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Comment by astrodust | Hacker News Reader

"Apple used to lead the world in interface design" does not mean their designs were without serious flaws. Nobody would get up and defend System 7 as the pinnacle of usability, it was downright quirky and strange in places, and by the time System 9 arrived it'd gotten downright surreal. Things only made sense in the context of history.

The difference between Apple and other companies is not that Apple gets it right every time, but that Apple genuinely tries. Some other companies literally do not care how their products look, they just ship whatever the engineering team cobbles together with snippets from from Google Image Search.

Microsoft's making similar efforts lately, so that's encouraging to see, and even Google is making strides in reducing the amount of rampant ugly in their applications.

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I would say that right now, Apple isn't really trying. Things have always varied from application to application, but right now it's a real hodge-podge. The tiny link targets in particular drive me nuts. I've been using the iPhone for years and sometimes I look at an app and I can't tell what is "click-able" and what's not.

Try turning on button shapes. It's been a major help for me. It may not be as clean as the stock setup but it's far more usable for me.

Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Button Shapes.

I do think the loss of visual affordances was a mistake on Apple's part. But enabling Button Shapes does offset things quite a bit.

However, I do suspect that not all developers test with Button Shapes enabled. The native Twitter client looked a little "broken" for the longest time with Button Shapes enabled. It took awhile but I think it has been fixed.

> Microsoft's making similar efforts lately, so that's encouraging to see, and even Google is making strides in reducing the amount of rampant ugly in their applications.

I disagree regarding Microsoft. While Windows 8 was not well loved at least the 2 halves of its modal interface were internally consistent. Windows 10 looks like it was designed by committee by picking bits of Windows 8 desktop and Windows 8 Metro and stuffing them together. There's no clear direction or goal to it all. In addition there's just plain manifest ugliness like some of the icon choices.

> reducing the amount of rampant ugly in their applications

The fact that you are talking about "ugly" is the entire problem.

Aesthetics do matter, though. People don't like using ugly products.

Not only that but people using 2 products with the exact same function but different form not only prefer using the one with better form but actually encounter fewer difficulties and have a better experience. [1] Or this bit [2]. Read the entire article, but this is where those bits were from.

[1] http://alistapart.com/article/indefenseofeyecandy#section7 [2] http://alistapart.com/article/indefenseofeyecandy#section3

Form and function are both equally important.

You get the think about form when you've optimized function.

That is known as "form follows function" and one philosophy. The philosophy I stated is "form and function are one" which came about after the former.

But it's important to consider that form and function are not necessarily separate things and that beauty is not only decoration.

Read this article, in particular this [1] section.

[1] http://alistapart.com/article/indefenseofeyecandy#section3

And here's a nice quote:

“…users judge the relevancy of identical search results from different search engines based on the brand…Participants in the study indicated that the results from Google and Yahoo were superior to identical results found through Windows Live or a generic search engine.”

Not in a device. Function is the most important. Form should not interfere with function.

In physical devices that are handled, and in graphical user interfaces, the form is the plurality of the function.

Why? Have you studied this? Have you read research that proves otherwise? When did I suggest form interferes with function? The idea that form and function are one says functionality and form are equally important. And there's good reason for this when humans are using your device.

I believe your bias comes from your position as someone who's work is create functionality. You see that as the complete product and by virtue of your intimacy with it, the most important. But you're missing the entire picture.

Start reading here [1] and I suggest you read the entire article.

[1] http://alistapart.com/article/indefenseofeyecandy#section3

>Have you studied this?

There's nothing to study. What could you even mean by that? I'm sure there's an entire caste of useless "designers" who do all sorts of "research" to make themselves feel important, but in the real world people buy devices to perform tasks.

If that's not what you want it for buy some jewelry instead.

There's actually a lot to study backed by quantitive evidence. Your business will suffer if you only focus on the function and fail to consider form.

Do you think the Tesla Model S would have been a success had it the same design and form as previous attempts at an EV? The function of the car was far superior, obviously but the form was as well.

Both of these elements matter and if you only have 1 or the other, you lose.

The Tesla styling doesn't interfere with the function of the car, and if it did the car wouldn't sell.

I'm not saying the form has no importance at all. It's just that you don't sacrifice function for form.

I think that's the entire point of "they're one". You're not working with a finite amount of status points here. Giving to one does not take away from the other and if it is then you're doing it wrong. The idea is that the form does in fact matter. A lot. But form at the expense of function would be function follows form which, although a philosophy, is probably suboptimal.

What I'm trying to say is you don't say "lets make it work" and think of the form as an afterthought - as a "nice to have". We need to make it work and make it beautiful. Both are important and comprise the essence of what we are trying to build. Otherwise what's the point?

Soviet-era housing blocks are perfectly livable, they have a floor, a roof, walls, a toilet, heat, running water. What more could you possibly want in an apartment?

They were also brutally ugly.

When you have to live with something, interact with it constantly, you might want it to look nice.

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