UI paradigms that need to be changed?

Question

The frequent agreement is one of the most important design considerations for the user interface. Typically, advice is done in the way that Microsoft does.

This is for three reasons:

• If it does not break, do not correct it.
• If your users expect a click on the floppy disk icon to save, do not change the icon (even if some of them may have never seen the actual floppy disk).
• Users do not want to relearn the interface (and keyboard shortcuts, etc.) with every application they use.

At the same time, Emmerson said: "Stupid reconciliation is the hobgoblin of little minds." So, when is a consistent user interface maintained that moves from a good idea to a stagnant innovation?

Microsoft shook the good old WIMP GUI with the introduction of the toolbar, and then again using the Ribbon control (which is a natural evolution of the toolbar, like it or not.) Now we see the tapes everywhere.

So my question is: what are some user interface paradigms that are accepted and agreed upon in several applications, but remain unchanged and start to smell? Are there any important changes that could benefit developers to innovate and improve the user experience for our users?

One thought that occurred to me was a modal pop-up dialog. You know those who say: “Are you sure you want ... - [Yes] [No] [Cancel] [Maybe]” and his evil twin “Successfully completed what you wanted to do! [OK]”. We see movement from them with a "dashboard" in browsers. I think they should also be taken in the development of Windows applications.

If possible, list the solution for each item in the legacy user interface.

And please do not specify the clip. We all know that he was a bad idea.

NOTE These are specific paradigms of the Windows client user interface, but I am certainly open to drawing inspiration from the Internet, Mac, etc.

Answer 1

You mentioned pop-up modal dialogs, and I would say that non-modal is just as bad. Any dialog box removes focus from the program, they may appear behind the program and make it difficult to find, they may not even appear on one virtual screen.

I would like to see the end of all dialog boxes. If you need to stop using the user interface due to some abnormal circumstances, remove the corresponding parts of the user interface from the window and replace it with what the dialog will contain. Return the user interface after the problem is resolved.

Answer 2

Click on touch interfaces

It’s not possible to click things on the touch interface because you don’t know when you pressed the screen hard enough. And if you add animation to the button that you click, you will most likely not see it, because your finger is on the way. Adding other reactions, such as vibration of the phone or waves of drawing on the screen, may work, but usually there is too much delay, far exceeding the tangible touch of a button. Therefore, until they come up with a screen with buttons that can be pressed, all touch devices should move in the direction of dragging user interfaces (DUIs).

The counter is intuitively easier to click on the object on the screen, drag it, and then release it, and just click and release. This is probably due to the fact that you can move around the object when you start to drag, and you can adjust the pressure while dragging it. Dragging also has a lot more options, because now you have a direction, not just the point you clicked. You can do different things if the user drags an object in different directions. Speed ​​can also be used, as well as the point at which the user frees the object. The exit point is the real power of DUI, because it is very easy to release something, even with pixel precession.

Some projects have started using DUI, for example (here we go) iPhone, Palm Pre and Android phones. But only part of their design is DUI, the rest is a click. One area that they are all associated with is the keyboard. Instead of pressing a key, the user presses any key, and then drags them with a finger to the key that they really wanted to press. Unlocking these phones also uses drag and drop.

Other easily implemented DUI functions will be things like mouse gestures, where dragging in different directions or drawing different shapes does different things. Alternative keyboard research is also underway that focuses more on drag and drop. All buttons can be replaced with switches, so you need to drag them a little to click on them. With well-designed graphics, this should also be intuitive for the user.

Answer 3

Apple's Human Interface Guides are a good read on this topic. They discuss this from a very broad perspective, and the recommendations apply to any platform, not just the Mac.

Answer 4

File system. I want to save the file ..> OOOPs I need to specify the file name first. Well ... how about ... blah.doc.

6 months later ...

Where% # * (% & * I saved this file% () # * () * ??

The solution will build a version control system in the application or, better, the OS. Make the files accessible by their content using the search engine, rather than forcing the user to come up with a catchy name when all they need is not to lose their file.

Eliminate the save step. Enter something into the application, and it is just there, and there is no risk of losing it due to some kind of error, for example, forget to save it. If you want to use the older version, you can simply select the date and see how the document looked then.

To be based on the idea of ​​a search engine: it’s a pain that must move through some arbitrary tree structure in order to find your things. The search is much simpler. However, you can still have something like a “folder” for grouping multiple files. Well, you can create a richer metadata system and have a “category” or “project” field, as well as set up a search engine to display items by project or by category. Or a group with one or another new opening of the user interface, which we do next.

Answer 5

This question is a little too open, IMHO.

However, my main design approach is:

• It is installed anywhere. If this is a Windows application, I copy MS as much as possible
• It's simple.
• It provides options
• The buttons have a nice description of what the result will be, rather than yes or no.

It is harder to answer the rest of your post without spending hours typing a possibly useless (and repetitive) set of recommendations.

Answer 6

In my opinion, one thing that really stands out is that USERS need easier control over the appearance and organization of the user interface of the application.

So many interfaces cannot be changed by the user, so the most used / favorite functions can be grouped together. This ability will make your favorite software even easier for you to get everything done.

Answer 7

Error messages need "Just do it!" Button.

Seriously, I really don't care about your stupid error message, just DO WHAT I SAID YOU TO DO !!!

Answer 8

I think the whole model of a document on the Internet should change. This is not a user interface, but it leads to many bad user interfaces.

A document model was a good idea for connecting a bunch of documents, but now the network is also a collection of applications. Today, I think the Page / document model distorts our thinking. We end up collecting things that are not related to each other without changing the modularity of our code, and, in the end, confuse users with our monolithic websites like the control panel.

Answer 9

Finding the dialogs that sit above the widgets in which you are searching is terrible. This is done by application downloads. Firefox's search bar works much better.

Answer 10

Many applications have several panels in the user interface - for example, Outlook has a preview area and an incoming message panel (including). These applications typically use the arrow keys on the currently focused panel. But there is a very bad hint to show the user in which the panel has focus, and keyboard shortcuts are rarely used to move the focus between the panels.

The focused panel should be highlighted in some way.

Something like the Alt + cursor keys should move the focus.

Answer 11

Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab move left and right through the tabs instead of the MRU behavior, although in most cases the same behavior is duplicated using Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown.

Answer 12

There are many, but here is an idea for a few of them:

1. Remove some clicks, such as “Add more” or “Search for item” and the like.

   This is well done with interfaces like ajax, which have autocomplete (and automatic search), but gradually adapt to the platform’s user interface (and in some cases they were created in the platform’s user interface).

   This is how fooobar.com/questions/297807 / ... does it for some scenarios.

_{But, of course, we all know that right? There is no need for the "Search tag" or "Add another tag" buttons, they just happen}

2. Dialogs as you described.

Humanized guys suggested transparent messages that are actually used in their Enso products and some other places.

Mac uses them for notifications (as in Growl ), use them very well, or the new Ubuntu notification system.

alternative text http://blogs.sun.com/plamere/resource/NowPlayingGrowl.png

Firefox replaces the traditional Search dialog box with the search bar at the bottom.

_{Although not everyone likes placement for the next / previous, as in this screenshot}

And even SO (again) :) replace the notification with a yellow bar.

Finally:

File managers

I really like (sometimes) the simplicity of ordinary file managers, but sometimes I would like to work with them faster / better.

If you are comparing IE 4 with IE 8, you can tell in advance (it is even better to compare IE 4 with Google Chrome)

But if you compare Windows 95 Explorer with Win XP, they are almost the same! (Win Vista / 7 is a step forward)

But I wonder: why have file managers not improved as much as web browsers?

This is one of the reasons I like things like QuickSilver, but it's just a step. A lot of work is needed to create something like the “ Perfect Launcher ” or (FileManager / DesktopSearcher, etc., as you want)

_{QuickSilver with "go to" action}