
How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name - digitalmud
http://fastcompany.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name
======
bad_user
" _So often, the user has to try touching everything on the screen just to
find out what are actually touchable objects._ "

This happened to me many times on iOS and I'm a (still young) software
developer, being familiar with most user interfaces that happened since
Windows 3.11 until now. To be honest, biggest culprits are third party apps,
but they follow official guidelines and Apple's example. This was my biggest
problem with Windows Phone too, with the whole transition to flat interfaces
that don't give clues on what can be tapped. If this can happen to us, then
other people don't stand a chance.

But you know what's worse? Every couple of years we change the UI just for the
sake of change.

~~~
nextos
Same here. I'd also add OS X UI has gone downhill since the good old Tiger
days, backporting all bad ideas from iOS.

Somehow, it feels like the hardware design guys at Apple took over UI design
and seem to have broken all the guidelines created by their former HIG lab,
which once was at the forefront of UI research [1].

Now it seems minimalism (flat design) for the sake of it trumps everything
else. I miss cozier designs, and so do many other heavy users I think.

[1]
[http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf](http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf)

------
koyote
Am I the only one who has always thought of the Apple UI to have always been
form over function/usability by a long shot?

I remember the first time I used an iMac: I spent about half an hour trying to
figure out how to eject a CD. A context menu might not look very elegant but
it's insanely useful and powerful and very easy to get the hang of. In the end
I had to be told/taught that the way to eject the CD on a mac was to move the
CD icon on the desktop to the trash (in the days of CD-RW drives, you'd think
this would erase the CD).

That, to me, is the sheer definition of an un-discoverable feature.

The iPhone's lack of back button (and the fact that apps are very inconsistent
in their back button placements) has brought me similar pains in getting
simple things done.

~~~
tatx
That Apple was ever good at design was probably the relative side effect of
other software and hardware developers being abysmally bad at it (probably due
to monopolistic inefficiencies). And now that the competition is heating up
and challenging Apple on the design front, the flaws that earlier would have
been swept under the carpet by ardent fans, including me, are becoming
difficult to disregard.

~~~
Bud
Uh, no. It's because they valued design highly, made it an indispensable part
of their company, hired great designers, and gave designers like Jony Ive
extraordinary power to shape products.

BTW, what flaws, precisely, have now magically become "difficult to
disregard", but were entirely invisible before? Just a couple examples will
do.

------
bko
I think Android has surpassed iOS in terms of design and usability. I upgraded
to a Android 5.0 recently (lightly modded by One Plus), and the design is
really stunning. The icons have been redesigned to appear as though they they
are made of actual flat material adding almost a hybrid 3d flat design that
looks great. The colors are vibrant without being overwhelming. Messenger and
Contacts applies a new color to your contacts which helps you keep in mind
with whom you are speaking. All the Google apps exhibit similar colors and
styles to add for consistency.

I'm not a designer and maybe its just personal preference, but I'm a long time
Android user and this is the first time the stock Android has been pleasant to
look at. I use other's iPhones and, despite the great display, the UI now
appears rather dull in comparison.

[https://design.google.com/](https://design.google.com/)

~~~
jonhohle

        > The production of beautiful objects is only one
        > small component of modern design…
    

As the authors say, and as Steve Jobs and Jony Ive have reiterated in almost
every Apple product launch, how something looks is only a small part of the
design Apple focuses on. Historically, the priority is how things _work_.

This is probably the most misunderstood aspect of Apple products. A screenshot
of software XYZ may look just as thoughtful as an Apple product, but rarely in
practice is that true.

~~~
look_lookatme
What has OP misunderstood? That he or she _should_ prefer iOS over Android
because of a demagogoic quote? It's unclear what your point is here.

That said, the other day I was using Google Maps for iOS and could not figure
out how to switch directions from public transit to car. It seriously took me
a few minutes of playing to realize how to do it. I feel like people
implementing Material do it in a kind of perfunctory way and that can be lossy
usability wise. On the other hand the Google Maps have a history of myopically
introducing big UX changes that make the product worse, so why would I expect
anything more from the team when implementing Material on iOS?

~~~
jonhohle
OP starts with:

    
    
        > I think Android has surpassed iOS in terms of
        > design and usability.
    

But then only describes how materials _looks_. Both Windows and Android have
been plagued with attempting to make things look a particular way without
consideration for how they _work_. Ironically, Apple is often criticized for
exactly this, when in my experience they really do sweat the _work_ details.

I'm not saying OP should prefer anything over another thing, just that only
talking about how devices look is missing the broader goals of design and
usability.

~~~
kuschku
Well, Android with Material started focusing a LOT on how things work, how
animations have to seem natural, gives guidelines on language and explains how
to structure your app.

------
cja
Moved from Windows to OSX a couple of years ago after hearing for so long how
much better the Mac experience and usability was.

Some examples of why this was wrong:

1\. Cmd-Tab lets me select a hidden window but it won't show it!

2\. Many frequently used click targets are too small. For example, the close,
minimise and maximise buttons.

3\. The close minimise and maximise buttons reveal their functions only when
the mouse is over them.

4\. There's no reliable way to maximise a window.

5\. Despite really trying to go keyboard-only, it's very difficult to avoid
using the mouse.

6\. The file browser doesn't show the aggregate size of selected files.

7\. Cmd+Down to open the selected file! Why not Enter?!

8\. I still have no idea which button Enter will press on a dialog box. There
seems no way to make this clearer or to activate something like
Alt+underlined_letter_of_desired_button_caption.

9\. There's no Cut operation, only Copy and Paste.

My MacBook Pro is awesome hardware but Windows is way ahead of OSX.

~~~
jbrooksuk
Cut can be done with CMD+C and then I think it's CMD+Alt+V for paste and
remove original.

~~~
cja
Thanks. There's no context menu option like in Windows so no one knows about
this without googling.

~~~
dmd
Have I just walked into some alternate reality?

On my Mac, cut is command-x.

~~~
hyperion_
In the Finder it isn't.

------
Drdrdrq
My pet peeve: when I try to click a button and just before I touch the screen
it changes, so I hit completely another button (on Androod - but it is the
same everywhere). So instead of cancelling a call I place another one, to a
different person. No I didn't intend to call my mother in law!

The solution is so simple it hurts: if a clickable area has been shown less
than X ms before the touch / click, ignore the event. Nobody can type this
quick except for Superman, and he can change this via some setting, if you
think he will be annoyed.

I am not sure why I haven't seen this solution anywhere yet. Do others not
encounter this problem?

~~~
Ao7bei3s
Can you give a more concrete example? I'm on Android, and I've never
experienced that.

Your suggestion would only work for very undeterministic parts of the UI,
though.

Good UIs are predictable, and sophisticated users "know" where to click and
don't need to read buttons, so they're very fast. Enforcing some delay will
make the system seem "laggy".

So now you have to make a distinction between "predictable parts of the UI"
and "unpredictable parts of the UI" and everything's not all that simple
anymore.

A better solution is to not to pop up random things at random times in random
places.

~~~
Drdrdrq
I place a call and a callee is busy. I want to click "end call" button, but
just a bit before that app figures out it can stop the call, so it switches
back to main screen. The touch on the same spot now means something entirely
else - so a new call is placed and I try to stop it in a fit of panic.

It happened at least 3 times in last two months.

Update: I am not suggesting adding a delay, that wouldn't help with anything.

------
duncanawoods
Its a good article.

Force touch is a good example of this. Adding a new action without any
signifier for its availability or its purpose when we already have a baffling
mix of durations and gestures. Madness.

An innovation by a platform would be to invent a new way to aid discovery /
learnability of a UI not just add a new input. For example gestures - there
should be a system standard way to be told about the available gestures and
their effect for each screen - a bit like browsing a menu to learn what a tool
can do. Instead its left to each app to try and invent a tutorial mode.

~~~
rangibaby
Steve Jobs was against hiding features in modes, which is why the iOS lacked
any kind of context menu until version 3, and Apple mice lacked right click
for a long time.

Speaking of Apple's mice, they are some of the worst offenders in "looks good
but don't try using it". There's the infamous hockey puck, and currently the
Magic Mouse.

I use one when I'm desperate, but usually give up when it magically gives me
hand cramps due to it's shape. A bar of soap is more ergonomic, and slides
around better too.

This article isn't served well by it's sensational tone. If children can pick
up something up and use it without training, then it's already doing a better
job than a mouse, or even a keyboard, which you basically have to be literate
to use.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice)

~~~
izacus
I thought I was the only one that gets wrist pains after using the Magic
Mouse. There's something really wrong with how that piece of hardware is
designed it seems :/

~~~
rangibaby
Do you have big hands? I've used Microsoft mice since the Intellimouse
Explorer 3.0 because it's easy to push around. I know people who hate it
because it's too big for them though.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I'm very comfortable with the Apple mouse.

But that's a single data point. The problem seems to be that the industry has
decided that everyone has the same standard pair of hands.

Which is nonsense, obviously. It's like selling shoes or clothes in a single
standard size.

So what happens in practice is people keep trying different mouse models until
they find one that happens to fit. For me, the Magic Mouse works fine. For
someone else, it won't fit at all.

This is also a problem with design. In spite of a century of theory and
history there's really no such thing as an ideal standard design, because
everyone's cognitive needs/skills are different.

So what happens in practice is that "design" means "looks polished and
expensive, and confers accessible social proof". This attracts a price
premium, and that's where the feedback loop is in the market.

The feedback loops for usability are more diffuse and not nearly as strong.

The problem with Google's Material is that it doesn't understand the social
proof element. It's purely utilitarian. (IMO it's not brilliant for usability
either. But that's a different issue. _)

Apple's design language has been much better at creating social proof through
aesthetics. As long as it keeps doing that, usability can be good-but-not-
great and it will still be a commercial success.

_Never mind Windows 8/10 - the less said about that, the better.

------
purpled_haze
I wish the authors had spent a few hours more honing their argument, because
some of the points are really good.

Where it fell flat for me:

* The post was much too long. I was intently reading but soon realized that it was all over the place and started having to skip through to try to dig out the main points.

* They admitted that they weren't even working at Apple during the time when it was designing successful products.

* They admitted that iOS 9 solved many of the problems quickly at the end without saying which ones or how they failed and while introducing new problems (memory?) that only served to confuse the reader.

* The authors' argument was incoherent. It seems to be building up reasons why Apple's design was bad, but they are all over the place. "It's just bad" is not an argument. Lay the groundwork. Provide evidence for each point and evidence against arguments against those points. Tie it all up.

Some of the information in here would make great articles on their own, e.g.
I'd like to read a full criticism of Apple's new font, how the Human Interface
Guidelines list changes over the years and how it could be better, and the
whole Dieter Rams piece would have made an excellent article even outside of
the context of Apple's failures.

I think few that have been using iOS and OS X over the years would dispute
that Apple has dropped the ball since Jobs' death. While much of Apple's
design still trumps others', others have blindly followed Apple and done an
ever worse job. (I'm looking at you, Windows 8, which was a reaction to both
iOS's use in the iPad and the terrible AppStore trend introduced in OS X.)
Hopefully, Microsoft, Google, and others have realized by now that leading and
innovating doesn't mean copying or reacting out of fear to Apple's direction-
it means hiring extremely creative people that understand user-centric design.

But, even though there are problems at Apple and with design worldwide thanks
to Apple's mistakes, the authors of this post haven't made it much clearer
_why_ they dropped the ball or how we can all understand how to avoid those
problems.

------
stevoski
The authors, Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini, have both been rather cranky in
their writings for years. Sometimes Tognazzini seems almost too ready to
criticize anything new.

cf: Tognazzini's "Top Ten Reasons the Apple Dock Sucks"
([http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html](http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html))

------
collyw
He seems to diect a lot of critisim at iOS, basing it on design principles
that appear to be more relevant to desktop computing. Discovering new
features, undo, consistencey. These seem relevant when using a computer to
create something, but less so on a phone which is usually used as a media
consumption device.

~~~
vlehto
I agree. Criticizing kindle reader because it lacks desktop functionality is
comparing apples and oranges.

But we are talking smartphones here. If you claim that smartphone is no more
than kindle reader with ability to call, then why is it _smart_ -phone? How
can apple market it's phones with "25 billion apps downloaded"?

And eventually could you insist that owning a smartphone is somehow essential
for modern life? You could just settle with dumb phone, books and old walkman.
If smartphone is not essential then you can't make apps with the assumption
that "everybody will have smartphone soon". If you don't assume that,
smartphones are doomed to be a just luxuries.

Then stuff like "you need to optimize your website for mobile" is pretty much
like saying "we need to optimize our streets for roller skating".

If you think that, I would honestly agree. I think smartphones are just a fad.
But I would not bet on it.

------
sambe
Strangely composed article: "Norman" is introduced from nowhere along with the
multiple authors.

Some valid points but all rather overstated ("destroying design") and finishes
with admitting that a lot was fixed in iOS 9. However, that's not enough
because another overblown article calls new features "secret"...

------
arihant
You know, a lot of these features are so mindlessly piled that for an existing
iPhone user it does not feel like cognitive overload.

But my mom used the newest iPhone last week -- she used iPhone 4 as her full
time phone back in the day -- and she could not navigate Safari properly.
That's how unusable the iPhone is now even for a legacy iOS user. Whatever
happened to days when toddlers could figure out iPads? Is this really the
company that brought sliding, tapping, pinching actions to touchscreens?

I think when it comes to Flat UI, Apple seriously lost the new design wars to
Google. To add function, you need corresponding forms. Previously, Apple could
hide the new function in the skeuomorphism wrapper and it didn't feel like too
much on the plate. Form wasn't needed as it mimicked real world. With 7.0 and
beyond, they tried to use the z-axis, but willingly chose form over function
over and over again, and it shows! Google, on the other hand with their
material design and paper element succeeded in wrapping together functionality
in 3 dimensions, widgets (paper elements) and feedback based animation in such
a way that the usability endpoint is very static to interact with the various
functions. If you can use the Phone app on Lollipop, you can use anything.

And all this while Apple managed to put in yet another dimensions to somehow
preserve their z-axis to two layers to make sure integrity of Flat UI is
preserved. iOS' UI isn't just flat, it's also congested -- just like my flat
table.

~~~
mcphage
> Whatever happened to days when toddlers could figure out iPads?

Nothing happened to those days; they're still here.

------
k_vi
The aritcle is just vaguely describing user experience from a "first time
user" point of view, which is clearly wrong, like someone is going to throw
away his idevice after his first use. As a counter-point this might be true
for websites or even some kind of apps, but not really for a device that is
going to be your everyday thing.

I've been a regular user of windows and linux and while back, until I switched
to a Mac a while back. It took some time tinkering and reading to get used to
it, but once I got the hang it has become really productive - some gestures
like three finger drag, switch panes, two finger tap to double click are some
time savers.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four
sharpening the axe." \- Abraham Lincoln

------
nate
I think too much time is spent thinking only "obvious" features are well
designed. If it's not obvious it's poorly designed. It doesn't have to be this
rigid dichotomy. I think Jason Fried put it best here:
[https://medium.com/@jasonfried/the-obvious-the-easy-and-
the-...](https://medium.com/@jasonfried/the-obvious-the-easy-and-the-
possible-a09387ad3652) Some stuff should be obvious, but some can just be
easy, and some - just possible. Putting things into those three buckets vs
trying to cram everything into obvious is where we make well designed things.

------
carlosrg
Agreed 100%, particularly the thing about thin fonts and lack of contrast. I'm
27 years old and I had to turn on the accessibility option "Increase contrast"
on newer OS X versions to avoid getting headaches; so I went back to
Mavericks. My next computer won't be a Mac, I'm not interested in using an OS
that causes me literal pain. Seeing that Windows is going down that route too
with terrible and blurry font rendering in Windows 10 seems like the only
option is Linux, where at least you can adjust the UI to suit your needs.

------
musesum
Using iOS means learning how to finger dance. Press-Press-Tap-Pause-Swipe-
Pull-and-Slide!

For a laugh, I walked into a UX lab at this year's WWDC. I started to talk
about my app in terms of GOMS - specifically Fitts law. There were two Apple
UX engineers. He didn't know what the hell I was referring to. She did - and
really enjoyed exploring the tradeoffs from a user-centered-design
perspective. We discussed personas. Gesture cost. And the tradeoff of breaking
an idiom. I hope she gets promoted.

I was introduced to GOMs by Jef Raskin. He also left when Jobs came back. I
wonder if there is a tradeoff between product and UX. Parc had rigorous design
during its downturn. Apple had great designers during its downturn. Maybe part
of the magic is hiding the rabbit under the hat.

And then there's Apple Music [shaking head] geez.

------
tmd83
My foremost example of apple's form over function is actually the 'Form' of
the hardware. Every apple product that I have touched the phones, pads and
macbooks are a slippery nightmare. They are often thin enough to be impossible
to grip and trying to get even thinner for no reason. They have clean slippery
lines everywhere, edges sharp enough that I think it will give you deep cut if
it falls in the proper angle again for no reason. The only saving grace I
found with iphones is that for the thinner width the grip isn't as bad it
would be otherwise.

I remember my fear of dropping my office macbook every time I had to move it
the first few weeks and while I got rid of the fear mostly the device didn't
get any safer to use.

The biggest crime of apple probably (if I'm attributing this right) is it has
pushed the idea so much and corrupted the whole market and other companies
that everyone now tries to be a 1mm thinner as if that makes it look any nicer
and just makes it hotter or slower or lowers battery. I think the surface book
(I have only seen pictures) might have better grip on the hinge side but even
its edges look sharp if not as bad as the apple product.

Now if you talk about weight than at least has the benefit of usability when
it gives you 3lb full power laptop. But even for a phone does it matter if its
135g vs. 145g?

------
drvortex
As someone who has actually found Apple's design principles to be stupid and
dumbed-down to the point of being dumb, I am not sure if I agree or disagree
with this article.

