there.
Again, what I have said is that:
(1) Sometimes a feature or functionality can not be intuitively apparent to a user. Especially minor rarely used features. The user has to explore and experiment, and an integrated manual can help in such cases.
(2) Correcting erroneous info in a review assists other readers.
Clue: Satire.
It wasn't satire. It was a line within a post were you were making a straight argument.
Whoosh ...
Context: Your suggestion that everything can be intuitive.
I never made any such suggestion.
You argued against the notion things aren't always so simple. What impression does that leave? You argue that Apple failed because they too embedded manuals in their productivity apps. You suggested complex apps be broken into multiple simpler apps. Again, things aren't always so simple.
Actually some do, they are embedded, see Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
Very much the exception. And yes, a failure.
Its not the exception when dealing with apps addressing complicated problems, apps that need to offer a wide variety of capabilities.
And various tutorials that take place on the first run perform a similar role, as well as other methods.
You mean onboarding. That's an entirely different thing, and is not a failure. It's very much one of the tools in the armoury of making apps intuitive. All good games do this.
Embedded manuals are tools too, because some things are inherently complicated. And a public response to a public criticism is a tool too, especially for 3rd parties reading along. See below.
Myopic.
Clearly you aren't in the mobile development industry. This is basic stuff.
Actually its a rookie mistake to think that basic guidelines and design principles are universally applicable, that there are no exceptions. Again, go read the Apple UI guidelines, go look at Apple's premier mobile productivity applications, Pages, Numbers, Keynote.
There is no magic bullet, user confusion is inevitable. It will always happen. The ability to correct some confusion when it is offered in public is a useful service to other users doing research.
Non trivial apps have support pages. Review sections of stores are not support pages.
Again, you offer a straw man. What has been repeatedly said is that replies can correct an erroneous piece of information that someone researching a product came across. Once again, the goal is more accurate information available to the public. What makes you think only hearing one side is a benefit to the public?
...of L. Ron Hubbard and claim it as his holy book. Oh. Wait.
He never publicly admitted his book/faith was a satire, a joke, etc. He smiled and kept a straight face and said that its real. That's why the FSM didn't make the cut, they admit the farce, they did not take the farce far enough.
My PC is 6. I put a "higher" end CPU ($300'ish) and "plenty" of RAM in it when I built it. I'm on my third video card upgrade. Its still good for videos games. Not the best, won't win the "pissing contests", but it still offers fun gaming experiences with current games.
No, you completely misunderstood and oversimplify.
Says the guy using a flashlight app as his example.
Clue: Satire.
Context: Your suggestion that everything can be intuitive.
Focus, and not succumbing to featureitis is very much a part of intuitiveness. Mobile apps don't come with manuals.
Actually some do, they are embedded, see Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote. And various tutorials that take place on the first run perform a similar role, as well as other methods. Why, because not everything can be intuitive. As Apple concedes in their UI guidelines.
And their active time per use is typically measured in seconds rather than minutes or hours.
Myopic. Again, you focus seems to be at the more simple end of the spectrum. Again, see Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
If you can't find a way to make an element of an app intuitive, hire a UX designer who can. Or consider that the feature does not belong in the app. (It may be that it deserves an app of it's own.)
There is no magic bullet, user confusion is inevitable. It will always happen. The ability to correct some confusion when it is offered in public is a useful service to other users doing research. That is the point of this thread, not UI design.
I went to take a real example rather than take one you selected or made up.
Right, because some things being unintuitive in Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote are not real world examples.
Your statistical sample of 1 does not invalidate the idea that a developer can do feedback right. And doing so offers useful information to a user researching an app.
Your idea that more information is necessarily better is another clue that you couldn't design a decent app to save your life.
You suggested everything can be intuitive, contrary to Apple's own UI guidelines and app implementations. And now you are confusing web page type information for a user doing research on an app with what an app actually puts on its screen via its UI. You might want to reconsider who needs a clue in this conversation.
And they only spent 100M recovering the said gold. Bargain and twice the price
Your missing something. Apple's 100M effort to remove used phones from the secondary market (used) in order to reduce competition for the primary market (new) is subsidized to the amount of 40M by recycling the phones removed from the market. Plus there is a further subsidy through public relations and brand image from the greening this program offers.
And the upcoming robotic disassembly may yield to more efficient recycling/recovery than shredding and other current methods.
Its not just about greening Apple's image and making customers feel good. It is also about removing used phones from the market. To interfere with a secondary market (used) that is competing with the primary market (new).
Thanking for the feedback and giving the support email address over and over again is not adding to the experience of reviews for people reading the reviews.
And that is not the type of response I offered as examples is it? Some developers do responses right, some do it wrong, and that too is information for the potential user of their products. Google does it better than Apple. They create an ecosystem where more information can be available. Apple is inferior in this respect.
That's a BS answer. Some apps are more complicated than a flashlight app.
An argument that only makes sense if you think that only flashlight apps can be intuitive.
No, you completely misunderstood and oversimplify. Not every element of an app can be intuitive. Look at Apple UI guidelines, they concede this and the focus needs to be on the most common operations. Look at Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Not everything is intuitive.
The movie / theatre thing is a poor analogy. We're essentially talking about the equivalent of a web page and Google has shown it to be quite feasible and useful to give devs a chance to reply. Its a solved problem. Google does it better than Apple.
If developers are posting unhelpful responses or otherwise inappropriate responses that tells you something about the dev and their attitude about customers. That too can be useful info.
So in the first case the app isn't intuitive enough.
That's a BS answer. Some apps are more complicated than a flashlight app. And see your own caveat below "Of course customers ...". A dev response allows for more accurate information. What is wrong with more accurate info?
The best dev response is to improve the app, not argue with the review.
Its not a debate of opinion, its a statement of a fact.
In the second, the review comment will have disappeared into the "comments on older versions" section,
Show comments for all versions is a popular option.
... and the fact that the feature is now in the app will be listed in the description of the
That lacks the "intuitiveness" you championed earlier. So in your opinion a user viewing all reviews needs to cross reference all software update descriptions, rather than a simply read an informative attachment to the complain of omission?
Of course customers aren't always right. Sometimes they say stupid things. But if it's a good app, they will be outnumbered, and sometime corrected by reviews from other customers.
And hence the utility of example 1.
Fact is good apps will get more positive reviews than bad apps. Regardless of devs getting a right to reply.
Its not about review numbers, its about providing accurate information.
Its also possibly a step back to the old brick and mortar days where small devs had to compete with large corporations for shelf space, in other words rarely get shelf space. It might undo the somewhat equalized footing of a good set of keywords in a search showing both the large and small developers. Where the difference may be brand recognition and not so much visibility to potential customers (as with brick and mortar shelf space).
Devs lie through their teeth on android review replies. I don't trust them at all.
And you see through it? What's the problem?
The problem is we're only hearing from one side, and that side is likely to misinform as well. At least with a developer followup one can hear both sides, more info is available. And if the response is BS marketing/sales stuff then that is info too.
Examples:
Cust: Doesn't do X?
Dev immediate response: We do support X, please see page YY in our manual, available on our website as a PDF.
or
Dev response two months later: We have added support for X in version 1.Z. Thank you for your suggestion.
While we're doing Google comparisons ... how about letting developers respond to a confused, erroneous or otherwise misinformed review.
A trade off is a cost-benefit analysis. In this case, the benefit is not very large.
No. The big benefit is unlikely. But the "big" part is what outweighs the "unlikely" part.
Benefit = amount of benefit TIMES probability of occurrence.
Yeah, "big" refers to amount. "unlikely" refers to probability. You've not seen one operand in a multiplication make the greater contribution to the result, "outweigh" the other?
The benefit is not very large, because the probability that there's anything useful on the phone is small.
No, in the unlikely event it indicates an unknown jihadi that is large, note the connection can be indirect, friend of friend. Again, criminals make mistakes that implicate others all the time.
As for people being unqualified to render an informed opinion. Well in matters of what the law is, yes, they are. Including and sometimes especially technical people.
A trade off is a cost-benefit analysis. In this case, the benefit is not very large.
No. The big benefit is unlikely. But the "big" part is what outweighs the "unlikely" part. That's why it's considered prudent to check such things.