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Comment by spankalee | Hacker News Reader

How did they not do enough user testing to know users wanted this before it even got to beta?

Are they so paranoid about secrecy that they can't do event the most basic of UX design processes?

They received a lot of bug reports and negative feedback from developer and public betas. Guess what, they’ve still released the glass almost unchanged. “We know better than you” is a fundamental part of Apple’s mentality

It's a fundamental part of many tech companies at this point, really

At least for Microsoft it is balanced by the real need to listen to business customers. Apple has none of such checks-and-balances because it caters primarily to individual users.

I would’ve killed it even before user testing. It’s borderline malicious that this thing was shipped in the first place

Apple relies on internal feedback and executive reviews rather than user testing. They likely received a lot of different feedback internally, but the execs decided to ship it anyway. I think they would rather ship something half-baked than change the yearly release process that has been continuously operating since the early days of iOS, and at the scale of the whole platform, it's hard to turn back once you've committed to making the changes.

Keep in mind the people complaining are more than likely the loud minority. Personally I had some issues in the early betas (too much opacity causes readability issues) but I haven't had any issues since July. Unfortunately Apple is listening to feedback when they should ignore it and continue improving their work (which is what they usually do).

What does it matter if they're a "loud minority"? To quote Apple themselves, "The best technology is designed with everyone in mind."

iOS isn't clothing you can return to the store when you don't like the style. You're stuck with the update once you have it.

You can't please everyone when it comes to visual design. They say that in relation to accessibility which is completely covered via the accessibility settings in this case.

Most of the criticism I've seen on Liquid Glass has focused on accessibility issues like visual contrast, ambiguities, and removed text labels.

Please stop gaslighting people. What Apple shipped as OS 26 series is clearly a beta as best and has been the most unpopular of OS update so far by a large margin.

Apple does zero user testing and AB testing, and has always worked that way.

Even in services?

My experience with corporate Apple services (MDM):

"We changed the terms of service. Accept them to keep using this service."

Outside of that, not much in the way of communication. They change and you keep catching up to them.

No communication does not mean no user testing.

And the award for dumbest and wrongest comment of the day goes to...

… this one

Reminds me of when Google brought out a revised Maps app some years ago. Everyone hated it; there was a website for comments, with literally 10,000 comments, and everyone I read except for one was negative--and that one was a parody. Did Google revert back to the earlier look? Are you kidding? The only company I've ever seen do that is Microsoft, after the Win8 debacle.

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