Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 | Hacker News Reader

Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7

edwardtufte.com

85 pointscoliveira27 comments

duplicate: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161922

This analysis seems spot on. Windows Phone Seven's low information density has troubled me from the first time I saw it. On a small screen like a phone, pixels should be precious. The fact that the contacts app uses a fifth of its screen telling me that I'm in the contacts app seems objectively wasteful.

Unless Microsoft decided to approach it as a phone first and a tiny computer second, and from the homes screen being ~50% phone features I'm guessing they did. Information density on a phone can be extremely low.

The irony here is that Tufte goes on about bad interfaces etc yet his own web site is hopelessly locked in 1995.

perhaps you confuse style with design?

His site definitely lacks style but I would argue the design is from that era as well. To be fair, I doubt he designed the look and feel of his site - and the truth is most great designers tend to have crappy sites because they are busy with real work and dont need to market themselves that heavily. I would guess he is probably in that boat, he doesnt really care about his web site because he has much more important things to do.

That's odd. Most great designers I've seen have pretty good sites. If not a bit gawdy, but certainly never this frumpy.

You have to remember that Tufte's area of specialty is in the area of visualizing quantitative information. He's not a designer (although he is a sculptor, apparently) or GUI guru even if he has opinions on them.

Clearly a "dated" design isn't enough to stop you from visiting a site. Hacker News definitely has a dated feel too.

Does it? I think it's the wave of the future. Or at least I hope it is. It's as close to pure content and zero chrome as I've seen anywhere. Tufte's site may look old, but it's fairly information-dense, and the comment system is the best I've seen anywhere.

My comment was intended less as a critique of Tufte or HN than to point out that the parent post's criticism on Tufte's site is a little off base.

Tufte's site is s piece of crap, completely ridiculous. Criticizing websites is easy, making websites is hard. You're not an expert in user interface design if you haven't done user interface design.

Your first sentence sort of illustrates your second sentence's point, no?

Well, in contrast to Tufte, I actually have built a couple of Interfaces...

Sure, but just because he hasn't designed an interface doesn't invalidate his opinion. His opinions are mostly from the perspective of his field, which in some ways influence user interface design.

Many user interfaces use elements (he did invent sparklines) and principles he has talked about in his books.

I mean seriously, if Joe User criticizes a user interface is he wrong because he hasn't designed an interface before?

The difference between an interface designer and a user is:

1. The designer knows many opinions (and due to being exposed to an avalanche of user feedback over the years you really see interfaces in a panopticum). But you never get enough. It's like a drug.

2. The user only knows his opinion. Every user opinion is important--to the designer.

Tufte is just an intelligent eloquent user. His interface design competence is as weak as his photography.

Without working in the field you don't get this perspective on interfaces. Tufte has an intelligent riff, but it's always the same professoral top-down "it-has-to-be-so-and-so", and sometimes he's just plain subjectively irrelevant.

Based on the tone of your commentary, I'm not convinced you believe the second part to #2.

Not so much. Tables for layout + page that's wider than the content (the footer is wider than the rest of the page). Font tags. Inline styles.

1995.

I am hoping I am not the only one who is confused with his website - how to differentiate where the article ends and where comments begin. Also took a small while to figure out how to access his book list.

The comments are an integral part of the article, since his responses to them are valuable additions to the article text. Also his commenters are very well behaved.

Yeah, very confusing. I thought it was some sort of interview at the bottom at first.

Microsoft definitely has a soft spot for blockiness and overly large fonts. There were doing this with the Kin too - I agree that it is overstyled and not the greatest interface from close-up.

Yeah, but at least it's Frutiger. I'm not a hardcore type nerd, but I remember that because it was the first thing about WinPhone7 that made me believe I might like it.

Microsoft has made some fairly nice fonts like Calibri, Consolas, Cambria etc. so the fact they went with a really good third-party font like Frutiger told me that "NIH", seemingly endemic to Microsoft product development, was not an issue. It was no guarantee, of course, but it was an indication that the team was making a product that was seriously designed instead of just checking off features.

Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7: 'Ooh, look at me! I'm Windows Phone 7! I think I'm so smart! Look at all my buttons! I'm Windows Phone 7! Typography! A bloo bloo bloo!'

I'll take the karma hit; I couldn't resist.

If that's the lock screen, it leaks a lot of real information. Yikes.

That's the home screen. The lock screen looks like this http://www.tech4mommies.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Lock-...

same problem.

February 17, 2010? So he hasn't used the RTM build? He probably one saw screenshots and blurry videos. Next!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com