
Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason - luu
https://lobste.rs/s/kiq75p/stop_changing_uis_for_no_good_reason
======
incision
What are there, 1B Android users? I'm sure Google would like that to be 7B.

I'd wager the complaints of the sort of people who frequent lobste.rs or HN
are not representative of the majority of current users and almost certainly
not of the next 6B potential users.

Overall, it's everything Google said they would do with material [1].

It's fine to dislike these things, I don't necessarily like them myself, but
claiming they're simply wrong or "for no reason" is somewhere between angry
and lazy.

Just a glance at the new vs old keyboard or gmail shows a direction - moving /
duplicating interactions toward the bottom right (logical as screens get
bigger), breaking out punctuation into discrete keys (presumably logical given
the way most people actually type).

The overall restyling is adding consistency between apps and particularly
between mobile and the desktop.

Animations are really valuable anytime someone doesn't come to the table with
a complete mental model of how something fits together already. Basically,
they're not for _you_ Mr. Programmer.

1: [http://www.google.com/design/](http://www.google.com/design/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
When I help people out with their computers and I run updates (pretty much
everyone I go to stay with!) they always complain if there's been a change in
the UI at all - "why's that button moved?" "where's my favourites?" "how do I
access my inbox now?" "why does it keep popping up that thing?" ...

I'd really like to see some respect for this from people like Firefox - "we
won't move any major UI elements or update the default skin more than once
every 2 years". Of course the marketing is all about the novelty at the moment
- steadfastness doesn't count for much in tech circles it seems. With stable
UI you can have a less rapidly changing system for users to comprehend;
running updates for security fixes shouldn't mean you have to face a new menu
paradigm or new default screen or new tab shape or new whatever every few
weeks.

Seriously. I don't enable auto-update on supported users apps for this reason.

~~~
thirdsun
I couldn't disagree more. Of course there no sense in moving things around
just for the sake of changing something, and implementing those design changes
is always prone to making bad decisions. However I pretty much want the
applications I use to move forward and if this means iterative design
adjustments, then by all means, do it.

The people complaining about any kind of change are usually the ones who learn
using an application by trying to exactly memorize navigation paths and word-
for-word expressions in menus, which feels absolutely wrong to me. It's like
learning stuff in school by memorizing the content word for word, without
understanding any of them or the context in general. It may work for while,
but not for long.

I know that the average person is very different from the tech-savvy crowd
around here, in fact I work with non-technical people everyday, yet this
helplessness once a button or a feature has been moved is still very
surprising to me and I think it's a better idea to try to educate people not
to hang on to memorized paths, but instead look for plausible context, really
consider where you'd expect a certain feature to be located. That's exactly
what the developer did for his app - well, in most cases. Avoiding change in
software design is not the solution.

~~~
acqq
No, it's not a better idea to "educate users" it is rather to respect the
users. Imagine when your car would change the controls on random mornings.
People want the work done like you just want to drive. Don't project your
untypical preferences to the others.

I'm almost sure that if you're a serious programmer you use a command line.
You know, where you type in one line, the output is written in the following
lines, emulating the electrically-controlled typewriter which prints the
letter one after the another on the roll of the paper from the sixties. Think
about that. "Carriage return" once actually caused the physical carriage to
return and the line feed actually activated the paper feeder to roll the paper
one line up.

A lot of changes in the UI are often driven more by the changes in the
politics inside of the company (who is going to be seen for his visible
contribution to the "change") than any real need. Think about that.

------
mattmanser
Argh, lollipop's driving me up the wall! Vent time, woo!

The thing I'm hating is that they've managed to completely screw up Chrome by
getting rid of tabs and mixing them all in with your other apps, in an attempt
to force you to use the bloody useless app switcher button instead of making
it do something vaguely useful.

And the lock screen, what the hell were they thinking? The amount of times
I've opened the phone app instead of unlocking the phone is becoming obscene.
I often have my phone landscape while using it as a mini-tablet and in that
orientation it's easy to do. Perhaps I'm paranoid but I think the screen now
locks faster than it used to and I haven't been able to find the setting to
slow it down yet, which exacerbates the problem, when you're lounging and
intermittently transferring your attention between tv and internet browsing.

And the new calendar app only allows you to see 6 hours at a time, so you
can't get an overview of your day.

The settings app requires some sort of double swipe down that's just plain
awkward. Auto-brightness has been got rid of so often you're constantly
fighting the brightness of your phone at night.

The new notification have to be double tapped, which again is awkward,
especially as they register the first tap and then "helpfully" tell you to
make a 2nd one. But the first tap is behind a button press of the lock screen
so it's actually a triple press.

I'm also slightly perplexed as to the home button icon change, to a circle of
all things. It actually offends me a bit, it's so tiny and yet completely
devoid of meaning. It's different for Apple's circle button as that was a real
button, Google's tiny circle just kinda floats there. And the "back" triangle
changes orientation for no discernible reason other than the designer
obviously wanted to animate something.

The new phone app is strange, the buttons are too small, the volume of the
button presses doesn't turn down as you turn down the speaker volume.

And this is in a day and a half of use. It honestly feels like anyone testing
it would have hit most of these issues. I suspect Google's designers then
turned round to the testers and said "As designed. Material, you know. It's
just a new way", rather than admit they'd screwed up.

The worst part is, it's not added anything. I've not come across a single
thing yet that I've gone, oh, cool! Not one.

~~~
PuffinBlue
Agreed. Some more venting...

Calendar is now rubbish, month view is gone, schedule view is too limited and
there's way to much whitespace and 'fat' place cards. Got multiple Google
accounts? You can't remove the 'events' calendar. And 'Events' is ostensibly
the first calendar in your actual online Google Calendar which you might have
named 'Home' but in the app is steadfastly refuses to be called anything but
'events'.

This = install aCalendar[1] and Simple Calendar Widget [2]

Gmail app is now rubbish. HORRIBLE account switching. Do they even use their
own app? I don't want a profile pic so I don't know which account is which of
the 5 I need to use, so I just pick pot luck or swipe through them all? Then
there is that annoying hover button. 'WRITE SOMETHING' it screams out at you,
'Surely that's why you're here isn't it? You couldn't possibly just want to
scroll through your inbox without accidentally tapping me!!!'

This = install K9 mail.[3]

YouTube - Enter menu drawer, close it, press 'back' > still takes me back to
the home screen. Take a leaf out of Feedly's book and open the frickin' menu
drawer!

Chrome - Thankfully you can stop the annoying tab merge pretty easily.

Notifications - now to get to settings I have to do three actions, two pull
downs and hit a teeny tiny little button, or you know, waste a space on the
home screen.

Phone dialer - I actually like it. It's way faster to get to you contacts and
has a much better layout than before. Still got that annoying floating button
- 'DIAL SOME NUMBERS ASSHOLE!!!'

Default keyboard - why is removing the key separators a good idea? Is there
some data to back that up? To me it looks like a cluttered mess. Thankfully
switching back to the old style is just a setting away, but it would be great
if there was a more sane default.

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.withouthat...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.withouthat.acalendar&hl=en_GB)

[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anod.calen...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anod.calendar&hl=en_GB)

[3]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9&hl...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9&hl=en_GB)

~~~
Symmetry
While we're on the topic:

Clock - I used to be able to dismiss my 7:30 wakeup alarm if I woke up at 7:20
by simply swiping away the notification. But now I can't find any way to
suppress the next instance of a recurring alarm.

~~~
7007
I'm still on KitKat, but I think you can swipe down over the notification to
open up a dismiss option underneath the notification.

(at least you can on kitkat, I swipe down over 3 alarms at once and dismiss
them all)

------
gdulli
The problem is that software companies acquire the amount of labor (which is
large) that they need to create something but then don't have anything to do
with that extra labor when it's finished and all that's needed is maintenance
and a reasonable amount of additional upgrade work.

So if the company is profitable enough that it doesn't need to lay anyone off,
it has the excess labor keep iterating on a product that's already very good
and only needs a small amount of labor to keep it ideal. This makes the
product worse.

Once you see this you can't un-see it.

(Also there's the more cyncial explanation that by changing things
dramatically you get people to think they need to keep spending money.)

~~~
kaizendc
Exactly, it's mostly busywork.

~~~
Someone1234
I'd maybe agree regarding the UI/animation. But L has brought some significant
improvements (ART, Project Volta, background batching API, et al). So it is a
good release inspite of the UI/animation updates.

Google Maps and Windows Search are two products that have been over-worked to
death. Both were better in older iterations (Windows Search pre-Vista, Google
Maps before they went all minimalism-stupid).

Google Maps in particular stripped out tons of useful functionality for a long
period (My Places seems to appear and disappear every second release, location
search history is currently MIA, compass is gone, et al).

Windows Search just tried to make it "clever" but instead made it
"unreliable." They wanted to add support for everyone file format one by one
(and ignore everything else) but instead managed to only support native
Microsoft formats well and nothing else at all. File Search in Windows
(Vista-8.1) is horrendously poor. Give me Windows 95 search.

~~~
9point6
I would say Windows search pre-Vista was unusable in general due to the
poor/non-existent indexing and poor support of non-ASCII formats or anything
beyond basic file metadata. Microsoft's solution to the not being able to
support every file-type under the sun was to allow plugins to provide new
types, which work quite well IMO.

See:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFilter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFilter)

~~~
Someone1234
I don't say this often but: Everything you just said is factually wrong.

\- Windows had an indexer long before Vista (many many years)[0].

\- Windows Search supports (and supported) UTF-8 and UTF-16 strings, as well
as unicode if you had the correct language pack installed.

\- Windows supported file content searches in Windows 95 (up through Vista).

\- Microsoft could have allowed plugins to enrich search results WITHOUT
gutting raw text searching (see Windows XP for a compromise, before they
removed the work-around in Vista).

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

------
jbb555
Yeah and too many times when you complain about this kind of thing you get
accused of "hating change" or some such thing. No, I hate THIS change because
THIS change is bad!

~~~
paganel
More than one year after it happened the new GMaps interface still looks like
crap, and on top of that it feels slow, on a Mac Mini with 4GB of memory. I
still (don't know exactly how, could be a cookie thing, not sure) manage to
have access to the old interface in one of my browsers, and the old interface
works like a charm, both in terms of UI and speed.

And about GMail, nothing more to say, only that once you've managed to break
the "Open in new tab" button and the "Back" button then you have no business
doing UI-stuff in a browser.

Yes, I know both products are free as in I'm not paying anything for them,
it's just that is really, really frustrating to compare them with how they
used to behave.

~~~
funkyy
As far as I remember click "?" mark on the bottom of map window - there is
option to change it back to map classics. You can save this as well once
changed (small pop up will come out) so it will become your default.

------
hyperpape

      "There are a bunch of new ‘transitions’ between elements. I don’t know what the battery cost actually is for this, but as a user I just don’t care about cute transitions between elements. I want fast interaction with my mobile device."
    

This is poorly phrased at best. Transitions exist to make it obvious what is
happening: e.g. you minimize a window and it zooms into the taskbar/dock, as a
visual reminder that it's not gone, just stored there. This kind of thing is
even more important with an unfamiliar interface.

Are the particular transitions he's complaining about bad? I have no idea,
since he just wrote about transitions in general, without specifying any. Not
all transitions are good, but writing like they're all pointless suggests that
you just don't understand UI (and I'm not a UI person, just someone who reads
a tiny bit about it).

Edit: Just looked at the formatdoc. Is there a way to quote text without
getting those scrollbars?

~~~
yuriks
The transitions the author is probably complaining about are menu transitions:
Every time you tap on a menu item you get a outward radial animation thing. It
looks tacky but, more importantly, adds a half-second delay _to every menu
interaction_.

~~~
mdwrigh2
> It looks tacky but, more importantly, adds a half-second delay to every menu
> interaction.

No, it really doesn't. It's just an animation running in the RenderThread
while the new Activity is loading on the UI (main) thread.

~~~
yuriks
Are you speaking with any authority? I know this is a thing that _can_ be
done, but it doesn't seem to me that it is actually what's happening: It's
interesting that the delay seems to be always constant, exactly as long as the
animation, and was introduced only in this release. Such a coincidence.

~~~
mdwrigh2
This is actually how it works.

------
nickbaum
A few thoughts:

* Google has a large and very competent design team. They are not changing things "for the sake of changing them." More often than not, changes are made in response to issues discovered during usability studies.

* You are not the user. I am not the user. The designer is not the user. In fact, for a project as large as Android or Gmail, there is no "the user". You're always making trade-offs between power vs. common, new vs. existing users.

* Existing users are inherently conservative. By definition they mostly like things as they are or they wouldn't be users. You have to weigh their needs vs. those of future users. A big part of that is understanding how many people are upset about the change (all vs. vocal minority), how quickly they get used to it (if ever), and how you can mitigate this.

* Ideally, you want to make "Pareto efficient" changes, that make everyone better off. The only thing easier than doing what you've always done is when the new UX is so easy and intuitive you instantly understand it.

* You do not want to version your UI, just like you don't want to make everything a setting. This is a recipe for maintenance headaches, and endless wasted cycles supporting an ever-shrinking minority of users.

* This being said, it's very helpful to release a redesign as a beta, and let users switch back and forth for a while while you iron out the kinks. This in itself gives you good data.

At the end of the day, design is all about trade-offs. It's very easy to
criticize a change because you don't like it, but it's a lot more interesting
to think through why a change might have been made. If we're going to be
critical, let us be constructive.

~~~
declan
> You're always making trade-offs between power vs. common, new vs. existing
> users.

Well put. Google is a data-driven company with the ability to test designs
over millions of users (although Jakob Nielsen's work has shown that you reach
the point of quickly diminishing returns after testing with 5-10 users).

I've spent quite a bit of time implementing Material Design for
[http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/), and then testing the design with
normal, not especially tech-savvy users. My impression is that Material Design
is a way to simplify and standardize app UIs (to increase app usage overall),
and import visual cues from the paper world. It's very thoughtful approach,
probably better than iOS, and I say this as someone whose primary mobile
device is a new iPhone and who has owned an iPhone since the day it went on
sale.

But what works for most people may not work for HN power users. Hence the
complaints on this thread.

~~~
aggie
> although Jakob Nielsen's work has shown that you reach the point of quickly
> diminishing returns after testing with 5-10 users

This gets tossed around a lot, but is usually misinterpreted. What 5-10 users
will get you is discovering the mere existence of most usability problems.
What much larger sample sizes will get you is an idea of how many people are
likely to experience that problem, which is very helpful when talking about
trade-offs in meeting the needs of various types of users.

------
protonfish
The fact that we are discussing this generically as _UI Design_ shows the
immaturity of the concept. I can see at least two clear ideas needed to
discuss this in a more detailed and rational manner.

1\. We need to clearly separate the difference between UI design and UI
decoration. Design should be driven by user testing that measures speed and
rate of completion of tasks. If every feature of the latest UI is not measured
to be a quantitative increase, then it is not a design improvement. Decoration
is about being fashionable and has nothing to do with usable, efficient,
elegant UI. I see no reason they cannot exist side by side, but today the
prevailing policy seems to be that decorating UI in a trendy fashion trumps
usability.

2\. There needs to be thought about the adoption and transition of users from
an old interface to a new one. Right now the philosophy seems to be "Stop
whining and suck it up - our designers are smarter than you." This is not
reasonable or professional. New designs should be measured not just for
usability of new users, but also against users that are used to the previous
interface. There are probably many techniques to improve the user experience
of UI upgrades but we'll never discover them until we recognize that it is
important and spend some time and effort studying this phenomenon.

~~~
throwawayaway
Think they are too tightly coupled to use HN parlance. Would like to see
stylesheets or backwards compatible skins becoming de riguer. Particularly
when the program does nothing new.

------
smackfu
I find the new Google Maps UI to be frustrating. The number of taps to just
find directions to something after you search for it seems to be increased,
for no good reason.

I think it's mainly because there are multiple paths through the app to do the
same thing, and some of them are optimized flows and others are not. So
tapping the search bar is not the most efficient way to get directions
anymore... you should tap the blue directions icon instead.

~~~
shekhar101
Man! Move on. Start using Here maps. I don't know why people are stuck with
GMpas when far more superior alternative is available. They have a new android
app as well!

~~~
smackfu
Looks like Here maps isn't available for iOS.

~~~
shekhar101
Well yeah but at least it's better than both web and Android app of GMaps.
Hope they release an iOS version soon.

------
DontBeADick
I stopped updating all my Google apps ~2 years ago because there were so many
asinine, unintuitive UI changes with each new version. A lot of their changes
didn't even conform to the standards recommended by Google (e.g. menu button
locations). It's almost as if the UI team gets bored and decides to make
changes just because they need to occupy themselves. And then instead of
testing them with actual users, they just talk amongst themselves about how
awesome their new set of obscure gestures and button locations are.

I'm afraid to buy a new Nexus because of how bad the application interfaces
will probably be.

~~~
zmb_
I just updated my Nexus 5 to KitKat. The update forced me to use GMail instead
of the Email app, and almost 24h later GMail is still "Getting your messages".
None of my email accounts work. Never mind changing the UI, they should start
by not completely breaking the key functionality of their applications in
their effort to force everyone to use their services.

~~~
pja
K9 Mail is the traditional answer to this problem. Google never put very much
effort into the Android Mail App because they wanted to push you into using
GMail. That said, Email still works fine in KitKat - why did you have to
switch to the GMail App?

------
shawnwall
Google is making a huge amount of progress in UI and UX; the company has
historically been rather mediocre in terms of it's UI and UX, while Apple was
always the star. Over the past year or so the roles have reversed, and Google
continues making strides towards unifying their applications in a single user
experience and ui paradigm that allows for simpler app use, particularly for
new users.

It's easy to get upset when things change, but keep in mind that change can be
positive and/or negative.

~~~
asgard1024
> allows for simpler app use, particularly for new users

Are you kidding me? So called "flat design", with nondescript icons
indistinguishable from the surrounding text, is the worst thing ever for new
users. How am I supposed to know that I can click (er, I mean, touch)
something?

~~~
shawnwall
I'm not saying every choice they made is perfect. One of my qualms is the lack
of backgrounds for button selection in areas with 'ok' and 'cancel' \- which
is one of the most important areas to give the user clear direction.

------
edw519
Sadly, this meme is universal through time and space and shows no likelihood
of abating.

I once had a customer who told vendors, "I don't want maintenance, and I don't
want the software I just bought to change, ever." At the time, most of us
thought he was crazy. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm still sitting shivah for Classic Google Maps, Palm Graffiti, and Windows
XP. Sigh.

~~~
robodale
Windows XP - I was most productive on this OS...BY FAR. Everything since has
been less optimal. This includes IOS.

~~~
throwawayaway
Well think about it, now that you have to air gap it to keep it secure it's
probably even more productive than before - no time wasted on HN for example!

~~~
merrua
I'm pretty sure I read of a method that works even with air gap
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/air_gaps.html](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/air_gaps.html)

------
profinger
I'm so glad someone finally said it! I'm tired of this crap.

This applies to physical products too. These companies change their labels so
much.. It just makes it more difficult to find and leaves me, as a consumer,
confused when shopping unsure that I'm buying the correct product. Yes, things
needs to be updated and kept "pretty" but can we keep a base? Or can we agree,
at least, to pick something and stick to it?!

------
debacle
We have a huge underutilization issue in tech right now. The strategy seems to
be to throw programmers and designers at the wall until they make something
that sticks, but a lot of bad decisions come out of that strategy and it's not
immediately apparent that they're bad decisions until users complain.

This has led to a lot of cyclical design cycles, reinventing the wheel, NIH,
etc.

It's going to be damning to the tech sector if any of the big players (Apple,
Google, Amazon, Netflix, off the top of my head) need to tighten their belts,
because they're going to be able to shed a ton of employees without losing a
shred of profit or productivity.

~~~
tim333
>We have a huge underutilization issue in tech right now

Ironic given all the articles on the problem getting good people. I guess the
trouble is the winner takes all nature of the market means Google can have
1000 spare good programmers while most small tech companies have a job hiring
one or two.

~~~
npsimons
Google is aggressive in recruiting; I _still_ get emails from Google[1] asking
if I'm willing to relocate yet (I'm not). If small companies want good people,
they're going to have to dedicate some time and effort towards getting those
people. I've lost three _very_ good techies to Micron recently. Good talent is
out there, you just have to know where to look.

[1] - I'm not bragging or anything; I was declined an offer after my onsite
visit, but that was also _three_ years ago.

------
remon
The problem with arguments like these is that there being "no good reason" is
highly subjective. Excessive change is generally better than no changes at
all. Things have to evolve and even if we miss the mark every now and then it
should always improve over time on average when new ideas are tried and
tested.

~~~
PMan74
> The problem with arguments like these is that there being "no good reason"
> is highly subjective.

Not only is it subjective it's almost certainly incorrect. If you read
anything about Google it's clear that they don't make UI decisions without
looking at a ton of data, making the changes and testing those changes. What
does the author of that post think? A Google designer updated a load of
designs on a whim?

~~~
throwawayaway
Not a whim, an existential crisis. Justifying their existence, cherry picking
suitable answers from a ton of data to back that up. Confirmation bias to
appear relevant.

~~~
obsurveyor
Justifying their job too. How do you get marks on your review if the only
concrete things you can point to through the year are the bookkeeping of the
design world? Also, employee turnover and position changes means that those
new people bring their own, "new" ideas that have to be implemented(how else
do you "make your mark"?), at the expense of the user comfort/satisfaciton.

------
TeeWEE
I thinks this guy is missing the point. Google did uix research and come up
with a more usable design philosophy, which makes all apps more consistent.
They are now executing those grand-design rules.

In the end, apps should be more familiar, and easier to use.

The change itself is always frustrating, people who are used to an uix (by
learning it), hate change, even if the new uix is simpler.

~~~
exelius
Google sucks at UI. Period. They had one good UI: the original Google home
page. Everything since then has not been about making their products more
usable, it's been about finding ways to cram more advertising into their
products.

This is yet another case of where if you're not paying for it, you're not the
customer. So they're not designing it for you.

~~~
untog
_Google sucks at UI. Period. They had one good UI: the original Google home
page._

That was a textbox. You can't build an OS around that.

 _Everything since then has not been about making their products more usable,
it 's been about finding ways to cram more advertising into their products._

Err, no. How does the left version cram more advertising in than the right
version here?

[http://indonetworksecurity.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/An...](http://indonetworksecurity.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/Android-Lollipop-vs-Android-KitKat-11.jpg)

~~~
wtbob
>> Google sucks at UI. Period. They had one good UI: the original Google home
page.

> That was a textbox. You can't build an OS around that.

That sounds like Unix to me. Seems to work just fine …

~~~
untog
Yeah, try putting the average smartphone user in front of a Unix terminal and
see how that works out.

------
joeyh
You know, programs could version their UI's.

I was struck in Bram Cohen's interview by how much care he's taken to avoid
changing vim's behavior at all, while still letting nice new features be
added. In the case of vim, you have to learn about features and enable them to
change the UI. That works, but it does mean that the default vim experience
for a new user lacks a lot of its cool features, and it can be hard to learn
about features. (I only learned that vim has persistent undo from that
interview.)

Imagine if say, firefox, had a UI version number. New users get the current
version, and firefox writes that to its config. So upgrades don't have to
change the UI the user has gotten used to. It could prompt on upgrade to let
the user try out the fresh new version, and if they don't like it, they could
revert back. Even if this were only limited to the "chrome" around the web
page (no need to version UI for preferences pages etc), I think it would be a
nice win.

Gnome 3 sort of did this with its legacy mode, but it's a poor imitation at
best of gnome 2.

I'm sure that UI developers would hate this. Having to maintain old UI code,
or implement pixel-perfect imitations of it using the new UI code. Needing to
worry about how to shoehorn new features into an old UI that was not designed
for them. Etc.

It's much easier to put the cognitive load on the shoulders of the user, who
is forced to unlearn old habits, develop new muscle memories, and generally
grit their teeth and bear it until the new UI fades into the background and
stops distracting.. Just in time for a UI refresh to come around!

~~~
halestock
Bram Moolenaar, you mean.

~~~
joeyh
An embarassement of Brams.

------
rogeryu
I do care about Windows desktop changes. Not for me, but for my mother, over
80 years old, and although she still can handle changes, it becomes more
difficult. She's using Windows 7 right now (coming from XP via 2000 and 98),
with the classic (grey Windows 2000) design. I hope that stays with Windows 9.
I'm very glad we could skip Windows 8.

I guess many older people will have these problems, and I can't understand
that MS has no clue about the first generation of elderly people using
computers.

~~~
throwawayaway
I got a battery for a nokia 3310 to replace the dead one in my 86 year old
grandfather's 14 year old phone and he was delighted not to have to go and
learn something new. He's very mentally agile but he recognises a waste of
time when he sees one.

------
akramhussein
Yes. Agreed. I'm fed up of this. One day Hangouts is fine then next day
everything has changed...swiped from left to view contacts, now it's a click.
Swipe to delete, now its a button...few months later here we go again. Rinse
and repeat for every Google app it seems.

A friend once said to me "iPhone hasn't changed since day 1, it's still the
same stupid square icons, they can't innovate"...I was befuddled. There is a
reason things stay the same. They work and users know them like second nature.
Unless you have a REALLY good reason to change the paradigm, just don't. Mac
OS X and Windows until recently didn't really change that much in terms of
usability. Why does Google love to change everything constantly?

------
tomp
If only every application was just a backend with a well-defined API and a
default UI, then we could have independently sourced UIs that every person
could choose (and customize) on demand!

~~~
viraptor
In this case - isn't it? Samsung is happy to almost completely change the
whole look and feel. HTC has its own additions. Components like keyboards are
completely separate apps. Nokia released their launcher.

What's missing apart from people actually writing and releasing those
independent UIs?

~~~
tomp
AFAIK, different OEMs just change the system's look and feel (desktop,
launcher, keyboards, maybe some built-in apps that are usually
crap/adware/spyware), not the UI of the actual applications (e.g. GMail).

------
spindritf
I'm rarely if ever troubled by UI changes but it took me a good moment before
I figured out how to rerfresh your inbox in new Gmail. It's pretty obvious
that you need to drag down when there are messages but without any (inbox
zero) acting as an indicator, I went through all the options, and only picked
the right move by accident.

If you're just starting out and don't have a feel for the mobile paradigm,
those gestures may as well be magic. Maybe you're simply not supposed to
refresh anything by hand any more. Maybe it's supposed to be magic.

~~~
jbb555
The new gmail is ok although it has absolutely no advantages over the old one
so it's merely irritating they changed it just because they could. Except for
the compose button over the top of my text which is really awful and I hate it
so much

------
therealmarv
I really like the new design and it did not changed too often in my opinion.
UI design is like fashion for me and when it changes for good (I thing I like
the Lollipop design) every 3-5 years this is a good thing.

When speaking about productivity and design:

So we should all stay on Windows XP because everybody knows it and how to use
it?

------
Siecje
I have to first trigger the unlock on Lolly Pop and then if I swipe wrong I'm
taken to Phone which I barely use. Also the Phone's button to open the keypad
looks like the App List button, so I usually hit that by accident.

The white background doesn't look as good as the transparent one, in the app
list. The space between pages makes the screen look smaller.

There are permanent notifications for The Battery save mode and when you
Restrict Background Data.

It takes me two swipes to pull down to access the settings.

Notifications on the lock screen are nice but not enough text is shown.

------
throwawayaway
Even though this point is irrelevant to the article, when you are on the
Desktop, you can use a commandline.

When you use a commandline the UI and Workflow geniuses do not get to have any
input, and then you get less surprises of this nature.

When you use a Desktop application, it is easier to keep the software at a
version with a UI you like. The trend towards storing your data on other's
computers leads to empowering the authors of web programs, so that they don't
have to respect your taste in UI as much(among other things).

------
bluthru
>why is the Compose button a floating button taking up space in my Inbox
list?? There still exists a toolbar at the top for search and navigation. Why
can’t the Compose button be there??

YES! That's where you scroll! Why would they put a button there?

Oh, I know why: because they painted themselves into a corner by thinking
every app needs a cutesy circle button floating with a gross drop shadow.

------
chuckcode
I think it is just a fact of life, it's the same reason that I can't ever
figure out how to really use a microwave. They have to make it different this
year to "differentiate" the brand. I've learned to live with a lot of churn
and reach to buy the products that were built with more care and last.

------
userbinator
That keyboard looks somewhat alright at first, and you can sort of see where
the buttons are for the most part, but the comma and full stop really makes me
uncertain about where the borders between the keys are, and that's not a good
thing for a touch UI - it's uncertain enough for people with fat fingers. Is
it too much to ask for to have some lines separating the keys? On the other
hand, someone will certainly propose that the spacebar should really be
completely _blank_...

Wasn't one of the most important UI guidelines for a _long_ time "things that
behave like buttons should look like buttons"? The term "mystery meat
navigation" was invented to describe the effects of not following this; it's
even more difficult with a touchscreen as you cannot "hover" over UI elements
to discover if they're clickable.

~~~
Bjartr
I thought mystery meat navigation described buttons that only non-conventional
icons to indicate what they did until you hovered (if even then), thus their
behavior was a mystery until you tried them.

------
Zigurd
Try using old GMail after using InBox. Or hand someone an Android 4.4. phone
after they've bought a new Nexus. You will see immediately that the new UI is
a big improvement.

Articles like this show a lock of imagination. If you can't imagine the shock
of looking back at an older design, you can't perceive the benefits.

------
delinka
I'm starting to think that this constant change is what will prevent Software
Creation from becoming mature (and finally accepted as Engineering.) We don't
dwell on a thing long enough to truly explore it's pitfalls and potential.

Then again, perhaps that's just the perception from taking a look from too
high an altitude. Personally, I'm focusing on the tools I like using;
cautiously evaluating newer tools but not the bleeding edge (I like to avoid
scabs); making careful decisions about the stack for my latest creation, and
then sticking to those choices; in the last five years, I've felt more like
I'm doing a Serious Engineering. If other individuals do similar things,
perhaps there's hope for industry maturity after all.

------
WD-42
Does anyone use pin unlock on their phones? With lollipop you now have to
swipe the screen just to get to the pin unlock. That's an entire extra gesture
that serves absolutely no purpose but to take an extra .5 seconds from my life
every time I unlock my phone.

~~~
zem
yep, this is my primary annoyance with the new update

------
Akujin
They also completely removed the Gallery app and you are now forced to use
Google Images. Unfortunately if you disabled the Google Plus app Google Images
won't even turn on leaving you with no way to look at your own local pictures.

------
Systemic33
As a Windows Phone user, this really resonates with me, because WP has
actually been preserving the UI and basic principles it builds on, and only
added features as users voiced needs for specific upgrades (like allowing
transparent tiles with a photo behind the start screen (effectively a
background, but in a non-traditional way.

With the exception of Windows 7 -> Windows 8, MS have also kept cosmetic
updates to the system, fairly conservatively.

The authors critique of OSX is maybe the only thing i disagree with, since I
haven't experienced any situation, where more than the cosmetic things
changed, i.e. no UI elements changed really.

------
codingdave
Khan academy is the worst offender in my mind. This past summer, it seemed
like there was a change in how to navigate around the site every week. And
changes to how reports displayed, even how questions were answered... across
the board, constant changes.

My kids, who range from 5-9, and use it to learn math, had to ask me for help
constantly.

2 of my kids stopped using the site,as did I. One still uses it. I went from
being a strong advocate for Khan Academy to just a lukewarm user who watches
my son's progress... and all because of the excessive rapid UI changes.

~~~
grimman
Are there any alternatives in the same "range" as Khan Academy?

~~~
codingdave
Yes, there are dozens of choices. But few are free. And although I have no
problem paying for my children's education, I have not found a correlation
between the cost of online education and its quality.

I like Khan's vision - I really like their Mastery system, and their mission
system. Frankly, if they worked out all the kinks and had similar mechanisms
for all primary education subjects, homeschooling could be done with nothing
but Khan.

They just aren't quite there yet.

------
zipperhead
Something about the entire approach Google is taking with Lollipop (and
Material Design) just seems off to me. I can see their philosophy but I don't
agree with large parts of it (I don't need or want animations to guide me
along the path thank you).

Overall I'm left with a feeling of a lack of 'grace'. It's just not graceful,
which I guess is where the art of UI comes into play. Maybe they will get
there eventually, but right now it's still clunky as hell. Even worse, they
are dropping functionality along the way.

------
tim333
There's a misalignment of incentive for changing UI. For the designer/manager
its great - they can say I was the designer of the cool new whatever UI, put
it on their cv, get promoted etc. Much more fun than doing maintenance. $100k
value?

For the users it's the other way assuming the functionality's the same. They
have to spend time relearning the darn thing - say a $5 pain in the arse?
Times 10 million users a $50m cost to society perhaps.

------
Mikeb85
You know, you could replace Android 5 with 'Gnome 3', 'Ubuntu Unity', 'Windows
8' or 'Systemd' and the discussion would be exactly the same.

People just hate change, and will always think the old way is better. I
remember when people were bitching about the Start button in Windows 95... Now
they bitch about the Start button in Windows 8.

Personally, I think all the above items that I mentioned are better than what
they replaced...

------
at-fates-hands
The funny thing is I just switched from my Windows Phone back to Android and
Lollipop and it's been a nightmare.

All my friends told me how much better Android would be and this is a
nightmare compared to how much better my Windows phone handles stuff like the
calendar, multiple email boxes and other things Lollipop seems to fail at
miserably now.

I'm actually considering going back after less than a month trying to wade
through all the changes.

------
k-mcgrady
>> "why is the Compose button a floating button taking up space in my Inbox
list"

Because it's a button people use a lot and putting it there makes it much
easier to get to. It doesn't 'cover' anything. You can scroll the inbox past
it. It's a new design pattern in Android and used very well in Inbox imo by
making the button expand and show most used actions.

------
sjolsen
> There are a bunch of new ‘transitions’ between elements. I don’t know what
> the battery cost actually is for this, but as a user I just don’t care about
> cute transitions between elements. I want fast interaction with my mobile
> device.

In other words, UI animations are _literally_ a waste of time. To hell with
the battery, the user's time is the most valuable resource, period.

------
627467
Google/Android have been pushing major UI changes every other version. Why?
Who knows.

I just gave a Moto G to my mother hoping that upgrading from an Android device
to another would smooth the transition but - among other things - she couldn't
find how to operate the new Google camera (a primary function for her).

Why? Because there's this "trend" of hiding all the GUI with gestures and
stuff, despite the fact that displays are growing and there's more screen
real-estate than ever.

And it's worse that some of these changes are subtle enough that it may even
take you a few days to realize why you are so frustrated with your seemingly
same phone: buttons have disappeared, borders removed, contrast decreased.

Ultimately I feel there's very little respect for the wider audience by
today's "pioneers". Here in our bubble we all love novelty, new solutions, new
paradigms, but the wider market doesn't care about this. They just want to
keep doing what took them a long time to learn to do.

------
paulojreis
As someone with experience in user interface design and evalution, I'm
inclined to say that these were management or "product vision" \- not design -
decisions. It is rather unfortunate (but common) that said motives typically
_override_ design decisions (some of them empirically validated).

------
protomyth
Yosemite should be the case study right behind Windows 8 on how not to change
a UI. Spotlight is horrible and harder to use (pop up away from mouse, UI
smaller and harder to click).

I still want to have a transcript from the meeting that decided the tabs on
Safari should now "scrunch" to the right of the active tab instead of all the
way to the right. It makes selecting the next tab without closing the current
tab a huge pain. I can see no advantage.

Let's also add that bugs get introduced / reintroduced and really irritate
people. Nothing, and I mean nothing, irritates a computer user when they
thought they knew how to do something and now cannot. Then, after finding the
way how, it crashes with a bug. Finder for Mavericks and Yosemite is broken
with Applescript (doesn't refresh view).

~~~
archagon
You don't like the new Safari tabs? Have you tried using your trackpad or
mouse wheel to scroll them horizontally?

To me, it's the best solution out of all the browsers. Firefox has a scrolling
list, but all the tabs are the same size so they go off the screen. Chrome
shrinks tabs down until they're illegible. Safari kind of does both, but you
can spread them out in an analog way just by using your mouse. To me, it feels
great.

~~~
protomyth
The scrolling is interesting, but it scrunches the tabs on the left as I add
them and then I have extra actions to go to the first tab I opened. I see no
purpose in this behavior.

~~~
archagon
Well, it doesn't do that if all your tabs fit in the window, right? It only
happens once you run out of space, and at that point you need to do
_something_.

~~~
protomyth
yes, and that something is to scrunch the right side not one tab to the left
of the left side. Act like every other program on the platform using tabs.

~~~
archagon
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, that's a bit annoying, and they should probably
scrunch on the left, but I think the pros of the new UI outweigh the cons.

Also, the behavior is the same as the previous version of Safari, and Finder,
at least, behaves the same way.

~~~
protomyth
the last version of Safari does not act like this.

~~~
archagon
To my recollection, every new tab was added to a list after the last tab in
the window.

~~~
protomyth
yes, and it scrunched them there - now they are still added on the right by
scrunched on the left

------
eridal
I was anxiously expecting the update, but man that keyword is a deal breaker.
Can it be configured as dark themed?

The keyboard is a central point for UX, I've already moved away from Samsung
for the same reason, and will hold the update if I'm forced to use _that_
keyword

~~~
pilsetnieks
There are four themes for the builtin keyboard now:

\- Material Light (the default, the one that's shown in the article);

\- Material Dark (the same but dark);

\- Holo White (the old one);

\- Holo Blue (the old one with blue accents)

~~~
eridal
sweet! can you post a shot?

~~~
iamben
Sure, this help?

[http://i.imgur.com/WDLz0Ju.png](http://i.imgur.com/WDLz0Ju.png)

~~~
eridal
Thanks for taking the time.

The new keyboards look different but polish, would definitely give it a try

------
gnuvince
Busy work: if UI designers did not change everything all the time, they'd all
be out of jobs.

------
arcosdev
Meh. New UIs are a game that we all get to play. It is as much about marketing
and sales "and staying fresh" then anything. It is just more distraction so we
can ogle our devices from a new perspective. You don't want to get stale now.

------
Mikeb85
Meh, I haven't found any of this to be a problem. I was a little confused by
the new keyboard, but it works just fine, if not a little better than the
previous one. Swiping around the letters still works great for composing
words.

The behaviour with Chrome and tabs is much better than before, switching
through tabs as though they're apps makes a lot of sense, better than
switching through apps, then through tabs again, when I just want to see one
page...

Overall I find the whole UI to be an improvement in Android 5 versus 4.4. It
looks nicer, and everything seems just a little bit better.

But then again, I've never had a problem with things changing, I'm pretty
adaptable.

------
guelo
There was a time many years ago when google gave engineers free rein. The
engineers kept coming up with new blockbuster products like gmail and maps,
but the designers hated Google. They complained that the engineers shouldn't
be designing the products, that the interfaces were ugly and cluttered.
Cluttered because they exposed ways to manipulate all the features that the
engineers had created.

So Google hired tons of designers to fix this, and gave them high level
positions to make product decisions. The designers now run the company so we
get new paint on the old products. The innovation is only on new designs and
interactions.

------
tkrupicka
The UI changes to android are aimed at making the user interface more
standardized across devices, and more intuitive for _all_ users. There's
something to be said about that.

------
Animats
Mobile devices are now in the tailfin era, like 1950s cars. Every year, the
styling changes, to force users to buy the new model. 1950s people actually
used to buy a new car every year if they could afford it, partly because
vehicle reliability and working life sucked.

Then Japanese cars with higher reliability and lower cost started to compete
with Detroit's chrome-laden behemoths. That didn't end well for Detroit.
Today, cars last about twice as long as they did in the 1970s.

------
shekhar101
Started switching to alternatives after Gmail redesign fiasco. Last nail in
the coffin was Google maps 'redesign'. I loved both these products but have
now moved on. Luckily for us Here maps is alive and kicking and it's so much
better than GMaps! Why are people still stuck with Google Maps, I don't know.
Here has everything and more. _Real offline navigation!_ And they have an
Android app too!

~~~
rhblake
This needs more attention. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Nokia's
HERE recently became available in beta for all Android users (free):
[http://here.com/beta/android/?lang=en-
US](http://here.com/beta/android/?lang=en-US)

Having used a Windows Phone for some time before switching back to Android,
the HERE maps app was the one thing I missed the most. Offline support is a
must for me and Google Maps' offline 'support' is a joke. (I'm currently in
Paris, without mobile Internet access. Google Maps is useless as soon as I
leave the house.) OsmAnd/Maps.me do offline properly, but their UIs are
lacking and both have serious GPS issues on my Nexus 5.

HERE just works great. There are many lovely little features.

Like, if I click on a subway station nearby, Google Maps (Lollipop) will show
me the name of the station and how long it takes to get there, and if I swipe
up it will also tell me the lines going from that station and show some
share/depart buttons and street photos.

If I click on the same station in HERE, it will overlay the routes of the
station's subway lines on the map so that I can at once actually see where
they are going. Incredibly more useful, especially in big cities like Paris or
Berlin where there can be a dozen subway lines or more.

I wonder if small features like these and the whole offline thing reflect
where the developers come from? It seems like the Google Maps team doesn't
take public transport very seriously, and that they can't imagine people ever
being without Internet access.

~~~
shekhar101
Totally agreed. I don't why it isn't getting fraction of publicity that other
less useful and I dare say stupid apps are getting. HERE simply rocks! I will
_never_ switch back to crappy web version of GMaps. HERE beats it in both web
and Android version. Love it!

------
emjaygee
Will you buy the newer products without the newer UIs? I didn't think so, so
the manufacturers are motivated to keep changing.

------
Sakes
The above blog has some valid points. But how the hell is it at the top on HN
when there is a constructive, informative, and beautiful post about how to
create aesthetically pleasing GUIs right below it....

I'm bitching about bitching.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8635082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8635082)

~~~
neuralk
They cover slightly different territory. The post you linked is more about the
aesthetics of good UI, with a little bit about functionality and UX. The
solutions there do not solve or address the problem brought up in the OP here,
which is more about UX and the modification of existing user interfaces. For
instance, it wasn't the updated graphical style of the keyboard that the OP
complained about, but the rearranged placement of keys.

That said, both are good reads and complement each other.

~~~
Sakes
I agree with you 100%. My comment was meant to complain about how the HN crowd
was up voting an article which kicked off UI rants in the comments section
when there was an article right beneath it with interesting techniques to add
to your tool kit.

Keyboard complaints though... not sure why they changed that. But the "no good
reason" is garbage because there are at least a couple reasons.

Google migrating the A team from "gmail" to "inbox" possibly introducing less
experienced devs/designers.

Google trying to apply consistent UI principles across all applications in
order to increase familiarity.

When trying to make improvements there should be some room for experimentation
/ failure. I would expect this community to understand that since it is
heavily made up of makers.

So, for me, if the OP had titled it complaints about lollipop instead of stop
changing UI for no good reason, I would have thought it to be right on. If the
commenters didn't rally around it with pitchforks, I would have had no
problem.

------
gtbcb
I feel like startups change their UI too often as well. Yes, it's good to test
new designs for conversion, but sometimes I feel like every time I visit a
site, I have to completely relearn how to use it. Sometimes I wonder if
designers should be contracted more instead of being brought on full-time.

------
amelius
Car analogy: what if your steering wheel was in a different location of your
car every couple of weeks? :)

------
platz
Remember when everyone threw a fit because facebook changed their UI? Now, no-
one seems to be talking about it. Although this article raises some good
points, I'm just not motivated by "it's not what I'm used to / trained myself
on" arguments.

------
deafbybeheading
Some valid points, but GitHub's UI evolution has been phenomenal over the last
two years.

~~~
zsombor
Oh yeah having six or more horizontal navigation bars was pure pain.
Considering how difficult is to effect changes with an established user base,
plus the complexity of the domain itself, their new design is anything but
cosmetic.

------
packetized
I wonder at what point it stops being a UI redesign and becomes a
psychological experiment.

------
lackbeard
I don't use android, but I've been frustrated with pretty much every change to
gmail over the last 4 years or so. Not to mention the new Google maps.

It seems that some bad designers have gained quite a bit of political power
within Google somehow.

------
fla
This is becoming pretty annoying. When buttons disappear or keyboard
experience changes, it gets me angry. Not because I hate changes, but because
I have no choice and no warnings. I will now think twice before updating my
Android system.

------
rcavezza
Google is slowly changing GMail to look like their new Inbox product. Instead
of making a windfall upgrade, they're starting with small UI changes. Expect
more incremental changes until GMail becomes Inbox.

------
rectang
The user pays a cost every time a UI changes -- but the user also pays a cost
if a UI is frozen forever and not permitted to evolve.

What are some techniques for evolving UIs at minimal cost to the user?

------
arikrak
They assume over the long term their changes are improvements even if takes
getting used to. Though maybe they just need something to do, so they change
the design regularly...

------
Raphmedia
Step 1 : Have a great UI. Step 2 : Slowly and subtly break that UI. Step 3 :
Announce and hype up that you will have a great UI in the next version.
Repeat.

------
acdha
This happens every time something changes. Wait for the next release and the
same guy is probably going to be complaining about changes to the current UI.

One phrase I hear a lot is “The future is longer than the past”. It's relevant
here as well – spending all of your time worrying about existing users have to
spend a couple minutes getting used to a new keyboard design isn't a good
reason not to make improvements which will benefit the millions of people who
will never use the old one.

~~~
unterstrom
>Wait for the next release and the same guy is probably going to be
complaining about changes to the current UI. Off course he will. It's his
point. He alreadey stated that it is not the ui that is bad. It's the practice
of constantly changing things for no good reason that is bad.

~~~
acdha
You're both begging the question of whether this was in fact done for no
reason other than to change things. It's rather unlikely that someone at
Google spent time and money developing something for no reason – that post
would have been interesting if it'd actually discussed why things changed and
why the reasoning behind those changes was wrong rather than simply assuming
it.

------
Shivetya
iTunes on the Apple side has been the worst of the Mac experience for me. It
always seems as if the change is to put me further and further from my music,
especially custom playlists and such. Worse, it doesn't retain settings.

However like Office is to Windows, it seems Apple's test for new UI ideas,
sadly they all seem to make it.

------
stevewilhelm
Mobile Phone UX has gone the way of automobile and clothing design: changes
are driven by fashion as well as utility.

------
phazelift
Not to speak about the Firefox 29 release, they ruined it, I reinstalled and
the old version, still on 28 now..

------
higherpurpose
I agree with the general sentiment; disagree about the specific example
(Gmail). I prefer it over the old one.

------
brohoolio
How is material design for accessibility?

------
PaulHoule
Android L is the next Windows 8

