> Where's the scientific research and white papers going along with the Safari UI changes which clearly justify point by point why every single change makes sense, all backed by user studies?
Are you being hyperbolic, or is this your actual position? That’s a ridiculously high bar that most organizations could not muster (and there’s no way Apple would release that stuff publicly anyway).
“Emotional bullshit” is so needlessly negative. We’re not machines — we have emotions! If a UI designer can change an interface to please me a little more, that’s a good thing.
As parent is an actual user, I guess they'll be able to tell if the UI pleases them.
Edit:
> UX used to be driven by researchers like Bruce Tognazzini and Jakob Nielsen, who absolutely did studies with actual users to drive their designs.
Large [UI driven] companies still do this or hire agencies to do so (of which there are far more nowadays given the field is more mature). The fact that UX researchers haven't much visibility outside of UX -- Nielsen started blogging relentlessly at a point in time where there wasn't really anyone else doing that, and it was hoovered up by a wider audience that needed that knowledge. That doesn't mean in any way that he's unique, or that companies who can afford UX teams don't do this. Nielsen and Tognazzini -- they were popularisers, good at producing easily digestible writing for a general audience
I'm dead serious. Almost every piece of software (and hardware) in a computer is driven by incremental improvements backed by research. Operating system kernels, file systems, databases, 3D-APIs, etc... there are tons of publications, white papers, discussions, all happening in public how those components are improved over the decades. There are dead ends from time to time, but those fail, and those failures are also discussed, analyzed and eventually replaced with better solutions.
Why are user interfaces special in this regard? Where's the research, where are the white papers which clearly demonstrate what the advantages and disadvantages of specific user interface philosophies are?
As a UX designer & executive for 30 years, I’ll respond.
I agree that UX/UI is sometimes swayed more by fashion than empirical goals in service of the user. E.g., Jony Ive’s sad obsession with flat (featureless) design in iOS 7 is something we are still paying a price for.
However, the majority of UX research these days goes into things that are explicitly not in service of the user. Facebook doesn’t want you to be happy, they want you to keep using their product. Pay-to-play games don’t want you to have a good life, they want to squeeze micro-transactions from you at every opportunity.
Creating and propagating these manipulative dark patterns is a huge amount of leading-edge UX these days. It works. We know how to manipulate people towards goals that are antithetical to their well-being. The tech industry as a whole makes billions of dollars a day doing exactly this thing.
So yes, the research exists. UX continues to get much better. Just not in service of goals that you (or I, frankly) embrace.
This isn’t the fault of UX as a discipline or UX designers generally. Just like a coder intentionally optimizing a ratio of negative to positive stories to keep you fearful and scrolling, UX designers are driven by the same constraints — the product direction of their parent organizations.
Should UX designers individually, or as a discipline, rise up in revolt? Exactly as much, or as little, as programmers should. We’re all in the same boat. We can choose to serve the manipulators or not. Trouble is, there’s a fuckton of money in this manipulation, and you don’t have to spend much time here on HN to see how motivating that is, and the extent to which individuals will hold their noses and do what they’re told, as long as they’re motivated richly enough.
Ah shit is Ive really to blame for iOS 7? The OS and increasingly MacOS feels so dreary, lacking contrast, etc ever since. Animations also never recovered imo
It’s an awful shame, really. The man’s very talented, but he needed an editor. For years Steve Jobs was that editor, and he was brilliant at it. It was the two of them together that made Apple’s industrial design so damn good.
I agree about animations. I remember reading (probably here :D) a story from an Apple mobile engineer. He was on an elevator and Steve Jobs got in afterwards, and asked his notorious, “What are you working on?” The engineer opened the app on his phone to show Steve, who looked at it for one floor. He said, “Not enough texture,” and handed it back.
That, specifically, is the voice that Ive needed to do truly great work.
As others point out, the discipline is called Human-Computer Interaction and has a rich history. The best example in the field might be work on Fitts’ Law, such as https://www.yorku.ca/mack/hhci2018.html
For more practical examples of how websites can be redesigned through science, though, see https://www.nngroup.com/ and other resources online regarding scientific study of UI, user experience (UX), etc.
Are you being hyperbolic, or is this your actual position? That’s a ridiculously high bar that most organizations could not muster (and there’s no way Apple would release that stuff publicly anyway).
“Emotional bullshit” is so needlessly negative. We’re not machines — we have emotions! If a UI designer can change an interface to please me a little more, that’s a good thing.