Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 11th May 2010 23:11 UTC
Ah, Jakob Nielsen. Anyone who has ever been involved with serious document design or web usability will know his name. If you've never heard of him, the best way to describe him would probably be this: he's the Richard Stallman of usability. He has a set of very clear ideas about user interface and document design, which more often than not get in the way of beauty. He has performed a usability study, with real users, on the iPad.
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RE: It'll get better with time
by Delgarde on Wed 12th May 2010 01:17
in reply to "It'll get better with time"
Member since:2008-08-19
The iPad is a new device and offers a new way of interacting with it. As such I think there'll be a lot of experimentation as developers figure out what works and what doesn't.
I remember on the Amiga many years ago the lack of guidelines lead to a lot of software with weird and wonderful UIs.
I remember on the Amiga many years ago the lack of guidelines lead to a lot of software with weird and wonderful UIs.
The key being "many years ago" - the UI model has been pretty settled for over 20 years now, the basics having not changed much since the early days of Windows and Mac.
And in those days, one of the strengths of the Mac was that Apple provided guidelines to encourage developers to build UI that would be consistent with all the others - those guidelines weren't always followed, but they were there. That doesn't seem to be the case with iPhone / iPad apps. You'd think that given the myriad reasons why an app can be rejected from the store, not following the platform's UI conventions would be one of them...
RE[2]: It'll get better with time
by galvanash on Wed 12th May 2010 01:44
in reply to "RE: It'll get better with time"
Member since:2006-01-25
The key being "many years ago" - the UI model has been pretty settled for over 20 years now, the basics having not changed much since the early days of Windows and Mac.
Thats just silly. Sure, certain conventions have been settled upon on desktops regardless of OS, but that is because nearly all desktop GUIs share the same input device - the mouse. The mouse and how it works is the reason most of these conventions exist - take away the mouse and everything changes.
Multipoint touch interfaces require different approaches to be successful. iPhones/iPads are essentially still in the experimentation stage - there is no "right" way to do UIs for them, people (including Apple) are still trying to nail down what works best. The LAST thing we want at this point is standardizing the UI to the point of discouraging experimentation - its way too early to nail things down that tightly. Its going to take a few more years in my opinion before the UI for these kinds of devices reaches the maturity level required to start thinking we no longer need to explore how best to utilize them.
RE[2]: It'll get better with time
by google_ninja on Wed 12th May 2010 12:46
in reply to "RE: It'll get better with time"
Member since:2006-02-05
RE[2]: It'll get better with time
by Chicken Blood on Wed 12th May 2010 22:53
in reply to "RE: It'll get better with time"
Member since:2005-12-21
The key being "many years ago" - the UI model has been pretty settled for over 20 years now, the basics having not changed much since the early days of Windows and Mac.
And in those days, one of the strengths of the Mac was that Apple provided guidelines to encourage developers to build UI that would be consistent with all the others - those guidelines weren't always followed, but they were there. That doesn't seem to be the case with iPhone / iPad apps. You'd think that given the myriad reasons why an app can be rejected from the store, not following the platform's UI conventions would be one of them...
…except Apple have published Human Interface Guidelines for developing iPhone and iPad apps http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/UserExperie... *sigh*
Edited for clairity. The topmost level of quoting is broken.
Edited 2010-05-12 22:55 UTC
RE: It'll get better with time
by Kroc on Wed 12th May 2010 09:03
in reply to "It'll get better with time"
Member since:2005-11-10
The iPad is a new device and offers a new way of interacting with it
Tablets have been with us since the ’80s.
The iPad is just the first such device to see success because Apple sweated the user-experience details where others were trying to force a mouse-based design to fit.
But yes, there will be an easing out period as developers get to grips with the platform. It isn’t easy designing a touch-based interface using a mouse-based development system.
RE: It'll get better with time
by JAlexoid on Wed 12th May 2010 09:59
in reply to "It'll get better with time"
Member since:2009-05-19
The iPad is a new device and offers a new way of interacting with it. As such I think there'll be a lot of experimentation as developers figure out what works and what doesn't.
I remember on the Amiga many years ago the lack of guidelines lead to a lot of software with weird and wonderful UIs. A lot of this was bad, but there were also gems where the UI was amazingly good. I suspect the same will happen here.
I initially wasn't interested in getting an iPad (I seen it's benefit immediately but I also saw that it was not targeted at me). I've since thought of an idea for an app (with an interesting UI) so I've ordered one.
However it's only one aspect of the UI I want to make "interesting", for the rest, guidelines like these are very useful.
I remember on the Amiga many years ago the lack of guidelines lead to a lot of software with weird and wonderful UIs. A lot of this was bad, but there were also gems where the UI was amazingly good. I suspect the same will happen here.
I initially wasn't interested in getting an iPad (I seen it's benefit immediately but I also saw that it was not targeted at me). I've since thought of an idea for an app (with an interesting UI) so I've ordered one.
However it's only one aspect of the UI I want to make "interesting", for the rest, guidelines like these are very useful.
Yet, most of the issues are carried over from iPhone. And iPhone is 3 years old.
PS: The inconsistent back button, is the thing I hate the most about iPhone OS(there is nothing more annoying) and love the consistency that Android phones give there.
RE[2]: It'll get better with time
by Chicken Blood on Wed 12th May 2010 22:48
in reply to "RE: It'll get better with time"
Member since:2005-12-21
PS: The inconsistent back button, is the thing I hate the most about iPhone OS(there is nothing more annoying) and love the consistency that Android phones give there.
Hmm, I used an Android Nexus one and a Backflip and there was nothing consistent about any of the apps. In particular, the photo Gallery app did not have clearly labelled exits (back buttons).
The thing is, it's really up to the developer to do the right thing. Many iPhone apps *are* consistent in this regards. The UIViewController navigation model even provides a firm foundation for putting breadcrumbs and back buttons into your app easily.
Edited 2010-05-12 22:51 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.More News »
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Member since:
2005-07-06
The iPad is a new device and offers a new way of interacting with it. As such I think there'll be a lot of experimentation as developers figure out what works and what doesn't.
I remember on the Amiga many years ago the lack of guidelines lead to a lot of software with weird and wonderful UIs. A lot of this was bad, but there were also gems where the UI was amazingly good. I suspect the same will happen here.
I initially wasn't interested in getting an iPad (I seen it's benefit immediately but I also saw that it was not targeted at me). I've since thought of an idea for an app (with an interesting UI) so I've ordered one.
However it's only one aspect of the UI I want to make "interesting", for the rest, guidelines like these are very useful.