There’s an interesting video online from Chris Pirillo, with his father battling Windows 8. The problem is that he can’t get back to the initial screen, because Microsoft scrapped the UI conventions he understands and has instead hidden the equivalents as corner-based hot-spots. On Daring Fireball, John Gruber comment:

Could be this has no predictive value regarding how regular people will think about Windows 8, but it’s an eye-opener regarding the risk Microsoft is taking by making essential UI navigation elements hidden until you hover the mouse in the right spots. People navigate with their eyes, not by scrubbing the screen with the mouse.

I don’t think Microsoft’s alone here, but the video highlights a possibly worrying trend in UI design. My father recently used an iPad for the first time, and he had no problem with some aspects of the interface, such as launching apps, zooming and so on. But he at one point came across some text that was cut off. “How do I get to the rest of it?”, he asked me. I responded that you just swipe it.

iOS is full of this kind of thing, and its conventions are increasingly coming to the Mac. Scroll bars are hidden, so you’ve no indication (beyond some apps ‘flashing’ the bars as you access new content) whether content is hidden or not. When text ends with a full sentence rather than cutting off half-way through some letters, it’s not obvious you need to scroll, even if you know the required gesture. And then there are the countless apps that now ‘hide’ controls, requiring you to learn new conventions, but for individual apps rather than the system as a whole. Coherence is being eroded as devices become the tools; it’s almost like a regression, with you having to learn new things every time you buy an app.

I’m not saying these things are necessarily bad. In most cases, modern computing is far more user-friendly than it used to be, and gestures are typically pretty memorable. Additionally, we’re in some cases moving towards more controls in context, which can be helpful. Also, one might argue that many ‘hidden’ aspects of UI are easily learned, and so people really only need to be shown once and they’ll subsequently be fine. But we are definitely seeing a massive shift in how software interfaces work, and I think it’s disingenuous to suggest this is a Microsoft issue or risk—it’s really far more widespread within the industry.

Update: Lukas Mathis explores the new iPhoto for iOS app, in iPhoto’s Mystery Meat Gestures, showcasing problems behind hidden UI.

In What the iPad 3 really needs: fewer stupid articles about the iPad 3, I report on a couple of iPad articles, one of which talks about competing tablets and argues their features should be welded to the iPad. In the comments, Oliver Mason argues:

While I fully agree with most of your article […] the one thing I disagree is the stylus issue: since I bought an Adonit stylus I can use the iPad to replace paper for just jotting down notes in a way that is not possible with one of the ten built-in ones. Maybe it’s been too long since I did finger painting as a kid. True, it is easy-to-lose, but for me it really made the iPad that little bit more useful. One of the few issues where I think Steve got it wrong.

I haven’t felt this myself when using the iPad, and that’s primarily because certain input devices (be they a finger, a mouse, a stylus, or a joypad) are better for certain tasks. I don’t often jot notes on my iPad, and, these days, consider that kind of writing increasingly a niche activity. What I think’s most important is to get the default right in terms of what the user assumes is required. To my mind, a tablet with a stylus is arguing that the stylus is the best way to interact with the device—something Samsung tried to hammer home in its Galaxy Note advert (TUAW). But in over-emphasising a single-touch pointing device, you run the risk of detracting from what makes modern tablets so appealing from an interaction standpoint: multitouch. Being able to more fully immerse yourself in dealing with content by manipulating it directly is leagues ahead of a layer of abstraction that a pointing device provides.

I don’t doubt that there are some cases where a stylus is beneficial, and there are loads of third-party options available for the iPad that people can add to their set-up if they feel the need. But I think Steve Jobs got this dead right: by default, just you and the device is the set-up that is most intuitive, usable and forward-thinking.

Via Daring Fireball, a couple of app galleries: Android niceties and My Favorite Metro Apps. Android has a reputation for poor, ugly design when it comes to apps, but that’s clearly not the case with these examples, and Metro showcases its slick, modern aesthetic. But one thing struck me about these designs: they all look rather similar, polished, shiny and slick, but they lack character, heart and soul.

I’m a fan of minimal design, and so these information-rich, no-nonsense designs do appeal to me. However, on seeing these apps as a gallery, it makes sense why Apple continues to take a very different route when it comes to interface design, regularly aping real-world items or, at the very least, adding some visual texture to apps. I don’t really like it—iCal on the Mac is, for example, horribly ugly, especially when sat next to the simpler, sleeker Mail—but there’s a certain familiarity and warmth generated by more texture-oriented design that no amount of flat colours, subtle gradients and considered typography will ever bring, no matter how often graphic designers cross their fingers and pray to the god of Pantones.

Via Fraser Speirs, an article by Alan J Reid called Instructional Designers Wanted: No Experience Necessary:

Apple recently unveiled its digital book-authoring program, iBooks Author, and I’m scared.

The last three years that I have dedicated to pursuing my Ph.D. in instructional design & technology, which centers on interactive digital text, have given me a new perspective on the delicate balance that is necessary for classroom technologies to be productive and fruitful rather than novel and superficial. The seemingly endless hours that I have spent reading journal articles, writing papers, reading book chapters, taking in lectures, reading conference proceedings, and reading some more, have left me feeling as though I have earned some sort of badge that licenses me to make qualified observations about new educational technologies.

But that’s just the problem; you don’t need to be qualified. iBooks Author allows any Apple user to design and develop an interactive, multitouch textbook. No design experience necessary.

Reid’s text echoes concerns we’ve seen in practically every single industry where digital has marched (and, sometimes, blundered) in and opened up that particular discipline. We’ve heard the same arguments in desktop publishing, photography and web design, and now we’re hearing it about textbooks.

I can’t deny that user-friendly digital products can make things tougher for professionals, because there’s a line of thinking that ‘anyone can do it’. But here’s the thing: eventually, enough companies come to the realisation that everyone can’t do it. I’m seeing graphic designers I know getting more work of late as companies stop faffing about creating their own botched attempts at marketing material and instead get professional designers to produce it. And online, web designers are once again finding that companies are understanding that, no, the MD’s nephew armed with an old copy of FrontPage isn’t the best way to present themselves to the world. These things are always cyclical, with professions mostly reverting to the pros—or at least those professionals who truly are great at what they do.

But that doesn’t mean we should ever rally against opening up creative pursuits to the masses. The fact that anyone can now make a website, or publish some photos, or—in the case of iBooks Author—create an interactive book is a fantastic thing. It means some people will find talents they never knew they had; others may be able to fill niche gaps that professionals and publishers cannot or will not; and in cases where funds simply aren’t available, I’d sooner someone bashes together a (hopefully) factually accurate digital book with perhaps less-than-optimal design using iBooks Author than have those they are teaching go without.

In short, empowering the masses is great; but there will always be room for good designers for things that need good design.

ZDNet, reporting on how Apple argues Samsung could avoid infringing on its iPad and iPhone designs:

Samsung could avoid infringing on its iPhone designs by not making rectangular phones; not putting the screen on the front of the phone; adding “substantial adornment” to the fronts of their phones; and not having bezels around the screen.

Apple’s suggestions for a non-infringing tablet include, again, a non-rectangular shape, front surfaces that are not flat and that have substantial adornment; avoiding making the tablet thin; using thick rather than thin frames around the screen; and introducing a “cluttered appearance”.

Sounds an awful lot like “maybe you should make the same kind of shit you were creating before you decided to rip off our products, assholes”.

I know I’m not in the majority on this, but I still believe Apple has a point. Its suggestions are ridiculous, but if the iPad and iPhone designs are so obvious, why did no-one bring one to market before Apple did?

It’s also worth noting that Samsung in particular appears to be bearing the brunt of Apple’s anger. Perhaps, as The Verge showcased earlier this year, that’s in part down to Samsung also:

• Ripping off Apple’s packaging
• Ripping off Apple’s device photography and positioning
• Ripping off a bunch of Apple’s iOS icons

In the long run, I’ll be amazed if Apple wins anything. I suspect lawsuits will continue to be flung in every direction and end in a flurry of cross-licensing and bile. I also suspect Apple’s design is so simple and now so ubiquitous that courts will end up siding with rivals that there isn’t any other way these kinds of devices can look and still be workable. But, as noted, this doesn’t really let Samsung off the hook, because it’s gone further than any other company, crossing that line from inspiration to plagiarism.

Hat tip: David Meyer.