Hidden interface controls that affect usability

There is a sweet spot in between those two extremes if you stop trying to build a compromise of a UI for both, touch screens and desktops. (sadly we still do not have the reality demoed by apple and google 10 years ago, where touch screens have hover detection, maybe XR gaze detection will bring this) You can pack extreme amounts of features without cluttering the interface or sacrificing discoverability by only showing most features on hovering certain areas. This is risk and effort free from user perspective, as users are much more explorative when no clicking is involved and it is clear an interaction will not trigger features by accident in the discovery process.

Im especially passionate about this because having ADHD makes one sensitive to irrelevant stimuli in the periphery but being a power user for most software the dumbification of software happening since mobile apps drives me insane. I want software where a feature being used by the top 5 to 10 % power users once a month is not being ripped out if that once a month use provides high value for that group.

> if you stop trying to build a compromise of a UI for both, touch screens and desktops

Agree many of the problems have to do with this, yet it’s barely mentioned by armchair designers. Temporally hidden and narrow scrollbars? Makes perfect sense for scrolling on touch screen (since you don’t touch them directly), but very annoying on desktop.

Back in the pre-touch days we’d have a lot of hover menus. But with a phone today? Nobody likes the hamburger/three dots, but there isn’t a better alternative without losing context. And nobody uses hover anymore for functional purposes.

But, I also don’t think building entirely separate apps and especially web sites for different form factors is desirable. We probably should be better at responsive design, and develop better tooling and guidelines.