@arstechnica As long as those computers continue to interact with me via switches, knobs and buttons, that's OK. What's not OK is swapping in a giant touch screen to replace all those controls for which we develop muscle memory and can soon use without distraction from, erm, driving.
I've read that #WhatsApp wants to interoperate with other #messenger applications, to align with #DigitalMarketsAct. My problem with their #UX approach is that it's only planned as a third-party tab, with no promise of a setting that would place all the chats on the single page.
I realize they have security reservations, but I smell a dark pattern here: only do I message my people on WhatsApp from Matrix, they'd have to change tabs, making a chat with me stick like a sore thumb - or not stick at all.
Hot bottom-line: hiding behind a tab is no different than cutting off #interoperability altogether. Multi-messenger chats should become a first-party feature in synchronous software, to comply with #DMA. Targeted apps that don't care about such regulation have no future.
"Default scrollbars", possibly one of the most UX-friendly options you'll ever see in an application. Well done @protonmail 🤟😊, I wish more developers would see the light 😑
As more companies work to integrate the capabilities of powerful generative AI language and vision models into new and existing software, high-level interaction...
The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP.
I open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
It opens sized at 100%.
I can't view the whole sheet so I resize to 50%. Perfect!
I edit and close the sheet.
I later open the same sheet and it is sized again at 100%
I resize to 50%.
(ad infinitum) #UserInterface#UI#Fail#GoogleSheets
Some people say they don't want to join the Fediverse or Mastodon, because they think the UI sucks. As a front end developer, a designer-kind of a person who creates user interfaces, I agree. Most of the web clients on the Fedi are horrendous, even Mastodon by default. There's lots of room for improvement.
We should really focus on how to make it more pleasing to the eye, more modern and more pleasant. This should not be a nerd network, just for geeks to geek out. This is not IRC or BBS.
As long as Mastodon for instance looks like it's designed by a back end engineer, contains font-awesome icons, looks like 2010, and stuff like that, being open and free is not good reason enough for many. I'm not bashing it, Mastodon is not the worst out there, in fact in my honest opinion Mastodon user experience is far better than Akkoma or Calckey for example. It's also more accessible than many modern UIs, for example my visual impaired wife prefers the Vanilla Mastodon UI over my #BirdUI modifications, she has some small tiny improvements of her own like distinguishing the colors in the action buttons as they have no proper contrast in any of the default themes. But that's it. She likes it as it is. So it cannot be that bad. However, it could be better overall.
#OpenSource doesn't mean the product should look like it's created in a basement by a math teacher. For some people Mastodon UX is sufficient (it even is for me, I like it enough and it doesn't prevent me from using it), but it should be WORLD CLASS. I don't say the answer is #MastodonBirdUI but it should be something much more modern and minimal than the current default UI. Pixelfed's developer is a designer oriented, Pixelfed is indeed an example of an awesome Fediverse app experience throughout the web and apps. That is how it should be.
Actually you might be surprised that many people like the Mastodon interface better than the Twitter interface once they get familiar with it. But you do have options on the Fediverse.
I would like to endorse other minor web apps in the #Fediverse, but most of them are full of UI glitches, are incomplete and downright buggy looking odd things.
From my designer point of view #Mastodon and #Pixelfed are the only effective ones, because they speak to people who are used to proper visual design language (read: Non-nerds, non-engineers, the regular people and design oriented people).
Things like #BookWyrm, #Lemmy, #Friendica and newer niche apps cause reactions like: "What is this?", they look like back end is fine but nobody is in charge of the design and the UI has no direction whatsoever. It's the general culprit in the programming world: A back end developer thinks everything is fine when we add a CSS framework and that's that.
If we just get the UI right everywhere, we get more people to the #Fediverse. I just wish there was more #CSS/design people willing to contribute. #UI#UIDesign
I've been always attracted to beautiful things. I always list pros and cons in the things I use. I go through dozens of options.
The user interface has HUGE value for me and it can weigh so much it can even top some of the downsides. But even if ALL of the other features are fine and the UI is bad, I have no desire in using the software. It's just the way it is and I'm pretty sure bad UI is a big turn-off for most of the people. Who doesn't love nice looking things?
Hey Fediverse 👋 I’m a Lead Product Designer, so I’ll mostly be talking about and following people who are interested in the craft of product design (or whatever we’re calling that discipline this week).
Technology and leading product teams will probably come up a lot too. Let's chat.