The Death of UI Consistency ?'s | The Coffeehouse

Sourcecode
Whatever it is, I didn't do it.

This Interesting blog post made me think about the reality of what seems to be happening and what will most likely happen over the next couple years (rich interface, more control, etc..), not just on the web but on the desktop as well.

Blog Post Wrote wrote:

Ends up the title bar controls for palette windows in CS3 are on the right side, Windows-style. “X” for close, “_” for collapse. God, that just looks so wrong – how did this ever get approved? If Adobe really wanted to put these controls in the same location on both platforms, why not do it the Mac way? If Windows users cared about consistency, they wouldn’t be using Windows.

I suppose with WPF/Flex/Apollo and advent of really rich interfaces it’s an inevitable fate. With much more control over the look and feel of our applications one is more inclined to change and reinvent the user experience. Some perhaps will be for the better.

As the author states the typical web user is now very much accustomed to a new experience for each page visited.

Do you think the same will occur with desktop applications?

I think yes.

Has the user evolved to the point of being able to quickly adapt to new experiences for the desktop?

I think perhaps not quite yet, but soon.

How do you think the user will perceive these changes?

I’m not quite sure on this one.

Should we hold true to the current standards, or should we push the boundary in UI innovation?

I think we should push the boundaries but stay loyal to the most important points. Given the new power available to designers I would imagine to stifle it would be a real shame. I also think there are allot of ways still to innovate the UI part of the computer experience.

In any case I’m quite sure we will see some real drastic changes and bad designs over the next couple of years, but I think we will also see some really good innovation.

Thoughts?

thumbtacks2

Sourcecode wrote:

Blog Post Wrote wrote:
Ends up the title bar controls for palette windows in CS3 are on the right side, Windows-style. “X” for close, “_” for collapse. God, that just looks so wrong – how did this ever get approved? If Adobe really wanted to put these controls in the same location on both platforms, why not do it the Mac way? If Windows users cared about consistency, they wouldn’t be using Windows.

What an odd commentary. And the "good ol days" stretch back much further than Filemaker on the Apple/Mac platform. Maybe the author that this blogger quoted should spend some time checking out the Apple II museum to really see the "good ol days". Like Billy Joel once sang:

"Cause the good ole days weren't
Always so good, And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems..."

Concerning Adobe products, if you open up Macromedia Flash Pro, the main screen/tab uses a dash, a double square and an 'x's for controls (the section where you actually edit your fla file...can't think of what that is called, though).

On the other point, I don't think you can blame the web for the supposed "demise" of desktop application UI consistency. The fact is, it was never really there in entirety anyway. There are plenty of inconsistent UI designs on the web, however, and there are plenty of sites that suffer from internal inconsistency where they basic break their own design rules. Have desktops apps really been that different? I can remember plenty of strange designs from the 80's and early 90's.

As far as desktop apps, I want to see more 3-D innovation and I'm interested in what is going on with WPF. I also know that there will be even more apps now with inconsistency in three dimensions instead of two. Oh well. All that said, it would be nice if some developers took a design class or too.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

It'll sort itself out after a little while, undoubtedly. People will go crazy on all sorts of whacky interfaces, but eventually they'll realize that users need to know exactly how a certain UI element works intuitively. And you need a certain level of consistency for that. Eventually, we'll get a good mix of consistency and design.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

Haha! Great quote.

That's also what I thought when everybody was speaking that WPF is giving everybody the power to created completely custom controls. Design guidelines will become more and more required. I see all these designers with their cool ideas how to use an app and how to make a fancy control. *fear*

That's also why AJAX doesn't feel real. Each app looks different and none like the other.

DigitalDud

Applications should only have similar UIs if they perform similar tasks. You shouldn't force consistency when it doesn't have any practical use. If your program doesn't need a status bar, don't put one in.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

DigitalDud wrote:
Applications should only have similar UIs if they perform similar tasks. You shouldn't force consistency when it doesn't have any practical use. If your program doesn't need a status bar, ~~don't put one in.~~ put in a ribbon instead.

fixed it

Honestly, though, UI functionality is best if it is obvious. The problem is, though, that as you use a system, it becomes more obvious to you even if it isn't obvious to a new user.

I still have trouble finding rarely used stuff in IE7 because they moved everything around. A 10-year-old who just started surfing the web wouldn't have a problem because they didn't have the time to imprint the menu structure on their brains.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

DigitalDud wrote:
Applications should only have similar UIs if they perform similar tasks. You shouldn't force consistency when it doesn't have any practical use. If your program doesn't need a status bar, don't put one in.

True, but it helps a great deal if users know instinctively that they can close the application by pressing the red button with the x at the top right of the window, or for instance, how to use the keyboard to give a combobox focus and select an item from the list.

ScanIAm wrote:

I still have trouble finding rarely used stuff in IE7 because they moved everything around.

I hear a lot of people have trouble with IE7's differing UI. That always perplexes me, because within the first five minutes of using it I realized where everything was. Printing and favorites are in plain sight, and if I want to do something with the page, I click page. If I want to do something else, I click Tools. I don't know how they could've made it more clear without crowding the clean UI with stuff.

The only thing that annoys me is that the Add Favorites button is next to the Favorites button, and not inside the Favorites window that pops out. Every single time I want to add a favorite, I open the favorites window, and then realize that I should've clicked the other button.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

Bas wrote:

ScanIAm wrote:
I still have trouble finding rarely used stuff in IE7 because they moved everything around.

I hear a lot of people have trouble with IE7's differing UI. That always perplexes me, because within the first five minutes of using it I realized where everything was. Printing and favorites are in plain sight, and if I want to do something with the page, I click page. If I want to do something else, I click Tools. I don't know how they could've made it more clear without crowding the clean UI with stuff.

The only thing that annoys me is that the Add Favorites button is next to the Favorites button, and not inside the Favorites window that pops out. Every single time I want to add a favorite, I open the favorites window, and then realize that I should've clicked the other button.

Favorites is one of the places that I meant. In fact, it took me longer than it should to figure out how to import/export favorites.

theshadguy

I just want to say that I am a HUGE fan of having the Close, Min, Max buttons on the LEFT side of the window (as in Mac OS X). At first (if you switch to Mac), you think it's dumb. But then you realize that all the MENUS are on the Left hand side. We also read from left-write (well, western soceity at least), so it just feels so natural. But I agree, having inconsistencies (yes, even in OS X) can be a pain sometimes, but only if only if they are not self-explanitory. And I feel IE7's UI is a mess!

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{insert caption here}

theshadguy wrote:
I just want to say that I am a HUGE fan of having the Close, Min, Max buttons on the LEFT side of the window (as in Mac OS X). At first (if you switch to Mac), you think it's dumb. But then you realize that all the MENUS are on the Left hand side. We also read from left-write (well, western soceity at least), so it just feels so natural.

Yeah... I've even gotten to the point where (in Windows) I double-click the window icon to close things Windows 3.1-style rather than using the X on the complete opposite side. With my taskbar at the top (so the start menu's at the top left), and menus and toolbar controls appearing starting at the top-left corner of the window, moving to the opposite side of the screen wastes time.

Ray6

DigitalDud wrote:
Applications should only have similar UIs if they perform similar tasks. You shouldn't force consistency when it doesn't have any practical use. If your program doesn't need a status bar, don't put one in.

Agreed. I think familiarity is more important than sticking to any particular notion of UI consistency.

That's why MP3 applications have a big glowing button marked 'Play', instead of forcing folk to hunt down the 'Play' item from a menu.

Ray6

theshadguy wrote:
I just want to say that I am a HUGE fan of having the Close, Min, Max buttons on the LEFT side of the window (as in Mac OS X). At first (if you switch to Mac), you think it's dumb. But then you realize that all the MENUS are on the Left hand side. We also read from left-write (well, western soceity at least), so it just feels so natural. But I agree, having inconsistencies (yes, even in OS X) can be a pain sometimes, but only if only if they are not self-explanitory. And I feel IE7's UI is a mess!

Mmm ...

I think it's one of those swings and roundabout things. The reason that MS puts them on the right could be that they're easier to hit for right handed people.

Would be nice if you could just move the buttons to which ever side you felt more comfortable with.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

Bas wrote:
People will go crazy on all sorts of whacky interfaces, but eventually they'll realize that users need to know exactly how a certain UI element works intuitively. And you need a certain level of consistency for that.

*cough* Office 2007. IE7. Heck even MSN with it's custom close,maximise etc buttons

Seriously MS cause a lot of this by introducing new UI styles in office, which everyone rushes to copy; despite those UIs breaking all the commonality and guidelines that came before (including those Windows UI guidelines)

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

blowdart wrote:

Bas wrote: People will go crazy on all sorts of whacky interfaces, but eventually they'll realize that users need to know exactly how a certain UI element works intuitively. And you need a certain level of consistency for that.

*cough* Office 2007. IE7. Heck even MSN with it's custom close,maximise etc buttons

Seriously MS cause a lot of this by introducing new UI styles in office, which everyone rushes to copy; despite those UIs breaking all the commonality and guidelines that came before (including those Windows UI guidelines)

Well, the MSN close button may not be red, but it's still the same close button. I mean, you can look at the MSN window for a fraction of a second, and you'll still know exactly how to close it.
Office 2007, yeah, I'll hand you that with the Ribbon and the Office... Pearl, or whatever it's called. That's a pretty harsh break in style.
But I was thinking more on a smaller scope. Like controls. The fact that clicking a button is the same as tabbing to it to give it focus and then pressing space or enter. Or that you can hold ALT and press an underlined letter to perform the action of whatever that mnemonic was for.
It'd be incredibly annoying if some interface-guy suddenly felt that the mnemonic letters should be bold and activated by holding tilde, or that you can't 'click' a button with the enter key, but need to press F10 because he reserved the enter key for something else.

Heck, for a while even Wikipedia hijacked the Ctrl+F combo to give their own search box focus. That was incredibly confusing.

DarthVista
...

blowdart wrote:
Seriously MS cause a lot of this by introducing new UI styles in office, which everyone rushes to copy; despite those UIs breaking all the commonality and guidelines that came before (including those Windows UI guidelines)

Well said! The Windows UI drives this entire industry forward. It always has, and always will. IIRC, wasn't Windows copied by the first Macs that came out? Circa 1984?

Sigh.

Linus, start your photocopier!

theshadguy

Ray6 wrote:

theshadguy wrote:I just want to say that I am a HUGE fan of having the Close, Min, Max buttons on the LEFT side of the window (as in Mac OS X). At first (if you switch to Mac), you think it's dumb. But then you realize that all the MENUS are on the Left hand side. We also read from left-write (well, western soceity at least), so it just feels so natural. But I agree, having inconsistencies (yes, even in OS X) can be a pain sometimes, but only if only if they are not self-explanitory. And I feel IE7's UI is a mess!

Mmm ...

I think it's one of those swings and roundabout things. The reason that MS puts them on the right could be that they're easier to hit for right handed people.

Would be nice if you could just move the buttons to which ever side you felt more comfortable with.

You know what, you could be right! I am left handed, acually. But I certainly agree, you should have a choice

stevo_
Human after all

First thing I do when I install MSN now is click "Show the menu bar". I can't stand windows breaking their format. Its not like the menu bar completely ruins application design...