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anlumo t1_iubqy61 wrote

It also marked the downfall of UI design at Apple, when they let an industrial designer with no knowledge of the field create a new design language for iOS and macOS.

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O-Namazu t1_iubsqa1 wrote

I, for one, like my Notes app to not be some skeumorphic legal pad. :P

Jony wasn't perfect (his hardware decisions were atrocious, reducing the ports on MacBook Pros was a crime against humanity), but Apple's UI design matured and looked decidedly less toy-like and more professional. Even as someone who geeks out over the Material Design docs, Apple's UI suite is still marvelous today (and I say that with the macOS 13 System Preferences revamp, too).

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GoldWallpaper t1_iuf6f9t wrote

I don't love all skeumorphic design, but having spent over a decade doing UX testing on various interfaces at a university, using gradients and other visual effects to mimic real-world elements can be vastly superior to flat design. This is especially true for new or non-savvy users (which includes a shitton of college students, despite many people believing otherwise).

I remember very clearly testing interfaces of various iPhone apps (and iOS, and even some MS products) after Ives made his "Skeumorphism is dead!" proclamation, and it was sad how users struggled with usability -- particularly of buttons -- because "I didn't know I could click there." Fortunately there was some backpedaling involved.

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O-Namazu t1_iuf9bh9 wrote

Now this is fascinating. Do you still do UX testing, or are those days long gone?

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[deleted] t1_iubrupo wrote

[deleted]

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anlumo t1_iubsh3y wrote

UIs have specific needs. They not only should look nice, but also be practical. For example, macOS now hides scrollbars by default. It makes the screen look nicer, but I've made a lot of mistakes by not recognizing that a certain view was scrollable, so I was missing content I didn’t know existed.

Ive has no idea about this. He went straight to nicely looking designs with no regards to practicalities. He also got rid of UI control borders, making them blur together with the background. This is an accessibility nightmare.

They added accessibility options to bring back both scrollbars and control borders, but they made the UI look like garbage, because they just didn’t care.

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happyscrappy t1_iuembyv wrote

The thing to bring scrollbars back isn't even under accessibility. It's in the general setting as you need it if you don't use a mouse with two-way scroll wheel.

And some Apple apps don't completely work right if you turn them on.

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GoldWallpaper t1_iuf6nn5 wrote

> He went straight to nicely looking designs with no regards to practicalities.

It was really clear that nobody at Apple at the time was doing any UX testing with real-world users.

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happyscrappy t1_iuem48o wrote

it was one of the downfalls.

Mac OS Panther with all the metal windows, jellybean buttons, etc. was all done without Jony's help.

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