UI backwards compatibility | Hacker News Reader

UI backwards compatibility

danluu.com

67 pointsmarvinpinto8 comments

The recent Chrome bookmark button changes are a good example of this - https://www.ghacks.net/2017/09/20/google-switches-done-and-r...

> If you open Google Chrome right now, and start to bookmark, you will notice that the order has changed. Basically, what Google did was swap the Done and Remove buttons of the dialog.

> This is a problem for users who clicked on done whenever they added a bookmark using the bookmark star icon of Chrome, as they may now hit the remove button instead if they don't pay attention.

Facebook changed the UI so many times between 2007 and 2012 that I stopped using it. They were known for the salami tactic - after each community outcry, media reported it and FB revered it back just to baby-step-adding it back in with much less outcry as some people got used to. Initially everyone could see what you posted in your network. Then they added great privacy options (good). Later with the timeline/wall introduction the changed the privacy feature many times and hundreds of changes to the settings pages. Often the settings got renamed and changed, and new opt-out settings got introduced. The change of the timeline to a newsfeed with no possibility to view all posts in descending order killed FB for me long ago (2012). The same clusters..k happened with Win8/10, so I stay with v7.

In the case of a keyboard focused UI (such as the zulip example) I would agree with this post. But with a mouse UI my actions tend to always rely on my eyes feedback.

I don't think that I have ever been bitten by a mouse UI modification (excluding the case of a webpage making an async call that adds a bouton in the middle of a menu...)

Note to the author: you seem to like minimalist webdesign. However, long lines are not pleasant to read. http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ is a good inspiration.

A colleague mentioned that ever since Windows 3.0 (maybe before) you've (usually) been able to close a window by double-clicking in the top-left corner, where the window menu button used to be. Later that button was replaced with the window icon, but the menu and the double-click still worked. Now, even though that button isn't visually there in many programs - such as Explorer - clicking where it would have been (usually) still works, and double-clicking there still closes it.

Sadly, there are some programs which haven't preserved this interaction, such as Firefox.

I agree for the mouse. I guess when you (you, me, anyone) grab your mouse, you change your focus so you switch to visual.

Perhaps designers or people using mouse only softwares might be more sensitive about UI changing on desktop.

But when you're using an app on a smartphone or tablet, it's still your hands and I think that's when it becomes a problem if the UI have radically changed.

if mouse ui relies on eyes feedback then have you ever been bitten by visual modifications, because I have, the place I used to expect to click is gone, no longer clickable, or produces slightly different result than what it used to result in.

Interesting. I'm reminded of how supermarkets supposedly change their layouts to keep people in the store longer, so they might buy more things just because they are forced to look around more.

The Chrome backspace changes were justified, I think, by the large numbers of accidental actuations due to text input boxes not being in focus. Plus they added some text indicating which replacement shortcut to use.

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