

Google Currents - Yet another contribution to the UI-fragmentation of Android - lominming
http://minming.posterous.com/

======
bane
"Apple set the bar for realistic textured apps. Developers followed."

IMHO, this was to be avoided. I think this move on Apple's part to move
towards such literal skeuomorphism was a major step back. After decades of
learning that literal analogies on computing devices simply doesn't work all
that well, Apple decided to forget about all of that lesson learned stuff and
just throw it all away.

Even Gruber can't manage to fake gushing over it

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/against-
skeuomor...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/against-
skeuomorphism)

 _These themes aren’t lies. They’re not designed to help users understand how
these apps work. They’re just decoration. They’re per-app branding. Apple no
longer endorses system-wide visual uniformity. Special apps are supposed to
look special. Why is Find My Friends wrapped in rich Corinthian leather?
Because someone at Apple likes (and, sadly, if my guess is right, better said
liked, past tense) how it looks._

I'd say in general the design gods are not happy with this move

[http://www.andymangold.com/skeuomorphism-the-opiate-of-
the-p...](http://www.andymangold.com/skeuomorphism-the-opiate-of-the-people/)

<http://madebymany.com/blog/apples-aesthetic-dichotomy>

<http://kensegall.com/blog/tag/ical-address-book/>

[http://cushley.net/2011/07/in-depth-os-x-lion-review-
part-3-...](http://cushley.net/2011/07/in-depth-os-x-lion-review-part-3-new-
visual-changes/)

So in less than half a dozen links this design trend is called cheap "kitsch",
"infantile", patronizing lies, "hideous" etc. These are not slight
disagreements, these are fighting words.

I agree that Google's Android apps suffer from terrible UI consistency
problems, but using Apple's trend towards textured apps as an example of
consistency cum success doesn't work here.

A better example might be the pre-OS X guidelines that Apple used to publish.
You couldn't tell one company's application from another!

In the end though, I'm not entirely sure that it really matters all that much.
Users will learn how to use the apps they want, and they'll think about those
apps as tasks, each with discrete ways of doing things. e.g. opening a car
door is different than opening a fridge door is different from opening a
closet door is different from opening the screen door is different from
opening the shower door etc. UI consistency just isn't _that_ important, it's
just annoying when you notice it.

~~~
michaelwenton
Two things. First, I think it's pretty universally agreed that Apple's trend
toward skeuomporphism is bad. But that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't created
a consistent set of UI standards for iOS. Both because of culture and because
of the built-in toolkit, UI elements among apps on iOS are very standard. This
is especially true of Apple-built apps, which is why the blog post detailing
Google's inconsistencies is so strange to me.

Secondly, Apple does in fact still publish Human Interface Guidelines, and
while they're not followed to the degree that they were pre-OS X, they are
still taken seriously by most developers and designers of Mac software.

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Intro/Intro.html)

~~~
bane
* Apple does in fact still publish Human Interface Guidelines, and while they're not followed to the degree that they were pre-OS X*

Right, which is the problem IMHO. Even Apple can't muster up enough will to
follow them these days with their own apps.

Are the apps generally good looking on their own? Most of them are, there's a
few "what were they thinking" moments.

The problem though is that even Apple isn't following the HIG these days and
that spells doom and gloom for anybody who wishes to hold them up as the high
water mark for design houses to follow. Pre-OS X it was a very solid design
language. Pretty much everything looked like everything else, and it all
looked pretty good. You really had to work hard to make an ugly piece of
software.

 _Both because of culture and because of the built-in toolkit_

And you are also right with this, having a built-in toolkit, with all sorts of
good looking, consistent, well-behaved interface elements is the key here.
Android gives you layout control (great for different screen sizes/resolution)
but doesn't seem to provide anywhere near the level of toolkitting needed,
while iOS takes up the lessons learned in the pre-OS X days and provides an
awesome toolkit.

Then Apple manages to ignore the whole thing and try to make everything look
like something I threw away 15 years ago because computing devices were
better.

------
mhw
I don't know about fragmentation - a quick look through the examples pulled
out in the linked article just makes me think "sloppy".

But I do want to pick up on this idea that touch-based interfaces should all
have the same look and feel. That idea made (and to some extent still makes)
sense when you have a large desktop shared by a number of different
applications, and the user is constantly shifting between them as part of
their workflow.

But I think there's been a shift over the last few years. On the desktop we
have monolithic applications where the user's workflow is expected to be
entirely within the application, and these applications have increasingly
adopted their own specialised UI style and assumed that they will run full
screen. I first saw this with 3d graphic applications like Blender, but you
can also see it in things like Aperture and Lightroom with their inconsistent
dark palette.

And I think this is more pronounced on smartphones and particularly on
tablets, where the application you are running takes over the whole display.
They aren't described as "immersive" for nothing. I'd argue that when an
application is something that you completely immerse yourself in, the need for
visual consistency is reduced (though not removed). Yes, we need some common
visual language, and for people to understand how that relates to common
gestures for interaction. But I think the stand-out applications will be the
ones that have a visual style that is consistent with the content of the
application, and maybe with other applications from the same publisher.

I'd draw a comparison with magazines, particularly as that's representative of
the kind of content that is making its way into custom applications on
tablets. We don't expect Vogue and Wired to share a consistent font and the
same iconography to help the reader navigate - instead we expect each of them
to have their own house style consistent from issue to issue, but different
from other magazines from the same stable. At the same time we do have certain
common expectations that come from the conventions and physical form of the
magazine, and we may also notice some common design elements due to them
sharing a publisher.

I'd compare this with Apple's use of skeuomorphism in some applications. Maybe
we should think of it as Apple's house style for some of its applications, and
not seek to ape it in our own. It's quite Ok to develop your own house style
building on a common design vocabulary - look at how Tapbots
(<http://tapbots.com/>) work their own style into their apps for example.
We're still working out what works best on these devices, but I'm not
convinced that consistency of visual design is all that important any more.

------
notatoad
when criticizing android, fragmentation is a word that means something. This
isn't what it means. Stop using buzzwords.

~~~
nextparadigms
I agree, the word fragmentation means nothing here. The word he was looking
for was inconsistency, but he chose fragmentation because that's the most
popular negative buzzword related to Android, even though it makes little
sense to use it in this case.

That being said, I agree that Google should strive for even more consistency
in their OS and their own apps. I do think they are learning and moving in the
right direction, though. They just need to do it faster and even more
holistically.

------
extension
Websites all have different looking widgets and it's not considered an
atrocity. You can make a unique looking button and as long as it has
sufficient visual cues and affordances, it will obviously look like a button.

~~~
icebraining
Agreed. People have shown that they are fine jumping from websites (and "web
apps") without any common UI guidelines. Uniformity is overrated.

------
natrius
This article correctly points out that there are inconsistencies between some
of Google's apps, but it doesn't demonstrate that it's a problem. Sure, I'd
agree that it's something to be avoided, but the only problem pointed out that
seems likely to cause confusion is the more button with a different icon.

Presumably there are user tests that show that these apps are straightforward
to use.

~~~
nicpottier
> Presumably there are user tests that show that these apps are
> straightforward to use.

What exactly makes you think that? And more importantly, if these were backed
by real experimentation why don't they agree on their conclusions?

As stated the biggest problem is that they don't provide a consistent model
for how developers should build their apps. And that shows, 3rd Party Android
apps are far far less consistent than those on iOS.

~~~
natrius
I'm not saying they attempted consistency then decided against it for
usability reasons. I'm saying that inconsistent interfaces can still be
usable.

Third party apps on iOS are similarly inconsistent. The Facebook app works
very differently from the Twitter app. I think that's okay.

------
nchuhoai
I Like these posts. Getting more and more into UX and its clearly something
more people should pay attention to

------
Juha
I think part of the problem is that all new Google apps want to showcase the
newest UI elements and themes. As a techie I do enjoy seeing apps with new UX
innovations often. Also from developer point of view its good to see what is
possible. But on the long run I do understand the value of UI consistency,
especially since I started using IPad a while ago.

Putting more effort on their UI guideline pages might help. It seems its not
updated recently to include any of the newer UI elements yet. Since their own
apps are using them they should be good enough for the guidelines:
[http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/i...](http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/index.html)

------
jshen
I don't care about the fragmentation, I'm upset that the google currents UX is
so awful. I really want something like flipboard for my android phone so I had
high hopes for currents.

------
deepkut
Wow. Makes me wonder: Does Apple have a design division that does all the
design? I assume that Google does not, ie they have a "Google Maps" division,
a "Google Currents" division, etc. that just creates the product, and delivers
it. I wonder how these companies differ in this regard?

Thoughts?

------
papaver
None of the images load... the irony...

~~~
lominming
Sorry. From Posterous.com:

"Posterous is unavailable at the moment. We're reloading the site and we'll be
back in just a minute or two."

The irony is that I decided to start my blog at Posterous because I got one of
those cheap web hosting which I thought would easily crush under load. The
irony...

