Comment by crazygringo
12 years ago
Oh God why. I've got nothing against flat design done well, but this just makes everything so much harder to SEE.
Look at the example screen for "Control Center" -- it looks like a geometric indistinguishable mess. The line around buttons is the same as the line dividing sections is almost the same as the line in sliders.
The example screen for weather shows thin white text against a light blue background, which I can barely make out on my monitor, let alone on a phone.
If anything, phones need extra affordance as what is a label and what is tappable, since we have fat fingers, hold phones faraway where things are small, and often in bright sunlight where there's little contrast we can make out. Phones need extra contrast, not less.
I'm really not one for hyperbole, but Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave. This isn't about an aesthetic choice, it's just about common-sense usability and quality control. That weather app looks completely useless in the real world, and the fact that Apple's internal processes have allowed this to be launched does not bode well.
At the risk of getting flamed, you haven't actually tried it in the real world yet - you've looked at it on you monitor ...
I have. I'm typing this from iOS 7. My opinion has changed little from seeing it on the Keynote to actually using it. Some graphic details don't seem as bad in person and others are much worse.
On the plus side, it's very speedy. Plus, it makes existing 3rd party apps look glorious, with their attractive, last-generation looks.
I have a theory that the accelerometer-linked 3D "layer" effects might make the flat interface more usable in person. As in, the subtle perspective shift would make it obvious that a button is a button, etc. Can you comment on that? Are those effects extended to all of the UI elements?
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Are you running the same iOS 7 as I am? "Very speedy" is the last thing I would call it. Every animation seems to have horrible lag on my iPhone 5.
This early build doesn't seem to be optimized very much.
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The same can be said for Windows Phone.
That nobody in the real world has actually tried it yet?
Fair enough. But I remember when Apple first made the iTunes icons monochromatic, and everyone complained that they'd no longer be able to distinguish the icons. People seemed to adapt pretty quickly though.
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Isn't the whole point of flat design replacing the loud superfluousness of skeuomorphism's textures with equally jarring psychedelic colour schemes? That's how designers prove their worth, by adding more stuff, right?
Except neither Android nor WP8 follow that assumption/conclusion.
And neither does iOS 7.
I mean, where do you see the: "jarring psychedelic colour schemes"?
If anything the grant-parent brings up the example of the Control Center, which is the opposite of that, just a two-color subdued thing.
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Agreed. Did they do any kind of usability / legibility studies on the thinner typeface? I mean, I mostly use my phone to read email. Why would they reduce contrast on the default text and make it even harder to read?! Just because you have higher resolution screens, doesn't mean you can get away with a thinner sans serif. What's the point if everyone has to increase the size of the text to read it?
> Agreed. Did they do any kind of usability / legibility studies on the thinner typeface?
No, of course they didn't. Apple is widely acknowledged in the industry as having amateurish design and an utter lack of anything resembling perfectionism or attention to detail.
Seriously, this may be a flop from them, but I cannot comprehend the mindset that would surmise they did no usability testing off a few screenshots.
> Apple is widely acknowledged in the industry as having amateurish design and an utter lack of anything resembling perfectionism or attention to detail.
I would love to see your source on this one, because I never stop hearing the opposite.
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If they did usability testing with a wide range of people, I am pretty sure one of them would have leaked the design. I'm not sure how would have done usability testing with non-employees.
> Just because you have higher resolution screens, doesn't mean you can get away with a thinner sans serif.
Yes, it does, actually. As resolution increases, so does the Nyquist frequency, which means you can accurately convey higher-frequency signals. In spatial terms, more resolution means finer lines without aliasing errors.
Surely there is a hard limit on this though (unless we have bionic eyes and/or small expanding robot fingers (like in ghost in the shell (http://youtu.be/PkyZGZRnQb4)))
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A 0.01mm line is going to be invisible on a super high res is going to be pretty much invisible, regardless of Nyquist frequencies.
Are you seriously asking if Apple did usability testing for a design decision? Really?
Comments with "Really?" on the end are extremely disrespectful, and I see it all the time. Just because something is obvious and common-sense to you, does not mean it is to someone else. Offending someone is not a good form of persuasion. Please consider not doing that in future because you probably do have good ideas, and it would be nice if people heard them.
Speaking of this design, the icons are asymmetric. More so by the unharmonious colour selection. However, the notification centre and animations are well done.
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Rabino - I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. I'm trying to understand if you are commenting on Apple's well known philosophy of not engaging in any form of end-user design engagement, or whether you believe that a company of Apple's stature would absolutely engage in usability testing.
A lot (many? most?) of Apple's design decisions are made by designers who create the best product, based on a combination of their intuition, design sense, and overriding design principles.
Some application (Podcast App) - have clearly never seen any form of usability testing prior to release.
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Apple has significantly invested in accessibility technologies for iOS and OS X. The tail doesn't wag the dog, but I don't think they'll have out and out ignored accessibility concerns (legibility and usability for larger numbers) after convincing developers to go down that route.
One HN posting I just remembered from a while ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4590615
Thinner type and fullscreen layouts make the screen "look bigger" since they're too stubborn to make their phones human sized.
Those who knew said it would be "polarizing".
Indeed.
Regardless of what they had put out, is anyone doubting that the top comment of the most upvoted HN comment would be a groanfest?
#slatepitch
That's a pretty easy prediction though, the previous skeuomorphism was already polarizing and thus removing it would also be polarizing.
Why don't you wait until you have a freakin' phone in your hand and try it?
Because once the upgrade is installed there's no going back?
Backup your device-specific SHSH signatures for 6.x now!
(Or has Apple closed this hole yet with timestamping?)
Of course you can downgrade. You just can't downgrade after iOS 7 goes gold.
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Then use one of your friends that has the developer account, or wait till it's on every phone in the Apple Store. Either way, the point is to reserve judgment until you use it. Just like everything else.
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There is Apple marketing material they've made available. It's perfectly valid to make judgements from that in my opinion.
It's perfectly invalid to make judgements on usability without using it though.
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Those are screenshots of a beta! How categorically can you judge something until you have the final release in front of you?
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Well, watching the "in action" videos on an iPhone is pretty darn close.
You do realize you are on a web site designed for commentary on tech matters?
Tech commentary used to be more more than baseless hipster-y. Oh the good ol' days.
Because then there would be no comments here :)
the white text on light backgrounds is unbelievable
They could have at least added a little shadow or something, like they would usually. I don't know what they were thinking. I usually trust Apple with these design matters.
seems pretty inconsiderate toward those with impaired vision. there's little contrast, lots of light gray on white with pastel accents.
I guess that's why for people with impaired vision, there's always been a High Contrast mode in iOS
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It gets worse. In their design guidelines they say that instead of visual cues for buttons you should use COLORS. As a colorblind dude I'm fucking apalled.
If only we could get great quality text on all OSX retina display's now.. All my apps lag behind with blurry text on my macbook pro
yeah, the thin, light text didn't look great during the presentation, but i can't imagine they wouldn't test it in bright sunlight/normal mobile phone situations, so I'm gonna wait til its actually out and in front of me to judge.
I'm inside and I find it straining to read the labels of the four dock apps. Of course I know what they are, but I always find low-contrast, Helvetica Superthin designer porn very insulting to the user. Either show something or don't.
That could look just fine on a phone when looking hard to read on a projector in a auditorium