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    Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]

    (www.youtube.com)
    179 points joelkesler | 12 comments | 13 Dec 25 18:39 UTC | HN request time: 1.189s | source | bottom
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    jhhh ◴[13 Dec 25 22:41 UTC] No.46258932[source]▶
    I understand the desire to want to fix user pain points. There are plenty to choose from. I think the problem is that most of the UI changes don't seem to fix any particular issue I have. They are just different, and when some changes do create even more problems there's never any configuration to disable them. You're trying to create a perfect, coherent system for everyone absent the ability to configure it to our liking. He even mentioned how unpopular making things configurable is in the UI community.

    A perfect pain point example was mentioned in the video: Text selection on mobile is trash. But each app seems to have different solutions, even from the same developer. Google Messages doesn't allow any text selection of content below an entire message. Some other apps have opted in to a 'smart' text select which when you select text will guess and randomly group select adjacent words. And lastly, some apps will only ever select a single word when you double tap which seemed to be the standard on mobile for a long time. All of this is inconsistent and often I'll want to do something like look up a word and realize oh I can't select the word at all (G message), or the system 'smartly' selected 4 words instead, or that it did what I want and actually just picked one word. Each application designer decided they wanted to make their own change and made the whole system fragmented and worse overall.

    replies(5): >>46259329 #>>46259454 #>>46260143 #>>46261226 #>>46262023 #
    1. PunchyHamster ◴[14 Dec 25 01:51 UTC] No.46260143[source]▶
    > He even mentioned how unpopular making things configurable is in the UI community.

    Inability to imagine someone might have different idea about what's useful is general plague of UI/UX industry. And there seem to be zero care given to usage by user that have to use the app longer than 30 seconds a day. Productivity vs learning time curve is basically flat, and low, with exception being pretty much "the tools made by X for X" like programming IDEs

    replies(2): >>46260483 #>>46260684 #
    2. ryandrake ◴[14 Dec 25 03:16 UTC] No.46260483[source]▶
    Back in the 90s, you had a setting for everything! It was glorious. This trend of deliberately not making things configurable is the worst, and we can’t seem to escape it because artists are in charge of the UI rather than human interaction professionals.

    App designers need to understand that their opinions on how the app should look and work are just that: opinions. Opinions they should keep to themselves.

    replies(1): >>46260825 #
    3. stephenlf ◴[14 Dec 25 04:10 UTC] No.46260684[source]▶
    Convention over configuration is a powerful idea. Most people don’t want to twiddle with configs. The power user approach is the way to go.
    replies(2): >>46261603 #>>46263784 #
    4. 3v1n0 ◴[14 Dec 25 04:50 UTC] No.46260825[source]▶
    Try to maintain the whole matrix or possibilities then you tell me...
    replies(3): >>46261588 #>>46262843 #>>46264121 #
    5. eviks ◴[14 Dec 25 08:16 UTC] No.46261588{3}[source]▶
    Indeed, people aren't paid to do the good things, only the easy ones
    6. eviks ◴[14 Dec 25 08:18 UTC] No.46261603[source]▶
    Of course they don't, but since there is no magical way to make incompatible desires/workflow compatible, configuration is the only way out
    replies(1): >>46261836 #
    7. seba_dos1 ◴[14 Dec 25 09:16 UTC] No.46261836{3}[source]▶
    I rarely need to configure something on my PCs, but rarely is not never, and when I do really need an option, it better be there. There's a gradient between unmaintainable multidimensional matrices of options and "one size ought to fit everyone" and both ends of it make the user miserable.
    replies(1): >>46264151 #
    8. rcxdude ◴[14 Dec 25 13:23 UTC] No.46262843{3}[source]▶
    Which is why you should think about how these options interact and compose at the start, as opposed to only adding options in an ad-hoc manner (whether you do it willy-nilly or only when your arm is really twisted)
    replies(1): >>46263749 #
    9. hulitu ◴[14 Dec 25 15:32 UTC] No.46263749{4}[source]▶
    "You mean we shouldn't use 10 layers of abstraction and 274 libraries to achieve our goal ? I mean, we use a lot of resuources, but look how polished the UI is: everything is flat. "

    Thank god the RAM prices have risen. Maybe some people will start to programm with their heads instead of their (AI) IDE.

    10. hulitu ◴[14 Dec 25 15:35 UTC] No.46263784[source]▶
    > Most people don’t want to twiddle with configs.

    Most people also don't care about the mothers of programmers. Until, you know, they have to send an SMS using exactly (particular) one of the 2 SIMs present in the phone and the 20 years old app will not let them.

    11. array_key_first ◴[14 Dec 25 16:17 UTC] No.46264121{3}[source]▶
    It does make quality assurance an absolute nightmare, I would know, our application is like this to the 10th degree. Config on top of config on top of setting on top of options.

    But if you also want your product to be productive for a way array of use cases, it's necessary. You need to think about your market.

    12. array_key_first ◴[14 Dec 25 16:20 UTC] No.46264151{4}[source]▶
    I think when it comes to config too people really underestimate its power.

    On desktop, I often see people waste inordinate amounts of time on workflows that don't suit their use case. Little do they know - there's a config for that!

    For example, I'll see people holding outlook like it's radioactive. They'll do the same busy-body work of manually pruning their inbox and sorting stuff and deleting stuff. The config can really help them there, but I think they either don't know it's capabilities or are scared of it.