
Why Apple and Google are struggling to design simple software - tosseraccount
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/03/28/why-apple-and-google-are-struggling-to-design-simple-software/
======
exabrial
Simple: The goal used to be create simple things that just work. Now its
create thigs that push your platform.

As an example, to pick on MSFT: I thought hell froze over when I saw Word in
the Android app store. Its a hugely wonderful word processor. I typed out a
blog post and when to save, but... well I wasnt signed into sky drive. I
managed to finagle my way around those prompts after 5 or so mins. Next time I
opened Word, I got a message: "In order to continue to use Word, you must sign
into a Microsoft Account". Really? The laws of the physical fucking universe
make this impossible?

Needless to say, that crap is uninstalled. I already chose a cloud provider, I
dont need yet another one, fragmenting my data storage.

~~~
narrator
Winter is coming for Microsoft. The rise of mobile and the slow down of PC
speed improvements means they are having a hard time delivering real value
that people want to pay for and need to find a way to generate recurring
revenue through subscription services. Witness the rise of Windows 10. How can
they make money if you permanently own your software?

What if Moore's law stops and we're sitting here 10 years later with computers
that are only a little faster on single core performance?

~~~
cm2187
> How can they make money if you permanently own your software?

Your hardware will die or become obsolete quickly enough that you still have
to buy a new machine and with that a new windows license. In fact I wouldn't
be surprised if the churn for smartphones and tablets was a multiple of
desktop pcs. Cars are a mature industry. You still have to replace your car
regularly, but the new car doesn't go faster.

But I have the feeling Microsoft is even loosing their market share on
laptops, everyone around me replaced their windows laptop with a mac. And
despite being myself heavily invested in the windows ecosystem, I am very
uncomfortable with their new OS and considering alternatives.

~~~
taneq
This is true. Their problem is that until recently they've existed in a growth
market and their annual profits rely on new PC sales. Shareholders don't see
"we're a $10 billion company but we'll be transitioning to a $2 billion
company over the next 10 years" as an acceptable strategy so they're forced to
try and wring growth-market profits out of a mature market.

------
dredmorbius
As the on-site support of a group of older and disabled users (sight, hearing,
motor, coordination, cognitive), the failures of Apple's traditionally highly
accessible designs are quite familiar to me. I'd written my own rant a few
months back after discovering (usability error) that Apple's online feedback
form couldn't ingest the full thing:

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/bs-
wilowvb4-dvpfl_vruq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/bs-wilowvb4-dvpfl_vruq)

~~~
npunt
Thanks for sharing this, I've looked but haven't read enough on accessibility
in real world use cases.

Have you tried the iPad with anyone there? It may ratchet down the complexity
some, and the accessibility features are very good.

~~~
dredmorbius
Users are also very nearly pathalogically averse to new tech and devices. The
suggestion has been made however.

~~~
npunt
I know exactly what you mean. One technique I've used is to express things in
terms of what they can uniquely get with the new system that relates to their
needs. In the case of iPads, some of the accessibility benefits such as
requiring less fine motor control may tip the balance in favor of adoption for
some. Best of luck!

------
V-2
Related article I read not long ago (focusing on Apple, although it mentions
Google unfavorably, too): [http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-
giving-desi...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-
design-a-bad-name)

Some interesting points:

* [http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline/...](http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline/2015/11/3053406-inline-figure-1.jpg)

* _' The headline of a Forbes article says it all: "Apple iOS 9 has 25 Great Secret Features." Secret features? If these are such great features, why are they secret?'_

* _' Today’s devices lack discoverability: There is no way to discover what operations are possible just by looking at the screen. Do you swipe left or right, up or down, with one finger, two, or even as many as five? Do you swipe or tap, and if you tap is it a single tap or double?'_

~~~
johnchristopher
I remember Windows 95 came with an interactive tutorial (with exercises) that
explained how the mouse gestures worked and how to manipulate windows, files
and folders and start up applications.

I wish something like that was still bundled with Windows Seven/8.1/10,
Ubuntu, Android, etc. That would save the regular folks I have to help some
time and frustration when they want the device `to bloody work`.

Anecdote: I met a lot of 40~50 years old people who are persuaded children and
teenagers know the ins and outs of those interfaces. I stopped bothering
explaining them they don't but that stereotype doesn't seem to die and it
keeps on hopping to the next generation.

~~~
pilsetnieks
Not only that, it had Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry as well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc)

~~~
johnchristopher
Unfortunately (or not) the European version was just a five or ten minutes
long session with a female vice over, a white background and some interactive
exercises.

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TeMPOraL
I'm gonna ask a different question - why Google is struggling to design
_useful_ software? It seems that every iteration of their every product loses
functionality and is being dumbed down to the point of uselessness.

~~~
bcook
Can you share a few examples? Google seems to be leaning more toward "normal
users" but I enjoy the software nonetheless.

Are you sure you are the intended user? Catering to a different userbase might
be their intent.

~~~
rcheu
I think an obvious example is Hangouts. It's easily the worst messaging app
I've used in years. It consistently fails at reliably delivering messages.
It's very common for me to send a message on my laptop, and then have the
response only show up on my phone, or vise versa. The read marker will often
jump around, and people that just messaged me 3 minutes ago will have "last
seen 5 hours ago" under their name.

Google chat was a product that reliably sent messages to people, told me if
someone was online, and was fast, too.

~~~
maaarghk
That's interesting, I have the exact opposite experience. I use Hangouts
regularly, on two Macs, a PC and on my Android phone and I have never
experienced any of that stuff, except maybe the "last seen" being out of sync
- but that's hardly a dealbreaker.

~~~
V-2
I used Hangouts intensively for video daily meetings throughout a software
project that spanned for several months - on different machines (on my work
laptop, mobile phone, sometimes my home PC).

These meetings weren't big - typically 3 to 5 people - but when it worked for
everyone at once, without reconnecting, rebooting etc., we cheered. This was
an unusual occurence.

I had Hangouts crash - especially on Android - I had it request a browser
plugin to be installed over and over again, and I never managed to get it to
work on Firefox (switching to a different browser for Hangouts only proved
easier), I had no audio, or distorted audio, or people dropping out of
calls...

I'm glad your user experience wasn't as abysmal as ours, or rcheu's, but in my
opinion you're a lucky one

One good feature it has is that it recognizes keyboard tapping, and suggests
you put yourself on mute when it's detected

------
f_allwein
> managing their devices, or even just using basic software, is just getting
> too complicated.

I am amazed how average users are often unaware of basic features of their
smartphones, e.g. calendars that sync across devices (holy grail in the Palm
OS days) as well as contacts that sync. How many times did you see FB updates
that said "I lost my phone, please send me your number again"?

As there are now so many non-geeks using smartphones, it would be good to have
more information for them on how to make the most of their phones.

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wtbob
> So, with all of these factors at play and more changes to come, is there
> anyone out there who's doing clear and simple design well?

> Mayden had an answer pretty quickly: Tesla.

I don't think one can really say that the makers of the glass infotainment
console understand design for humans. Affordances (knobs, dials, switches,
levers &c.) enable one to alter settings without taking one's eyes off the
road and without interrupting the flow of conversation (like voice commands
do).

------
Twisell
Focusing on iTunes to argue that Apple can't design simple software anymore
seems a little bit unfair, while on the other hand I understand that it might
be the only Apple desktop software used by people who run on MS Windows.

But still, it really not representative of the Apple ecosystem IMHO.

3D Touch on iOS for instance is a state of the art demonstration of how to
transparently and smoothly add a layer of functionality to an existing
interface.

~~~
richardw
I dunno. How about Apple forcing me to sync my music via their dumb cloud
thing if I happened to have enabled apple music at some point? I have a phone
linked via a cable to a computer, want to get two songs on the phone, can't do
it unless I sync multiple GB of junk via the internet. Then they won't let me
sync a song via their cloud because it's a voice MP3 I bought ages ago and
isn't high bitrate enough?! Kill. After much Googling all I could do was turn
off apple music, sync to the device, re-add itunes music. IIRC there are two
levels/types of cloud, one where you can add music and the other where you
sync everything via it. Whatever, it's just something my mother shouldn't have
to know about.

On the iphone, the "for you" icon is a heart. The "like" icon is also a heart,
but the relationship between the two is tenuous. The "plus" button adds a song
to my music but I still have to hit "download" to keep that song on my device.
I have to double-opt-in to music I want? Make it easy to add music! To really
say you like something there's plus, download and like. And then there's still
the 1-5 rating, which I just had to click around for 30 seconds to find again.
No idea if Apple will feed me more of liked-plussed-downloaded-5-star music
than simply liked.

I haven't found 3D touch that useful. I try it all the time but it just feels
gimmicky. Half-push to get something, full-push to get the same thing I'd get
if I just touched it lightly. Sometimes it's a menu, sometimes it opens up a
preview, sometimes a combo preview and menu. I'd bet 70% of people just don't
use it because it's too faffy.

And I just remembered Airdrop, where the "air" part seems to be more
representative of Airdrop reliability than anything else. Does it want wifi?
Proximity? The moon in a given phase? What incantations must I perform to move
this photo two feet? Why can it see the ipad but not the other phone, when the
other phone can see this phone? Can I add a favourite set of devices so it can
find each other a bit more quickly?

Apple are fantastic at simple interactions, when there's one button and three
things to do. They can distill better than anyone. But make things slightly
tricky and they overload one button with 100 features and start falling over
their feet.

~~~
hutattedonmyarm
>I dunno. How about Apple forcing me to sync my music via their dumb cloud
thing if I happened to have enabled apple music at some point? I have a phone
linked via a cable to a computer, want to get two songs on the phone, can't do
it unless I sync multiple GB of junk via the internet.

You can turn off the iCloud Music Library and sync via cable

~~~
Ensorceled
You cut out the part where they said: "After much Googling all I could do was
turn off apple music, sync to the device".

Why? What point are you trying to make? It's not obvious and not simple. I
also had to google how to do this. Are you claiming that this was obvious and
easy?

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fpoling
The article mixes simple-to-use software with software which functionality is
easy to discover. These are very different.

There is a lot of programs that are simple to use if one manages to discover
the functionality. This is bad on mobiles where the desire to save on screen
real estate often goes to far with no clues left that one can do something
simply with a particular gesture. But even on desktop this has been bad
starting with that MS Office interface when one has to search internet to
discover how to do basic things. And MS has not learned the lesson and tried
another undiscoverable interface with Windows 8. But at least discoverability
is possible to fix if developers willing to listen to the users.

iTunes problem is different. It is a typical feature creep where new
functionality makes it harder to use what was there before. This is difficult
to fix as scalable interface that allows to do a lot of things in a simple way
is a hard problem.

------
mrweasel
I don't know about Google, I don't really use any of their products, other
than search. As for Apple, it seems like their trying to make things simpler,
but forget that people do development work on Macs. It's never huge things
that bugs be, just minor tweaks Apple make, and sometimes half-baked features.

El Capitan has seriously made me consider if my next computer should be
something other than a Mac. While I do like if to "normal" computing, such as
browsing, word processing and browsing, I think it's getting increasingly
worse as a development platform.

Yes, iTunes is a huge mess, and there aren't any good alternatives which
support iPod syncing. El Capitan isn't the bug-fix version it should have
been, it's an eye candy release the introduces subtle annoyances.

~~~
lpsz
Curious what specifically.

For me the underlying graphics changes and other tweaks in El Cap made my 5
year old MacBook Air snappy again, I use Xcode the entire day and things seem
better than before.

There is some initial flux around new release time (broken Homebrew or
something else for a week) but they tend to settle down quickly.

~~~
mfukar
For me what OS X provides is just great. Sane defaults, good UI, they're fine.
It's what it doesn't provide that gets me, and Homebrew is a good effort and
all, but too much hassle.

------
ricksplat
So many good quotes in here:

> _" We've moved into an age where the ubiquity and complexity of toolsets
> outpace the ability to leverage them tastefully,"_

"Tastefully" \- a much more _tasteful_ term than the self aggrandizing
"beautiful" I've been seeing used in design circles.

> _“[iTunes] started out as a charming bungalow. Now it’s got turrets, a
> garage for a zamboni, and a helipad on the top.”_

A Zamboni I have now discovered is one of those machines for resurfacing an
ice-rink. _Totes Hillaire!_

> _You 've given people more of a skateboard or a unicycle. You can't bring
> the groceries home on that_

Makes me think of that famous picture of the guy in china freighting a huge
overarching load on his push-bike.

Brilliant article!

It doesn't really go into "why" as suggested by the headline (except maybe for
to say that these businesses' product offering is now more complex than mere
devices).

My personal suspicion is the rote application of established physical
production that has worked so well on the hardware end (which we all know
doesn't work for software) and the denigration of the software end to being
"value added" (which IMHO was always "value gating"). This is perhaps
somewhere that google/alphabet has the edge, albeit mitigated by being more
"open" and "too much text".

------
paulojreis
The impression I have, in the humble projects and companies I work with, is
that it's more related to the decision-makers.

So many features are added based on whims, decided on meeting rooms and based
on engineers or managers gut feelings, that it actually seems normal for
software to get complicated. If we tried to keep the new features somewhat
restrained to things we actually are confident that users want (by doing user
research!), maybe the piling of new features would slow down.

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natar
I've been using Android for years and I'm still struggling with their copy and
paste icons.

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davnn
Balancing features and usability is one of the hardest problems product
management has to face. Removing an existing feature is not a piece of cake,
but companies are a bit too worried about it in my opinion.

Btw. don't think the Tesla comparison is fair.

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whyagaindavid
The author must try a chromebook. (OT- the author should tell it to her
newspapers webdevelopers to design things simple - 20 % tracking requests in
washpost)

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erikb
Part of the reason is not just the complicated infrastructure but also the
huge amount of users you want to satisfy as market leader. You can't just
focus on a niche. There are people who listen to music, people who watch
movies, etc. So you can't just make your software manage music.

------
amelius
I also wonder why they are producing such mediocre software, with so many
qualified people.

Writing a web-based email service or an online document editor may be a lot of
work, but these are just basic office tools, and it doesn't sound like rocket
science.

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dave2000
I thought the article was going to be about how a lot of software seems to be
dumbed down so that less technical users can use them but that the more tricky
stuff is either hidden away or just not present at all. I was wrong.

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asuffield
As far as I can make out, the answer this article offers is just "same reason
everybody else struggles: it's hard".

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diskcat
Whenever somebody told me that 'Desktops are gonna be obsolete because
smartphones' I always told them that screens on desktops have always gotten
bigger so there is a demand for big things that are easy to work with but he
won't listen because some article on some website said other wise.

smartphones are good for stay connected but not for actual 'doing stuff'.

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dcdevito
I agree about Apple - but Google? I'd say their situation is the opposite -
their software is too simple.

~~~
sklogic
Android? Simple?!?

