
Confusing UI in iOS7 - shandip
https://medium.com/design-ux/ce87662270cf
======
callum85
This kind of post annoys me. It's driven by the fact that the author has some
_theories_ about UI design, and wants to share them with us. There's nothing
wrong with that. But this post pretends to be like a real usability audit,
which it is not.

> _When I tap it, it turns red — but wait — it doesn’t give me the visual
> feedback. Did I break it?_

> _The alarm is shown as a red filled square, so when I tap it, it should
> perform a negative action, right?_

These comments are disingenous. You didn't get confused by these things.

You, as a person who's analysing a UI, have an almost totally different
mindset to someone who is just using the thing for real. You know this, so
here, you're just play-acting. You're thinking, what might I get confused
about if I was a normal user? That's a bad way to look for what's really wrong
in a UI design.

Yes, when you present points like these, they sound reasonable, but that
doesn't mean they're right. Perhaps the alternative (e.g. banning the use of
red anywhere in the OS other than for a negative action) might be over-
restrictive as a requirement, which could cause excessive complexity elsewhere
in the UI and lead to a worse overall result. Or perhaps you're right, the
colour–meaning thing should be 100% consistent above all other considerations.
Either way, you don't know, and speculation about what _might_ confuse a real
user should not be presented as fact.

Theories just guide us in what to _test_.

~~~
coldtea
> _This kind of post annoys me. It 's driven by the fact that the author has
> some theories about UI design, and wants to share them with us. There's
> nothing wrong with that. But this post pretends to be like a real usability
> audit, which it is not._

Wrong on all counts. What the author complaints about are examples of broken
standard usability guidelines that all experts agree upon.

Like consistency, affordances, the principle of least surprise, color coding
actions, etc.

The excerpt you provide is characteristic: "When I tap it, it turns red — but
wait — it doesn’t give me the visual feedback. Did I break it?"

The similar looking button in the Timer screen DID give visual feedback when
pressed. In a consistent UI, either this button would do too, or neither
would.

> _These comments are disingenous. You didn 't get confused by these things.
> You, as a person who's analysing a UI, have an almost totally different
> mindset to someone who is just using the thing for real._

Wrong again. Even a UI expert, or someone like me, who's been using DOS,
Windows, SunOS, HPUX, Linux, FreeBSD and OS X UIs for 20+ years (and has
designed some apps' UIs) can be confused by a UI, even in the most common app
and in the most basic actions.

~~~
aufreak3
> The similar looking button in the Timer screen DID give visual feedback when
> pressed. In a consistent UI, either this button would do too, or neither
> would.

Visual feedback needs to serve a purpose. This is a stop watch we're talking
about - one that shows time in tens of milliseconds, which is less than one
frame interval at 60fps. Any animation done would hinder the _function_ of the
stop watch and raise ambiguity about when the stop watch actually started and
stopped. So not using an animation _is_ the right thing to do here. If they'd
gone for consistency in this case, it would've been "foolish consistency" [1].

[1] "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." \- Ralph Waldo
Emerson

edit: typo fix.

~~~
hahainternet
That is a ludicrous argument. An animation does not affect timer functionality
unless you are an incompetent coder.

~~~
ShirtlessRod
Yes, but it's equally ludicrous to say that the stopwatch "didn't give the
visual feedback". It started incrementing those huge numbers, didn't it?

~~~
hahainternet
That is not the visual feedback being discussed. Buttons should act
identically across a platform. There is no compelling reason for a difference.

------
Pxtl
I'm actually surprised that there's so little visual consistency there... this
stuff usually would be handled by reusable widgets - which, of course, gives
you consistency for free.

Still, people bag on Apple's design problems because Apple's stuff often feels
_almost_ perfect. I tried out a BB Q10 the other day and I couldn't even
figure out how the heck you get to the home screen. I got stuck in the voice-
search app and couldn't figure out how to back out. That's one of those "I'd
give it a detailed critique but where the heck do I even _begin_ " moments.

~~~
jmcatani
In my UX design classes, we would use the phrase "You can't polish a turd" to
describe this situation.

~~~
dandelany
This is exactly backwards - all of the iOS 7 complaints I've heard so far have
been about the UI polish and _not_ the underlying functionality. Polishing a
turd would be a beautiful UI in front of a buggy, slow system. Apple didn't
ship a polished turd, they shipped a rough, unhewn diamond.

~~~
gurkendoktor
But each major iOS version _is_ slower than the one before, it's just that we
got used to it (and loud people on the internet always use recent devices
anyway). I think this blog post is a good example of something that is
definitely a polished turd. A clean, beautiful UI for a resource hog:

[http://blog.ittybittyapps.com/blog/2013/09/20/lifting-the-
li...](http://blog.ittybittyapps.com/blog/2013/09/20/lifting-the-lid-on-
ios-7s-uipicker/)

And something else that we have accepted is that Apple's services are what
they are. For example, iOS 7 has polished the Photos and Camera apps. But in
the big picture, Apple's ecosystem for photos is still a complete mess. There
is Photos.app with its own Camera Roll, iPhoto for iOS, Photostreams,
Journals, Moments, iPhoto '09 with its own Events, and no sane way to keep
everything in sync.

------
masklinn
> I have no idea why the calendar is in German although the rest is in English

I had the same issue (with a different language). I really hope it's a bug
because it makes no sense. Here goes:

In General > International, you can set "language" to english. So far so good.
Then you can set "region format" for things like date and time formatting to
use a sensible local format instead of e.g. the crazy US date format.

But when you go into Region Format, it turns out to be some sort of weird mix
of countries and languages.

If you select a country — e.g. Germany, Finland, Croatia — , you'll get the
english dates in the region's format but if you select a language (and
possibly a territory for the language) — Chinese > Singapore, Cherokee (United
States) or Lingala > Congo Brazzaville, you'll get the date formatted in that
language instead, with your specified system-wide language ignored.

By default, you probably have a language selected — I had anyway. I think it's
the same setting as in iOS6 but the semantics have changed.

edit: after checking, it worked the exact same way in iOS6 and a colleague
(who also updated to iOS7) had the right setting without changing anything, so
I guess both TFAA and I had the "wrong" setting in iOS6 and it got ported over
to iOS7. Yet as TFAA I was kind-of shocked to see dates in a language
different than the rest of the OS in iOS7 even though I apparently did not
notice it in 6.

~~~
arrrg
Not a bug, working as intended.

German region format obviously also emtails German day and month names. That's
really quite obvious.

~~~
Semaphor
> German region format obviously also emtails German day and month names.
> That's really quite obvious.

No it's not obvious at all and it's shouldn't be that way. If I set my
language somewhere it should be applied everywhere. I want Monday as first day
of the week, not Montag.

Other companies that seem incapable of getting language right: Microsoft and
Google.

~~~
arrrg
Uhm, why exactly should that be the case? I think you should think over your
assumptions. Date format and date names are intertwined, you cannot separate
the two.

~~~
Semaphor
No they are not? How are they intertwined? One is language, one is style.

That is not even mentioning that "ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange
formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times" puts
Monday as day one.

Plus all the clients that aren't broken and can separate language from style.

Oh well, I think I got trolled -.-

------
pseudometa
The lack of affordance in iOS7 is a real usability killer. People argue that
the lack of button borders and inconsistency invites exploration. That's the
kind of BS argument bad designers make when their designs test poorly. iOS7 is
great in many ways, but is harder to use than ever before. Ugg.

~~~
andrethegiant
What about when people back in the day argued that links on the web were
difficult to use because they were just underlined text instead of buttons?
Lots of link styles today have no text decoration but are rather just a
different color, and are as easy as ever to use.

~~~
kllrnohj
Web browsers let you hover over a link to query if it's clickable _before_
clicking it.

Also in this case the problem is if a site has some text that's blue &
clickable, and some text that's blue & _not_ clickable. That's more or less
what iOS 7 is doing. Colored text doesn't mean it performs an action. It
might, it might not. Similarly, black text might be clickable, it might not.
It might have a border, it might not. And these are all mixed together in the
same app, or even a single screen such as the case of the alarm that the
article is talking about.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Mousing over ever piece of text in a document to see if it's clickable isn't a
great user experience. If you've ever tried using a site whose link style is
'non-underlined, blackish blue', you'll understand the problem, particularly
if you suffer from colour blindness. The Guardian is a prime example of poor-
usability when it comes to text links.

------
andyhmltn
Nice post. The one that REALLY annoys me is reminders. If I want to add a
reminder, I would assume subconsciously I have to press the add symbol. But
that adds a new list. To add a new item you have to tap an _empty white box
with no visual cue_. Brilliant.

~~~
hellweaver666
For me the big annoyance are the "shuffle" and "repeat" buttons in the music
app. Identical buttons right next to each other in the interface and they
behave differently. I can't even tell if the shuffle is active or not as the
labels toggle between "shuffle" and "shuffle all". Which one is "off" ?

~~~
ryall
I take it you haven't tried to rate a song yet? I spent 5 minutes mashing the
screen before I noticed the 'Rating' text. Then spent another 5 minutes
tapping, swiping up down left right on that text before I gave up. I finally
figured out that you have to tap the track (silly me, thought that would play
it over again) to rate it. I still don't actually know if that 'Rating' text
does anything

------
terabytest
Finally a post that doesn't just say "iOS7 BAD". Pretty well motivated, and I
can agree with it in part. The inconsistencies it shows with the red button
are confusing indeed (I just tried it on my iPad, the button in the stopwatch
will change state when you begin touching, the one in the timer changes state
when you lift your button, which is confusing because it doesn't work as
expected).

The one thing I don't agree with is how the writer argues that, because the UI
elements like the "+" button are red, it means they might be misinterpreted as
performing a negative action. I think it's not a good point because it's easy
to tell that red is the accent color of the application (for example the
active navbar button is red), and thus it doesn't really play a role in
telling the user whether the action is a positive or a negative one. The fact
that the big round buttons start as green, and only become red once tapped
(along with a change in their label), should make it easy to tell that they're
not red because it's the accent color of the app, instead they're red because
they perform a destructive action (in this case, resetting the timer). Their
label further confirms their purpose.

As a last remark, I don't think that even the least savvy users are to be
treated as "dumb". If they care enough, they will figure it out nonetheless.
This isn't one of those issues that would make it impossible to use the app.
You just need to put a small amount of thought in using it.

~~~
lstamour
The + sign and nav buttons are "tinted" as red, as are the rest of the app's
functions. When overlay UI appears, such color tints become grey. That's
consistent throughout Apple's apps -- every app has a colour to tint with.

The green circles shown are the inconsistent buttons. They're trying to do too
much, both compensating for the choice of red and encouraging you to click
them. Their thick circle borders are redundant, and the lack of consistency on
these custom buttons is indeed an issue.

The calendar is probably set to a different language/country's date
formatting. That's a feature and is observable in other OSes. (English menu,
arabic dates, for example)

The unique bit about alarms -- for iPad only -- is that table representation.
They should have cut it out until the next iOS revision.

~~~
DigitalJack
I didn't even know the color changed until I read this article. I'm read green
color blind/deficient.

------
robterrell
My biggest gripe with iOS 7 is how I can't predict that a UI element is
tappable. With every new app (i.e. every app I already have that has been
updated for iOS 7 and automatically upgraded by the iOS without me really
knowing) I find myself having to tap various bits of UI stuff to figure things
out. What's fascinating to me is seeing how my 2 year old does with it.

~~~
aw3c2
It's even better when those taps lead to actions. I permanently deleted some
messages because of a non-descript icon (on Android's confusing modern look).

The worst thing about all this icon frenzy to me is that they often even take
up more space than text that could descripe their function.

~~~
stevenwei
* The worst thing about all this icon frenzy to me is that they often even take up more space than text that could descripe their function. *

That highly depends on the language that you're using... Having localized our
app into 16 different languages I've found that there are many languages where
the text simply does not fit into the allotted space. In those cases I think
using icons are a lot more effective than a bunch of ellipsized text.

------
EGreg
Is it just me or is all that gray stuff kinda ugly? And I thought WE started
the gray trend way back when... (see [http://qbix.com](http://qbix.com)) :)

I think iOS 7 is Apple's Vista :-(

Except instead of functionality gaffes, it's the UI changes that no one really
wants.

~~~
mason55
I must be the only one who loves it. It just feels so much nicer to use. There
are the little annoyances, sure, but things like the Reminders app were in iOS
6 anyway.

~~~
sbuk
You're absolutely not.

------
dmyler
Apple definitely removed as many affordances as possible with each screen,
almost to the extreme. Now, have I figured out how each screen works? Yes. Do
I think the UI would be improved with a few more visual hints (button
backgrounds, consistent color choice for actions)? Yes.

iOS 7 is such a large reset from previous iOS versions, and I would expect to
see this new design language evolve over future releases. The best comparison
I read: think of the changes between OS9 and OSX.

------
bengillies
The problem with pretending to be someone unfamiliar with touch UI (and
computers in general) is that whatever you claim to be confusing is still just
conjecture. You claim one thing, Apple claims another. If you'd highlighted
the parts that are genuinely confusing to you (and I'm sure they exist) rather
than talking about rectangles v.s. red things in corners, or written up a
walk-through with someone who realistically might get that confused (not
denying they exist), then it would be easier to take this post seriously.

------
rjohnk
I work with people who have TBI (Traumatic Brain Injuries) on a daily basis.
Many have cognitive issues with short or long term memory.

We use iPads during "Tech days". On iPads that we have updated to iOS7, people
that normally have no problem are having a heck of a time with the new UI,
where things are, new actions with swiping, buttons, fonts, ect. It's not as,
dare I day, intuitive. Even using more outlines on the new blue buttons (like
in the App store) would make it better

Yes, most will relearn it, but it will take months for some. Great UI, Flat
UI, doesn't have to mean less intuitive (borders around buttons, ect).

So we are sticking with iOS 6 on most of them.

~~~
epo
"Intuitive" is the great misused word of our industry.

The only intuitive things in human experience are fear of heights and the
location of your mother's milk (I'm probably quoting but can't remember who).
What people call intuitive is merely the familiar, all else is learnt.

IOS7 requires relearning, as you have confirmed.

------
debaserab2
With all of these iOS7 bashing articles I've read, I really expected to be
perturbed by the upgrade. So far I've found very little to complain about. To
me, the call to actions are now clearer than they've ever been because so much
of the interface is simplified. I simply don't have these problems of being
thrown off by an "incorrectly" used color. There's just not a lot of detail to
mentally parse when looking at the interface.

I wonder how many people that aren't looking at this with a UX hat on are
actually experiencing these problems.

~~~
lcnmrn
Little to no problems. There are a couple of miss alignments here and there,
but overall they did a great job on iOS 7 from an UX point of view. There's
even a countdown timer on the lock screen when snoozing an alarm. There's more
important information shown to the user thanks to this over simplified
interface.

"Content first" was one of the main topics in the UX crowd lately, and
frankly, iOS 7 is a good example of this concept.

------
jamra
I was reading a book on dashboard design by Stephen Phew. I don't have it in
front of me so I can't remember the name exactly. One of the chapters was
dedicated to Gestalt principles. Basically, it was about how your brain
interprets data. An excellent read. The main feature iOS 7 does is it clears
the visual clutter, making the content do the talking. That is a huge
improvement. According to what I read in the book and from what I observed in
iOS 7, it looks to me like they hit the nail on the head with cleaning up
clutter. Having used iOS 7 for some time now, it's quite clearly less taxing
on my eyes and brain to use.

Pointing out inconsistencies can be fun, but I believe that it distracts from
the overall feel you get from using an improved OS.

The arguments of keeping a 90 year old grandmother up to date with the UI
seems a bit ridiculous to me. They can always stay on old versions if they
need to. You can keep their PCs on Windows XP as well. Progress should not
wait for the lowest denominator of users.

~~~
gfodor
I think one of the major points of iOS7 is that grandma is getting kicked to
the curb. iOS devices are designed for people who already know how to use
them, or for young people, who will figure them out.

~~~
melange
Except this doesn't seem to be borne out in reality. I have installed it for
people in their 60's, 70's and 80s who find a Mac barely usable, who have had
no trouble at all with moving to iOS7 after using iOS6.

~~~
jamra
Any change can be construed as kicking a percentage of users to the curb. I
just don't think it's reasonable to hold back design for them. If they learn,
great. If not, maybe it's a sign that you should be spending more time
teaching your grandma.

PS. Your grandma says you never call. She knows you're busy but still, a phone
call once a week never killed anyone.

~~~
melange
"Any change can be construed as kicking a percentage of users to the curb."

True! But not by a rational person.

------
samnardoni
Everything is confusing if you pretend to be an idiot.

~~~
Michael_Murray
Actually, that's backwards... You know that something is well designed
precisely by pretending to be an idiot, and asking yourself if you still know
what to do...

~~~
drharris
That's a very rudimentary view of UX. If I'm writing an app that helps
radiological engineers calculate radiation dose, should I pretend to be an
idiot? Likewise, in a world where kids have grown up with these devices,
should we still think that way about UX? I think we can give users some
benefit of the doubt. Each app should have a design that reflects the purpose
of the app. Consistency is not always the top priority in UX.

~~~
Michael_Murray
I'm not saying that's the _only_ step in design... In my attempt at brevity, I
lost the nuance.

The point I was trying to make is that if you're taking the view that your
users need to have a significantly higher than average the level of knowledge
in a domain area (i.e. equivalent to the knowledge of the domain area that the
product designer has), you're going to end up with an un-usable product for
the left end of the bell curve of your user population.

That left end of the bell curve is relative (as you point out) to your user
population, but exists nonetheless - an "idiot" radiological engineer is not
an idiot in relation to the general population, but is one in relation to the
99th percentile best radiological engineer (and, hopefully, in relation to the
radiological engineer building your product).

What I was trying to say is that a well-designed UX requires that the 1%
"idiot" of your target user population still knows what to do...

~~~
drharris
Gotcha, I'd agree with that. I have some bitterness extending from sham "UX
Hackers" selling e-books that basically boil down to pretending to be an
idiot, and thinks that is enough. :)

------
Jare
iOS7 apps are littered with this kind of stuff. In truth, I doubt iOS7 is any
more confusing to a newbie than the original iOS was, and since there's so
very little to do in most places, it doesn't take much experimenting to learn.
The most grating thing to me at an intellectual level is the lack of
consistency, but part of the smartphone experience is using apps which often
have their own styles anyway (especially games).

I just tell myself it's all a giant A/B test and iOS8 will consolidate one
specific set of styles.

~~~
nobodysfool
"In truth" implies you have a fact to share, when in fact, it's just your
opinion. Better to use "In all honesty" since you were being a bit dishonest
in saying that "IOS7 apps are littered with this kind of stuff".

------
vvhn
The next Apple statement placating congress about jobs created can probably
also include

" With iOS 7, we have also created the largest number of design critics, UI
designers and UX experts in history - Everybody is now an expert and we
believe the world will be a better place for it. "

~~~
hippee-lee
Hopefully those said experts will also out their money where their mouths are
and get busy making a competitive alternative that addresses the issues
identified.

As bad as the critics make it out I wonder if they have seen it used in the
wild by someone non-technical. My mother in law asked me about upgrading her
iPad on Sunday. She did so and I expected a bunch of confusion and questions
re: photo's and email; the two apps she uses most (besides mindless games that
aren't affected by any OS changes whatsoever).

Her comment last nigh? "It's really different I really like how they organized
my photos for me."

So that's an n of one. But it's closer to observing it in the wild vs. a small
circle of tech savvy perfectionists.

If the critics want me to take them seriously they should not focus on
themselves so much but the average person and their experience immediately
after upgrading, a day later, a week later and a month later. Otherwise, IMO
it's just a whiney tech pundit fishing with link bait.

------
gnur
Can't be that confusing if you can still figure it out on your own. Dwarf
fortress, now that shit is confusing.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Dwarf Fortress has never been and will probably never be for public mass
consumption. Unless of course they code in a giant Fortress swallowing dragon
named "The Public"

------
marinosbern
I have a very small tidbit to contribute to the list of inconsistencies. If
you were at WWDC or watched the videos online, you will have noticed the same
theme being hammered in again and again: "iOS7 puts the user's content first",
"we have taken away all the chrome and UI distractions to allow the user to
focus on the content" etc. If you have tried to adjust the volume while
watching a video, however, you may have noticed that the volume popup has a
very thick blur behind it, basically obscuring the content at the center of
the video you are watching for 3 seconds or more, which in several occasions
(e.g. news interviews where people's faces were completely blurred out) forced
me to go back to the piece I missed.

What I find particularly unsettling about this is that the user doesn't even
need any kind of visual feedback. The only feedback that truly matters is the
one from his ears. Imagine if your TV obscured a big chunk right in the middle
of the screen every time you adjusted the volume. I find this deeply
distracting and in direct contrast with the iOS7 design philosophy portrayed
by its designers.

------
philjackson
_" it can teach us a lot about how a sloppy interface implementation can
successfully confuse users"_

As I read that one of those in-viewport, youtube-a-like progress bars was
repeatedly shooting across the top of the screen.

------
rsl7
that's it? that's so specific. For me this update brought the feeling that I
can hardly see anymore. I'm always squinting now to try and distinguish
things, whereas in iOS 6 and before I had no problem. What is it? The colors,
the lack of depth, the low contrast, the super thin lines - all of it together
and I struggle to make sense of it. That white on green is just blinding.

This is the problem - changing the l&f across the board is not a good MO in
2013. Yeah, I know, it's Apple and their fashion dictatorship. I've been
through Mac UI changes since 1988. But I feel like I can barely use this tool
now for what should be surfacey and easily hackable issues. I like the
fundamentals, the animation is fine, the general UI tweaks are great.. it just
hurts to use it now.

Apple needs to solve the one-size fits all UI problem. I don't care how they
do it, I don't have a great suggestion ('theme support' is not one) -- but
this state of affairs just sucks.

~~~
nnnnni
The thin lines and low contrast are the worst part. It's horrible.

I can't wait for Winterboard to make iOS 7 _usable_.

------
robomartin
iOS7 is a beautiful new path in the history of these amazing devices. Are
there a few warts here and there? Sure. That's part of the process of evolving
anything. With user feedback and experience future evolutionary steps will
improve upon this and nobody will remember the warts.

Usability? There are loads of examples of usability not being as much of a
problem as many make it out to be. You can start with Windows as an example of
something that billions of people use without problems while usability experts
blog about how horrible it is --yet five year olds in schools all over the
world seem to not have any issues. Another one is computer games. No two games
seem to have the same interface (save such things as basic navigation
commands) yet people adapt and become very adept at operating them. I always
take usability reports with a grain of salt. Some are legitimate and honest,
most are less than that.

------
devx
Gone are the days when Apple used to make "perfect" user experiences. These
days Apple seems care more about "modern aestethics" that look "beautiful"
than actually _good design_ , as it used to when Steve Jobs was alive.

I expect the Mac OS X interface to become worse with time, too.

~~~
dpkendal
Funny, that's exactly what people used to say when OS X came out, right after
Steve Jobs came back …

------
ajanuary
I can't confirm it because I don't have iOS 6 to hand, but I'm pretty sure the
difference in button highlights will be the same.

The buttons in Timer works based on the OS wide standard of activating on
release.

For a stopwatch, however, you want it to be instant because it's time
sensitive. It would kinda suck if you're timings were all out by a bit because
you kept you're finger on there slightly too long.

This is actually an example of breaking a convention to improve usability [1].
It's also an example of how if you're looking hard enough you'll find
inconsistencies and things that are theoretically horrific in stuff you've
been using absolutely fine for years.

The real inconsistency on this screen is that the Reset button doesn't
activate on release. If ever there was a time you want to be able to back out
of an action by moving your finger away from the button before release I'd say
this is it.

While the faux naivity is a bit irritating, it does make a valid point (if not
entirely novel). The more you pare back your UI the more you lose distinction
between interactive and non-interactive elements. If your buttons are simply
color tinted text, it's difficult to unambiguously use color tinting to
highlight text of note such as the current day.

What makes iOS 7 really interesting is how it tries to counter that. For
example, color hinted text in the edges of the screen will always be actions,
so color is enough; color hinted text in the middle of the screen could just
be marking interesting things, so actions are usually accompanied by thin
borders.

An proper dive into the design and the trade-offs rather than endless "look at
this edge-case" would be really interesting.

[1] Caveat because I'm sure otherwise someone will try and pull me up on it.
No, this isn't amazing revolutionary design by Apple or super-human attention
to detail. I'm sure the Android and WP 7 equivalents work the same.

~~~
matt-attack
> If your buttons are simply color tinted text, it's difficult to
> unambiguously use color tinting to highlight text of note such as the
> current day.

This is an excellent point.

------
bane
Man, nothing inflames the religious like a critique of their favorite baby.
It's exhausting reading through these comments that, no, the OP is a stupid
liar and wrong and an idiot for not recognizing that iOS7 is the new benchmark
of perfection and should only be talked about in glowing terms.

------
tehwalrus
This (among other examples) is why I'm sticking with iOS 6 for the foreseeable
future. I haven't wanted any new substantive feature of iOS for several
iterations - and while the design was tempting for me, if it comes with this
much punishment I'm out.

~~~
Terretta
You're missing the forest for a stump.

The overall experience is considerably smoother and more cohesive with less
cognitive clutter. There is a definite transition period; stick with it and
you'll be happier on the other side.

~~~
shock-value
That's not necessarily true. I used the beta for a few weeks (on my iPhone)
and couldn't get over the new visual style and UI changes. I've been following
its development and know they haven't done much besides fix bugs since the
beta (as is usual). So I've reverted to iOS 6 and have no immediate plans to
upgrade.

~~~
Terretta
It took me more than "a few weeks" to get comfortable with it. In fact, I
actively advised people to avoid it until the last beta and the GM.

As of the last beta and GM, either iOS suddenly changed drastically for the
better, or my perception finally adapted.

Either way, now the old version is frustrating, lacking essential features to
accomplish common intents. I believe it's my acceptance or comprehension of
the new flow that shifted.

FWIW, I work with several major versions in the course of my day, from 4.x
through 7.x.

------
Aldo_MX
I'm glad I bought my mother an iPhone 3GS, why? because it won't upgrade to
iOS7 and she won't have to relearn how to use it again.

~~~
melange
My mother in law barely noticed the upgrade to her 4s, but she did like the
iOS7 version of the app 'teevee2'.

------
x0054
What I find worrisome is that these UI ideas are bleeding over into OSX. Take
a look at the new Build Phases tab in Xcode. It used to be nice and clear, now
it's just a see of white, and it's hard to visually see how different elements
on that page relate to each other, especially on a large screen.

As I often say, life is about balance. Apple used to have way too much UI
chrome. Now they have way too little. I hope they swing back a bit and find
that balance soon. An I hope they stop sticking so many pure white backgrounds
all over the place, it makes it hard on the eyes, at least for me.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Also: Good luck figuring out which part of the Xcode UI has the focus right
now. Code editor? Assistant editor? Debugger console? File hierarchy? The
clues are so subtle that they might as well not be there. Having to look for
the blinking cursor on a big screen is annoying.

------
r00fus
I also feel this complaint about iOS7, while relevant to the phone UI, is
using the iPad UI to make a greater point: that iOS7 doesn't feel like it was
designed for the iPad.

Skeuomorphic vs. Flat aside, the sparseness in how iOS7 looks on my iPad
prompted me to revert the upgrade and go back to corinthian-leather-infested
iOS6 for now.

The lack of visual cues in iOS7 is a bit off putting combined with the
"designed primarily for iPhone" keep me from upgrading mine and my parents'
iPads.

That said, I'm loving iOS7 on my iPhone5. It feels liberating.

------
jbrooksuk
I believe Montag was highlighted because that's the current day.

~~~
garethadams
In an English locale (as the rest of the UI suggests), "Montag" isn't a day at
all, let alone the current day.

The incorrect text is a UI bug, certainly, but the underlying _issue_
suggested in multiple places is, how can you distinguish between a negative
action and an accent in apps where both of those are identified by the same
colour?

~~~
ygra
UI language and locale can be two different things. It has been the same for
me for years.

------
ender7
The iOS 6 version of the alarms app for iPad had a similarly confusing
interface. It's a complete disaster -- one that I was hoping they would remedy
in iOS 7, but that doesn't seem to have happened. I've always been surprised
that this app managed to get out of Apple's internal UI review -- now not once
but twice.

------
kingkawn
Outsourced their UI design to Google+

------
lurkinggrue
That interface makes my eyes bleed. So low contrast. I can tell the designers
have young eyes.

------
LarryMade2
Apple lost intuitive when it went to OSX. Things were just there, and worked,
menus had understandable names dialogs were terse and to the point. Sometimes
it was messy but you never felt lost.

~~~
liquidise
Just to be clear: you are seriously suggesting the intuitive usability of went
_down_ in OS X? As opposed to the label-less icon buttons in the control strip
that you had to click/drag to get it to show and hide?

The release of OS X, and the subsequent program rewrites to support it, put
apple back on the tech map. I find it hard to believe this doubled as their
usability death sentence.

~~~
LarryMade2
Im not saying it was less "Usable" using BSD saved them from years of pain
transitioning from MacOS to something that was more network/internet savvy.

But there was a price was a hit to the UX and UI. which were actually pretty
sensible. All the fancy graphics and lack of helpful text labels and
assistance has become more a pain for new users.

~~~
scholia
Seconded....

------
joeblau
The under pinnings of iOS7 are great (from a developer standpoint), but this
release honestly doesn't feel like an Apple product. I have the iPhone 4 and
Instagram's filters are cut off on the bottom and the photo/video frame is
also mis-aligned.

I feel like any other company could have come out with this release and it
would have been met with far less analytical criticism. Why is there so much
analysis on v.1 of a their new UI?

------
bcj
I think an argument can be made for the difference between the stop timer, and
the stop stopwatch.

Red (in those two cases) means stop, so the button turns red. Stopping a
stopwatch is an expected action to perform, so the button remains white (to be
consistent with start). Stopping a timer is an unexpected action—you are
cancelling the timer. To denote this, they use dark grey.

------
poolpool
Its a massive step in the right direction. Its a giant overhaul that was
accomplished in a crazy amount of time. Yes theres some obvious missteps, and
having literally everything look different across the board is going to be
confusing for many people, but either way the transition wasn't going to be
fun.

This really isn't news.

------
mmuro
The timer circles go gray when touched to indicate you can hold the button and
then let go when you are ready.

~~~
robmcm
Can you not do the same with the stop watch? Or is the idea that as soon as
you touch is starts, to reduce lag?

If so that is quite clever...

------
sdnguyen90
pretty annoying reading articles in safari scrolling down and accidently
pulling up the control center

~~~
jpalacios
That was one of the first things I noticed. You can disable it in general
settings but unfortunately it is all or nothing. Now I can only pull it up
from the lock screen.

------
TruthSHIFT
It seems like the iPad version of iOS 7 isn't nearly as polished as the iPhone
version.

------
alexvasi
I really like how time setting interface is done in Meego.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoiIaB7FsPY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoiIaB7FsPY)

------
knubie
I just opened up the clock app on my iPhone after reading this post and it's
shocking how much cleaner/clearer the interface is on the iPhone than it is on
the iPad.

------
shurcooL
Nice article, I agree with most points.

Just one comment. Don't people know you can drag and drop alarms; you just
have to tap and hold? Similar to rearranging apps on home screen.

~~~
lstamour
People were mentally comparing it to how the calendar works ("drag and drop")
as opposed to the home screen ("hold to enter edit mode so icons wiggle in
fear, then drag and drop"). In part this is because we intuitively assume that
the only thing we should be able to do with such icons is either click once to
select, or hold to drag and drop. It doesn't occur to us that hold might do
something else, as in the home screen's swipe, for instance. This makes even
less sense when you realize a calendar has many reasons to enable dragging
blank space to move around to new dates and times, while a schedule of alarms
auto-repeats every 7 days and has no need for horizontal scrolling as a
result. It was simply rushed for iPad. Neat idea, needs more work. :)

------
MaysonL
And yet, despite all the valid criticism of all the flaws in iOS 7, it's a
massive improvement over iOS 6. And the user reactions show that.

~~~
gurkendoktor
How do they show it? We don't know how many % of the iOS user base uses
Twitter or any observable channel to praise iOS 7 or complain about it.

Plus it's impossible to downgrade, so any iOS 7 user in a statistic might be
an unhappy one; or the other way around, maybe I _would_ love iOS 7 on my iPad
3rd gen, but I won't irreversibly upgrade for now.

~~~
MaysonL
[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/24/ios-7-shines-as-
ap...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/24/ios-7-shines-as-apple-bests-
android-windows-phone-in-user-experience-shootout)

~~~
gurkendoktor
That's not a study of actual users, but the application of random metrics plus
a bit of personal opinion (in the user friction section). It's as good or bad
as the OP.

This is what I'd love to see, regardless of the results:
[http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-
usab...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/)

As far as I know, the closest thing that's publicly available are customer
satisfaction surveys.

------
cl3m
iOS7 default apps are quite confusing. The calendar is way worst than before.
Now you tap on a event from the month view and you don't see it in the day
view if your current time is not close to the event time.. It feel rushed. I
hope they fix it but it might not happen before next year. That good for third
party app though.

------
mikeryan
All this free UX QA is going to make for a heck of an UI in about 6-12
months....

------
nej
iOS 5 I miss you so. iOS 6 brought in skeuomorphism on steroids. And now iOS 7
removed all the skeuomorphism. I miss the balance in iOS 5.

------
designmonstr
In long run is it safe to say apple can’t succeed without Steve Jobs.

------
AsymetricCom
It's clear to me that my next OS after iOS6 will be Windows 8 RT.

