Hacker News Reader

Comment by guelo | Hacker News Reader

I doubt all these flat/minimalist designers are doing user or A/B testing. Things feel less usable and more confusing then the previous generation of interfaces. This fashion is not driven by data. Which makes sense since some years ago designers were mocking Google's functional, engineer driven, A/B-tested interfaces. And Google gave in and started hiring the same fashion-following sheep. Now you can't escape it.

View on HN

I have done A/B design testing on ~10 mid-tier "consumer products" eCommerce sites, and giant firetruck-red 3D bevelled "Buy Now" buttons converted insanely better than minimal ones.

Personally, I want clearly-labelled tactile buttons that make me want to push them. Flat UI is more brutalist than humanist.

Do you still have access to that data? Is it statistically significant?

you know that the "brutal" in brutalist references the French word for form-finished concrete, beton bute?

Google has the right idea.

Relying purely on scientific data to create an attractive/useable interface can take a million years. The human brain is not a complete a black box as we have the capability of understanding ourselves to a certain extent. As a result, we also have certain awareness of what interfaces we find attractive and useable. AB testing not required.

Do you really need an AB test to determine whether or not hacker news should have a background that switches between black and yellow every half a second? No. Interfaces should NOT be data driven.

Interfaces need to be design driven, and data supported.

Exactly!

With regards to the flat trend it's deeper than just everything suddenly being flat. What Google and Apple is trying to develop is a visual/interaction language where the content itself becomes both the content and the interface at the same time.

It's not just about how it looks its as much about how it moves, the choreography so to speak. It's as much driven by trial and error as it is by data and thats exactly how it should be.

On my google page right now, I see "gmail images [squares] [bell] [plus]" I don't have a clue what the squares mean or what the plus means, and the only reason I know what the bell means is because it lights up sometimes. To me the squares should mean "tile the stuff you're looking at", but there is nothing to tile, and no reason to press it. The plus should mean "add a new thing here", but what would I add? I don't know.

I suppose I could investigate, but I don't need google to do anything worth investigating.

My phone has a "tiles" button, too, but it apparently means "menu." (There are multiple such buttons, each looks different.) It also has a search button I've never pressed.

I feel that iconography is far too overused, and it is especially unsuitable for the kinds of abstractions we use for software. It's one thing to put a toilet or a phone on a sign, and a completely different thing to put a circle with a wedge, or a pair of rectangles on a sign.

Your conclusion that iconagraphy is overused was most likely arrived at without the use AB testing thereby proving my point.

AB testing uses the conclusions of participants who don't use AB testing to come to conclusions, therefore AB testing doesn't even use AB testing.

You are confusing my personal feelings for a rigorous test suite. Your point didn't concern how I feel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com