Apps made for one OS shouldn't insist on aping the design elements of another

http://www.macworld.com/article/3075537/ios/google-is-making-the-same-mistake-now-that-microsoft-did-in-the-90s.html

by okket • 10 years ago

296 232 10 years ago

tl;dr--- Google is the equivalent of 90s-era Microsoft because it is angrily disliked by some Apple fans, and it incorporates Material Design in its iOS apps.

PuffinBlue• 10 years ago

I know that 'tl;dr' is frowned upon here but this particular tl;dr is better written and just as in depth as the article itself.

beachy• 10 years ago

Wry tl;dr's like this should be exempted.

aexaey• 10 years ago

That was a suprisingly accurate summary. The whole thing, including the incoherent rant about material design

rmvt• 10 years ago

couldn't agree more. this article is nothing more than an ignorant rant. i wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, even though it's from macworld but oh well...

just take a look at the two app comparisons. you have to be an idiot to write stuff like that and actually believe it.

on material: google has, from the start, said it's a design style and philosophy that it has chose to adapt on android (and on the web too), so it's only natural they try to do it on ios.

bitmapbrother2• 10 years ago

But it's okay for Apple to inflict their design on Android because it's Apple.

Spivak• 10 years ago

Apple inflicts their design on Android? They only have three apps in the play store and they all look like modern Android apps with material design.

Example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...

MBCook9• 10 years ago

But they DON'T. That's the amazing thing here.

Apple does on Windows, which everyone has known sucks since the early 2000s.

But when they released Apple Music on Android? It followed platform conventions. It actually made news in the Apple community because Apple DIDN'T make the Android app look like iOS. The Apple people I follow were actually surprised that Apple decided to be a good citizen instead of going with the usual "We know best".

touristtam• 10 years ago

I was going to write a similar reply, but since you've nailed it, I refrain.

johnloeber• 10 years ago

Making analogies between Microsoft in the 90s and X without mentioning the huge antitrust lawsuit[0] always seems dubious to me. The evolution of Microsoft as a business is not purely due to its product strategy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

frgewut• 10 years ago

Actually Google currently is facing some serious anti-trust cases as well.

tluyben25• 10 years ago

Maybe Google is better at hiding it or just being 'less evil', but MS was pretty open with their 'destroy everything that comes in our path'. I think it is important to mention that when mentioning the antitrust case.

Edit: I was against the antitrust case at the time even though I did not like nor used MS /products/ and did not approve of their practices. I believed they got that power because they managed to get enough people drink the coolaid and that's a part of what a business does; kudos to them basically. Still don't like most software they make, but as a company it seems a lot better now. Why restrict that? I have another opinion (I would be for the antitrust case now) now as I grow older.

serge2k• 10 years ago

I don't really see capturing browser market by shoving it in your face at every opportunity and taking advantage of shady opt-out bundle installers as that much different than bundling with the OS.

Google is really the same as any other big company. They will do what they can get away with to further their goals.

kmiroslav• 10 years ago

The author should launch iTunes on Windows and realize that Apple is pulling the same kind of crap on Windows.

Large companies have large egos.

wodenokoto2• 10 years ago

I actually think it's a pretty okay marketing strategy. If you truly believe your own interface is a selling point,then you need to show it off to people who aren't familiar with it.

If iTunes truly has a superior user experience (ha!) people will think, hey wouldn't it be nice if all my apps were like that.

tkubacki• 10 years ago

"If iTunes truly has a superior user experience "

It has not

yoz-y4• 10 years ago

But superior user experience comes in no small part from familiarity within the ecosystem. Material design on iOS is alien mainly because most iOS application behave in the same way.

This is the same for Office on OSX. Since most of the OSX apps have the same look & feel, having an application that is even slightly different is jarring.

On Windows though, it seems to me that most of the applications have gone the way of re-implementing their UI. This does not make iTunes on Windows any less horrible though, but it seems like a case of broken windows theory.

okket• 10 years ago

iTunes on Windows is mentioned in the article. Does it help that Steve Jobs hated the whole idea?

Personally I'd say it was mild in comparison to the usability hell that Microsoft inflicted on Mac OS and later OS X users with its office programs.

Marazan• 10 years ago

An Steve Jobs was an idiot in this regard. iPod sales went no where until iTunes as released on Windows.

corv2• 10 years ago

They do and the authors point stands regardless.

Apple generally doesn't try porting their software, iTunes being a notable exception. Google Maps however is rage inducing on iOS.

Oletros• 10 years ago

Well, Apple Music for Android is also a good example of what the author criticizes from Google. It doesn't follow material design and the position of the menus is the iOS one, not the Android one.

So, if all the apps they port doesn't follow the guidelines, can we conclude that Apple is also the Microsoft of the 2010s?

cr18953• 10 years ago

Google Maps however is rage inducing on iOS.

Can you clarify how it bothers you? I've found it to be not much different with my new 6S vs. my previous Sony Z3C. I feel like it has become less user-friendly on both platforms, but I don't recall significant differences between them.

Apple Maps, however, I cannot put up with.

maguay• 10 years ago

Safari for Windows did as well, complete with confirmation dialogs that came out of the top toolbar like a receipt from an ATM and bubbly blue Ok buttons like OS X of its day.

As a PC user who aspired to buy a Mac at the time, I happened to like it. But I'd also wager it was one of the many reasons Safari for Windows didn't really take off.

But man was it fun to feel like you had some of the Mac's lickable UI on a PC.

richmarr• 10 years ago

But man was it fun to feel like you had some of the Mac's lickable UI on a PC.

Well played sir, now nobody who knows you from HN will ever touch your Macbook

JonCox• 10 years ago

To be fair, iTunes on Mac is also a buggy, confusing, slow and generally terrible application.

Udo_Schmitz• 10 years ago

The author addresses this in the article: “Good Mac apps should feel like Mac apps, and good Windows apps should do likewise. If iTunes for Windows feels like a Mac app, Apple’s doing it wrong. (One could argue Apple’s doing it wrong with iTunes everywhere, of course…)”

ysavir2• 10 years ago

That's not addressing it. That's making a hollow, unqualified claim, using authoritative tone to make it sound like a proper, true absolute.

rdsnsca• 10 years ago

You should read the article, he did call out Apple for pushing the Mac look to Windows with iTunes.

vthallam• 10 years ago

Large companies have large egos.

So true:) Apart from what's best for user experience,they tend to enforce their tech and design everywhere. But in this case, i feel material design shouldn't be an issues since it's now increasingly used on the web.

Dylan168072• 10 years ago

Just some icons and menu colors? If that's their biggest problem then they're doing well.

runholm• 10 years ago

What you are describing is the entire field of interaction design. It's not "just some icons and menu colors".

Dylan168072• 10 years ago

No I'm not. The two different UI styles are extremely similar. Look at how little changes on the screenshot of apple music, the good example.

Complaining about the direction of the three dots that make up the menu button is the ultimate in bikeshedding.

Zelmor2• 10 years ago

"and the target of dislike and rage from many people who love Apple products."

He managed to lose me in the first paragraph. Not a record, but really close.

adamlett• 10 years ago

Do you usually find that you enjoy reading articles in MacWorld to the end?

Zelmor2• 10 years ago

I don't even know if that's a made up magazine or a real one. :)

tn13• 10 years ago

Honestly as a user I think Apple and Google can fry frogs with their design guidelines. I want app makers to make apps that are fun to use and enjoyable and more importantly useful. I could not care less if they are following company X's design guidelines or company Y's design guidelines.

There is nothing earth shattering or innovative or useful about Apple or Material design guidelines. It is just an attempt to establish their brand.

cloudjacker• 10 years ago

Remember when Facebook and Google had strict styling "guidelines" for their login buttons that were completely different and didn't fit aesthetically on anybody's login screen together?

That was big ego

tluyben25• 10 years ago

I must be a very weird person I feel lately (this theme is recurrent on HN); I don't actually notice the difference. I use iOS & Android and if the app works well I don't notice if it doesn't behave 'like it is supposed to do' on the respective OS. It is far more noticeable on desktops. However, if copy/cut/paste (Firefox on Linux notably which is unusable because I cannot copy to/from it), file dialog and drag & drop works with the rest of the applications and the application is solid otherwise as well I don't care about that either and probably won't notice it. I notice it with software that presents me a hard to use custom file open/save dialog only. And I tend to just not use that anymore.

But on mobile; if the app is good (I for one like Google docs) I don't believe many people actually notice this difference.

hollander• 10 years ago

Have you tried to remove your Firefox profile on Linux? Just rename it so you can move it back later if needed. Then try to copy/paste. Then disable all addons and try again. It should work of course.

tluyben25• 10 years ago

I tried a few things and then gave up; I will revisit. It is a known problem as there are a lot of posts all over the web from people with the same issue.

zxcvcxz• 10 years ago

copy/cut/paste (Firefox on Linux notably which is unusable because I cannot copy to/from it)

You just highlight text and press ctrl+c, ctrl+v, etc.

You could also use the right click menu. I've never had a problem like that before.

This works for me on firefox 46.0.1 on Fedora 23.

tluyben25• 10 years ago

Must be something with my environment; i'll remove it as apparently it's just me. There are more instances I ran into that, but my example of the non standard file explorer is more annoying usually anyway.

MBCook9• 10 years ago

I use iOS & Android and if the app works well I don't notice if it doesn't behave 'like it is supposed to do' on the respective OS.

I think that's the issue. I don't use both iOS and Android, and I suspect most users don't. So you're used to the conventions of both platforms so when you see something that looks Android-y you know how to use it.

As an iOS only user, I don't have the Android training. So Google's apps are their own weird little world to me, different from everything else on my phone and in my tablet.

To me the web and my desktops are separate platforms, so I accept that they behave different. For whatever reason that doesn't mess with my mental model.

But if two apps on my phone behave vastly different, that causes unnecessary confusion.

I imagine I'd be the same as you if I used Android on a semi-frequent basis.

PSeitz• 10 years ago

an apple fanboy dislikes android, quelle surprise

simula67• 10 years ago

Google is acting more like Microsoft.

They are building huge moats around their business ( Android, Chrome etc ) so it becomes harder to use some Google products without using others.

Google discontinued 'Google Sync' ( https://support.google.com/a/answer/2716936?hl=en ).

It favors Google Finance and Youtube over its rivals in search results page.

They 'have not figured out' how to allow extensions in Chrome mobile.

They had no-poaching agreements with rival companies.

I am almost a Google fanboy, but I suspect they will be no different to Microsoft in a few years. Letting products stagnate, pushing the tech industry backwards but making a pretty profit for investors.

beisner• 10 years ago

To be fair, Chrome for iOS won't ever have extensions because Apple requires all HTML rendering to be done with their web viewer (which can be embedded in other apps), meaning that Google simply can't control the rendering of the page (and thus implement the majority of chrome extensions). The app is basically just a wrapper for the same browser that Safari uses.

joe_fishfish• 10 years ago

Chrome on Android is a different story though. Firefox on Android allows you to use add-ons for the web version of Firefox with no fuss. Why can't Chrome do the same?

NEDM64• 10 years ago

Completely wrong. UIWebViews can render your modified HTML.

There are many Apps that do that, and Google already did that, with their data compression feature.

erikb2• 10 years ago

so it becomes harder to use some Google products without using others.

This was a phase around the boss of Google+. Google found that people don't like it and stopped doing it, like 2-4 years ago. Now it's perfectly possible to use things separately I would argue.

CaptSpify• 10 years ago

really? I still can't unlink my gmail account from my youtube account. Voice is still falling to the wayside, and hangouts is being pushed instead.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you

a_imho• 10 years ago

For profit companies doing business for profit is not that shocking imo. The holier-than-thou attitude like the don't be evil motto is a bit rich coming from a company that participated in the prism program the same way as others and one of its main revenue source is selling ads. I mean, I don't get the special/fan treatment for some companies, Google included. Unless I'm a shareholder I don't believe for a second there is a Big Corp out there looking out for my interests.

bitmapbrother2• 10 years ago

Google is acting more like Microsoft.

No company will ever act as Microsoft did.

They are building huge moats around their business ( Android, Chrome etc ) so it becomes harder to use some Google products without using others.

You must not use iOS because you're forced to use their apps as the default apps and they cannot be changed.

They had no-poaching agreements with rival companies.

Steve Jobs/Apple instigated this and threatened Google if they didn't comply. To level this accusation at Google and not even mention Apple reveals your agenda.

petra• 10 years ago

How did they threaten Google?

SquareWheel• 10 years ago

It favors Google Finance and Youtube over its rivals in search results page.

Finance is integrated with specific financial queries, so searching "goog" will show stock history and similar. This is different from the actual search results however. It's similar to special queries for translations, definitions, conversions, and so on.

I can understand this being criticized, but I don't think it's an abuse of power in any way.

As for Youtube, that's just an extremely popular website. It ranks highly organically because it has tens of thousands of links coming in all the time. There's also always fresh content to index which Google ranks favorably. The site has every expectation of ranking highly. So I don't buy that one without some evidence.

Macha• 10 years ago

I mean, where do you expect links to go? If you look at the biggest websites there's:

* Facebook,which has large portions of its content invisible to Google * Wikipedia, which is probably in the #1 spot * YouTube really is the next most likely result for many queries.

etqwzutewzu• 10 years ago

Microsoft has never been "cool" and I can tell you, even in the 90's.

throwaway13337• 10 years ago

Google is also resembling Microsoft in the sortof-broken-but-usable cross-product features.

For example, when I browse to google maps, and try to look at the reviews list of a point of interest on the map, it takes me to a google search - completely out of the context I was in - and opens as modal dialog in that search area.

There are lots of examples of similar functionality. Individually, its harmless, but as a whole, it feels sluggish and clunky.

This kind of behavior seems to be common in large software companies that have separate divisions with communication issues between them.

It's sad to see Google go down that road.

vmateixeira• 10 years ago

They're just looking after they're business. By having the same applications layout/behaviour, it will help users to switch to Android easily in the future.

proyb2• 10 years ago

That's why we all have different furniture.

ericdykstra2• 10 years ago

User interfaces should be designed for the user, not for the operating system. I feel like more apps should embrace their uniqueness rather than aping whatever Apple/Google/whatever puts out as the "new standard" every time their design team decides to go in a new direction.

A lot of user interface design is managing user expectation (things people have gotten used to, like where a "create" button is or what a "share" icon looks like) versus optimizing for long-term usability of an app (something like Snapchat, with its seemingly-esoteric UI that is actually efficient once one is used to using it).

The only reason the author gives for taking this position is that "Participating on someone else’s operating system means you’re on their turf. The author even admits that "I’m not saying either design is superior." So app companies should forego optimizing for user experience to pay respect to the platform that they're on? This is a totally backwards position; apps should respect their users. If that means following all the OS guidelines for a sparingly used app, that's fine. But if that means creating a unique UI and app flow for long-term user happiness, then the app company owes no respect to the "local conventions" of the OS.

edit: clarity

yoz-y4• 10 years ago

I disagree. Having a consistent UI in all available applications makes it easy for the people to use the applications. One of the main reasons I prefer OSX to Windows is that most of the applications have a set of well defined, consistent behaviours. (For example, Window decorations) On iOS there is no reason for this to be different.

nightski• 10 years ago

Yet billions of people manage to use the web, which has very little constraints. In fact, the browser is probably the most used app on either platform.

ericdykstra2• 10 years ago

Consistent UI can make it easy for people to use applications, for certain applications, sometimes. It's not a hard and fast rule.

Let's say I'm making a banking app that is generally just used for people to check their balance and other simple tasks. It's too my advantage to follow the standard UI conventions of the OS.

If, however, I'm making an app that I expect the majority use case to be power users that use the app many times per day, I'm going to optimize for them. That may mean seemingly unintuitive gestures, shaking the phone to switch between app modes, radial menus, or something else.

I'm not saying that conventions don't have a place, they obviously do, but I think app designers should be able to design the experience for users that they see as best, rather than following convention for the sake of convention.

reitanqild• 10 years ago

One of the main reasons I prefer OSX to Windows is that most of the applications have a set of well defined, consistent behaviours.

I hear this from time to time. As someone who has spent significant time on a number of platforms Windows and it's ecosystem, from 2000 until 8 at least, has seemed a whole lot more consistent.

Super-annoying things on Mac include:

* modifier keys vary by application. (On Windows ctrl + left/right arrow is always [0] jump word by word and shift + left/right arrow is always select-as-you-move. From there it follows that ctrl+shift+left/right arrow is select-one-word-at-a-time.)

* there is one menu and you can find most options there. Bonus: you can always reach the menu using alt. On Mac there is the global menu, helpfully located on another part of the screen or even on another screen and there is one or more spot-the-extra menu(s) somewhere in the application.

The reason why I am pointing this out is to help every developet who doesn't get MBPs thrown after them: Macs are super sleek but I at least feel more productive and less annoyed on Windows or Linux.

[0]: with a few super-annoying exceptions.

tomn• 10 years ago

I'm not sure I agree. I use one phone, with many apps, so it's helpful if the common parts of all the apps I use behave in the same way.

For example, how do I get to the preferences for this app? Via a hamburger menu on the left, or an ellipsis menu on the right?

Almost all the apps on my phone that have the concept of making a new item (SMS/instant message/email/calendar event) have the button for doing so in exactly the same place on the screen; this is great as it means only have to learn that action once, and it works for all the apps I use. That is optimised user interface design.

Of course designers still need to put in effort to make their apps usable, but making having the common subset of actions work the same across apps is great for users.

It's unfortunate that platforms seem to change their interface guidelines all the time (no just the look and feel), as it seems to be having the opposite of the intended effect. The cost benefits of having a single style for an app across platforms is also a significant factor; I'd rather have an app available on my platform than not.

k__• 10 years ago

I think it is a matter of design skills.

If someone wants to make an app, that is better than the rest, they need a unique selling point.

If it's bad, people like you won't use it.

If it's like all the other ones on the marked, you will use the one with the best marketing.

If it's really better than what you are used to, you will ditch the rest.

I think: Strife for the last one, but don't get butthurt, when the experiment fails.

andrelaszlo2• 10 years ago

I agree. I felt like this article wanted to make a big deal out of something... well, not super significant.

"The options icon is three vertical dots, rather than the three horizontal dots favored by Apple."

You could also argue that for someone using Google products, it makes sense that they look and behave roughly the same no matter which platform you're on. The interface is the brand [0] so why try to make it look like an Apple product when it's not?

Or maybe the article is right, maybe cognitive workload increases when the options icon is suddenly drawn using vertical dots instead of horizontal ones. I could only find three arguments in the text. One: it's what Microsoft did in the 90's. Two: Users deserve consistency. Three: (implicit) I bought an iPhone because I like the design, and now Google is forcing me to use their apps which doesn't look AS NICE! :)

[0] https://ia.net/know-how/the-interface-of-a-cheeseburger

johannes1234321• 10 years ago

You could also argue that for someone using Google products, it makes sense that they look and behave roughly the same no matter which platform you're on.

That is true if you expect Users to change between devices. But most of the users I observe have only limited amount of devices and typically stay in one camp (i.e. iPhone+iPad) and those care about not having to relearn each UI for each app.

True Google tries to push their design as their identity, but that's Google's interest, not the user's.

ocdtrekkie3• 10 years ago

Honestly, I think you'd find it amazing how unintuitive three dots (vertical or horizontal) ends up being. If you're not a millennial, dots and just dots. I see a lot of confused seniors not knowing where options are on their webmail clients because someone at Yahoo or Outlook or whomever decided three-dots-menu-icons was totally necessary on desktop browsers.

wvenable• 10 years ago

You could also argue that for someone using Google products, it makes sense that they look and behave roughly the same no matter which platform you're on.

The real question is do people's brains actually work that way. Is someone using Google Maps on an iPhone or Google Maps on an iPhone.

It's my experience that people context switch based on platform, not application. When I'm on an iPhone I expect it to work like an iPhone and when I'm on the desktop I expect it work like a desktop -- regardless of the individual applications I'm using.

return03• 10 years ago

More specifically, i would suggest Time as an absolute measure of every interface. UI should strive to minimize the time it takes to do anything at the expense of aesthetics.

mhomde2• 10 years ago

Unfortunately often it's not as simple as that, you have to offset many difference things: ergonomics, aesthetics, intuitiveness, efficiency, information density etc etc. If you drew "using time as an absolute measure" you'd make an interface that was immensely fast but very difficult to learn

maxxxxx3• 10 years ago

Time to learn or discover something is another factor.

geocar• 10 years ago

The only reason the author gives for taking this position is that "Participating on someone else’s operating system means you’re on their turf.

Maybe the point is too subtle?

I'm a user that has a hard time with Google apps because I don't use them all the time. If I used them more often, I think I would get used to them, but that doesn't help me start using them.

One thing that does help is by being familiar.

Google might believe that familiarity is damaging to their brand, and perhaps it is, but I'm used to all of the apps I use being familiar, and so many familiar applications juxtaposed next to Google's unfamiliar applications just makes me think that Google doesn't give a fuck about me.

iopq• 10 years ago

If you're an iOS user, you'll be familiar with how iOS apps work. This is exactly how you cater to the user - iOS users known how to use iOS apps.

If you change the UI to look like Android, only the users that also use Android elsewhere would be comfortable with that.

elmigranto3• 10 years ago

Still, `Done` button, or `Back` button, or `Edit` are not in the same place in every app. Some apps are `Swipe Left` to delete, some are `Swipe Right`.

Not sure what is more frustrating — different looks with different usage patterns for every app; or same look with subtle differences and no way to predict what's where in a new app, or the app you haven't opened for a while.

anexprogrammer5• 10 years ago

But if that means creating a unique UI and app flow for long-term user happiness, then the app company owes no respect to the "local conventions" of the OS.

This PoV has engendered more hatred in me towards software creators than probably any other. Not bad considering I spent 25 years creating software.

If I'm on Gnome/Android/Windows 10/OSX/Whatever, frankly I'd prefer everything follows GUI guidelines, standards guides and looks, acts and feels like a native. Trouble is everyone knows best.

iTunes "knew better" and made Windows look and feel like a Mac. Fine, except it made the program clunky and stand out for being different. Apple knew best with iMessage and decides it should invisibly merge sms and their own messaging. Result? A dozen times a day it would hang for 10 minutes or so trying to connect to data-unreachable imessage servers. Just send a damn SMS, which is what I wanted in the first place. Google came up with Hangouts that at first release (i've not revisited it) managed to leave out every essential of a messaging app. It was sort-of pretty, but very broken.

Google and Microsoft always know best and don't even respect their own standards, let alone anyone else's. Neither are any good at all at designing GUIs and frankly should just stop. Outsource to someone who can. Samsung should take note of this too.

I don't want 40 different unique UIs all optimising app flow for long term user happiness as that's anarchy with 50 (sic) different ways of doing things in those 40 apps. I'd prefer it felt a little dated to work on Android or whatever if it was then seamlessly perfect in gestures, GUI and function.

Everyone needs to just stop knowing best. 99.9 times out of 100 they don't.

Ntrails• 10 years ago

The merging of iMessage and SMS is something that I've always thought Apple did really well. I don't care how the message is sent, as long as it is sent. Create a quick hierarchy and send in preferable order. That's exactly what it does.

I spend a lot of time without either signal or internet when in the countryside and this allows me to seamlessly communicate. The last thing I want is to either switch programs to carry on conversations, or manually choose what kind of message to send. Both would be a pain.

My main objectbbion to iMessage is that it only works with other apple products, so I end up using whatsapp with some people - where I need 2 apps to handle simple messaging and conversation histories get split up etc etc.

jtr12• 10 years ago

I was really impressed by WhatsApp's approach. When I installed in on my iPhone, it looked just like the native iOS messaging app. When I helped my mother-in-law install it on her Android, it had a totally different look, much closer to Android's native messenger. Both of us pretty much instantly knew how to use it because we had been all along.

Bahamut2• 10 years ago

Everyone needs to just stop knowing best. 99.9 times out of 100 they don't.

And yet, your hatred is directed at the PoV that companies should respect an OS's conventions, yet who says that the OS knows best?

PeCaN• 10 years ago

There are a lot of prominent counterexamples though:

- Blender (Blender's UI is pretty odd and entirely un-platform-like, but very efficient)

- Photoshop (case in point, Ctrl-Z; I'm very glad Adobe didn't follow conventions—Photoshop's Ctrl-Z behavior is good for Photoshop)

- Chrome (I guess it's standard on Android now, but when Chrome was released it was very unlike a typical Windows or OS X UI, and it was so good that everyone else adopted it)

- Vim

- Emacs

- Snapchat

- AutoCAD

Personally, I do prefer 40 unique UIs optimized for long term user happiness. That's kind of the Unix way: bc, awk, find, and dozens of other tools with different patterns that are geared very well to their niche.

danudey6• 10 years ago

Apple knew best with iMessage and decides it should invisibly merge sms and their own messaging.

Point taken, though I'll point out that iMessage makes it clear the distinction between iMessages (blue) and SMS (green), and provides an easy 'send as SMS' option.

Google's message integration, on the other hand, merged SMS and GTalk, with the result that I have several friends who would try to text someone to say 'hey where are you at', and it would send them a GTalk message to their laptop, which was turned on and signed in at home, rather than an SMS to their phone. Worse, I know one friend who couldn't figure out if there was any way to tell which one it sent, or how to force it to do one or the other.

In other words, Google did the same thing, but even worse.

Result? A dozen times a day it would hang for 10 minutes or so trying to connect to data-unreachable imessage servers. Just send a damn SMS, which is what I wanted in the first place.

I haven't had this specific issue frequently, except when I had extremely unreliable data services (i.e. if I had a data connection but my network was broken, if I was on Wifi but my internet connection was down, or if I was in San Francisco), but I understand that there are definitely people who experience one of those issues very frequently.

ryanbrunner• 10 years ago

One very large component of user happiness is the intuitiveness and familiarity of the user interface, and following user interface guidelines of the host operating system (i.e. the patterns and conventions that the user has already been trained on) will help tremendously with that.

That doesn't mean that you should never stray from those guidelines in a pursuit of a better UI, but all other things being equal, diversions from the standards should have to justify themselves. Things like using an Android-standard icon where there's an equivalent in IOS don't come anywhere close to that bar, in my opinion.

ebbv• 10 years ago

User interfaces should be designed for the user, not for the operating system.

This is a false dichotomy. You can be designed for the user without ignoring platform conventions.

Keeping platform conventions (and thus user expectations) in mind is necessary for good design.

maxxxxx3• 10 years ago

Yes, apps should be designed for the user. However, most users want to get something done on an app without having to learn it for hours. So it's better to adhere to OS conventions and make things predictable. There are so many apps that seem to be done by designers who had too much time on their hands. Even the Google apps are going that route. I barely can't figure out how to use Google maps on android anymore.

Also, once something works, don't change every two months.

In short, provide real functionality and stop redesigning the surface.

ryandrake• 10 years ago

When in Rome (do as the Romans do). Bringing all your Android-isms to your iPhone app is going to be confusing and annoying to iOS users, just as if you tried to make a Mac application with menus anchored to the top of the application's main window. I remember when the shoe was on the other foot and people were designing big fat "iOS-style" Back buttons into the upper-left corner of their Android apps. Yuck! How irritating!

In a past life, I'd fight with the designers constantly about this. Users don't care "that our brand is consistently portrayed across iOS, Android and Windows Phone". Our app is one of hundreds on our their phones! So we need to conform to the UI patterns that they are already comfortable with (whether you think they are good or bad). Not to mention that using a standard UI element in iOS is three or four lines of code-behind, whereas building a custom control can be up to several hundreds, and is more likely to break the next time Apple tweaks its standard look and feel.

Finally, I'd like to see the results of the user studies Google did to determine that iOS users would be comfortable switching over to "Android mode" when they happened to launch a Google app. For a company that is known for data-driven decisions, surely they have numbers to back up their design choice.

xenadu02• 10 years ago

I feel like more apps should embrace their uniqueness rather than aping whatever Apple/Google/whatever puts out as the "new standard" every time their design team decides to go in a new direction.

People use lots of different apps. The whole point of conventions and guidelines is to allow users to immediately be productive when switching to a new app, and to lower cognitive overhead when context switching.

It's a form of leverage for end users. The reality is most users just want to get a task done and don't give a crap if you think your app is THE #1 MOST IMPORTANT. They already know how to use the platform-provided mail, browser, etc. Take advantage of that leverage unless there is a strong reason to deviate.

badeen• 10 years ago

Designing for the operating system is actually a form of designing for the user. I believe you should start with standard conventional interfaces wherever you can. Then look for the pain points. What is more difficult in general or in yours specific use case. From there try to build upon the convention and improve it. Sometimes a small tweak can go a long way and other times a larger one is necessary.

Yes, longterm usage efficiency should be considered but perhaps even more important is the efficiency for beginners and casual users. This is why “pro” and “consumer” apps exist.

Snapchat is not a good example. It is the exception. In fact, it was born out of a desire to make it difficult to figure out so that parents and teachers couldn't spy on you. If every app you downloaded had as steep of a learning curve as Snapchat then the app stores would die as people would give up on apps. I truly fear a day where everybody is trying to copy Snapchat. It is unique and it should stay that way. Not every app should attempt to reinvent the wheel.

jetskindo• 10 years ago

If Google docs had a mac like ui on ios, the author would be writing about how inconsistent Google docs is. "They should unify their design"

TeMPOraL• 10 years ago

And by "unify" the author would most likely mean "change all the other apps to have Mac-like UI".

grawlinson2• 10 years ago

Microsoft now aren't that great with the following examples:

* Constant starting/shuttering of their mobile OS offerings.

* Disregarding user privacy in Windows 10 (and extending that to Windows 7/8 via updates)

* Forcing users of Windows 7/8 to update to 10. It's basically malware at this stage.

* Removing admin abilities in Enterprise offerings of Windows 10.

vt2405• 10 years ago

What admin abilities were removed in Windows 10 Enterprise?

tremon3• 10 years ago

For one, you can no longer completely disable certain (feature) updates. The most you can do is delay the feature by a year.

grawlinson2• 10 years ago

You can't disable users from accessing the Windows Store, from what I've heard.

vixen99• 10 years ago

He says "Truth be told, just as I used Word 5.1 back in the day, I use many Google services today."

Just as? No, he paid good money for the Microsoft software.

vblord• 10 years ago

Do you think MS Word should have been free? Or that google should have charged for it?

erikb2• 10 years ago

The funny thing is: I understand his argument, but the Android like Google apps where what finally made the iPhone a little usable for me. I have it for nearly a year now and still every day wish myself back to the times I had a Nexus 4. It is just way more efficient. I don't what the goal of a normal iPhone user is. But my goal is to get things done as fast as possible. I need to work. But for that iPhones are really painful to use. And I don't know but if you have seen the Gmail App, can you ever go back to the Mail app from iOS? It's like a Porsche vs a rikshaw. Why would anybody want to use the latter one?

fenomas• 10 years ago

This seems like a trivially silly article. In essence it argues: "OSes are special sauce and apps are commodities - Google should recognize this and stop trying to differentiate their app designs."

That's certainly a valid opinion, but its reverse is just as defensible - if one considers services to be special sauce and OSes to be commodities, then it directly follows that app UIs should first be consistent across platforms. And considering that Google's entire business model is based on the latter view, why on earth would they take the author's view?

simonh• 10 years ago

While in general I'd agree with Jason, in this case I can't. There's a big difference between the case of Word on the Mac back in the 90s and Google apps on iOS.

I use Gmail, Google Maps and Google Docs, but I use them equally on iOS and on the web. What I want from these apps is a consistent UI on the web and in the iOS apps. I couldn't give two craps about what it looks like on Android. No disrespect to Android, but that's just not an issue for me.

Jason's position is reasonable. Making the UI on iOS more like iOS conventions would have advantages and for some people this would be a better option, but there's an extra issue here he's not acknowledging.

pan69• 10 years ago

Three words for the author of this post: iTunes for Windows

drunken-serval• 10 years ago

It's mentioned explicitly as an example of what not to do.

JackPoach• 10 years ago

And Microsoft is 'unmaking' many of the mistakes it made in the past two decades

samwestdev• 10 years ago

Another crappy Jason Snell's Original

ja27• 10 years ago

"Boo hoo" - every Android user with an app drawer full of iOS rounded rect, flat, gradient-shaded icons.

MBCook9• 10 years ago

So you recognize that it is a problem. I've heard that kind of complaint from Android users before and they're correct.

So shouldn't Google fix it on iOS?

Apple, of all people, did it right when they brought Apple Music over to Android. I'm still amazed at that. They don't have a good history (i.e. everything they released on Windows).

JustSomeNobody• 10 years ago

What a sad and click bait-y article.

So, there's not a million other examples of apps that also don't follow the iOS style?

This article was written just to beat the Android vs iOS war drums.

davidcollantes• 10 years ago

I don't think it is click-bait, nor to incite wars. I think it expresses clearly something I noticed long ago: Google apps's--under iOS--UX/UI is completely different from the rest. They look odd, they do not behave as an iOS user would expect an iOS app to behave. Same as the Microsoft applications he mentions.

I love that Google has picked a unique UI/UX for Android, that's great. Yet, when providing apps for iOS, they should behave, and conform like the rest of iOS apps do.

torgoguys• 10 years ago

Reading the headline, I was half expecting the article to say that Google's just-announced Instant Apps initiative is the resurrection of ActiveX in IE, a comparison I'm just waiting for some journalist to make. (To this point, I've mostly read nothing but praise for the idea (instant apps). I see instant apps as another sad retreat from the promise of the open web.)

Arnt• 10 years ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that most users of google apps also use google-as-a-website.

So what's google to do, provide consistency between the app and other apps or between the app and the corresponding web UI?

That isn't a simple question with a simple answer...

TazeTSchnitzel• 10 years ago

Particularly irritatingly: Google disables “shake to undo”, which I've actually needed, instead making it “shake to give feedback”, which is never something I've needed.

Presumably just to upset iOS users?

whack• 10 years ago

It's worth pointing out one major difference between Word 93 and Google apps in 2016. Back in 1993, we were pretty much living in a 1-device-per-user world. People had one computer, and they used all their apps on that one computer. Hence, if consistency is the goal, the only thing to be consistent with is other apps on that computer.

However, in 2016, we're living in a multi-device world. A single person can easily own a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop as well as a desktop. Some of them may be iOS, others may be Windows, and others may be Android. And they are likely to use the same apps (eg, google Maps) on all of those different devices. Hence, I would argue that consistency across devices today, is more important than consistency across different apps. As someone who owns a mix of both Mac and Android products, I would like for Google docs to look and behave similarly no matter which device I'm on, even if it means that Google Maps ends up looking differently from Apple-Music.

maxxxxx3• 10 years ago

Of the apps I use most of them I use on only one device. So it's better to stick to the platform guidelines.

no_gravity• 10 years ago

According to the author, they made that mistake in 1993.

In 1993, Microsoft's market cap was under $30 billion. Today it is over $400 billion.

werber• 10 years ago

The only google app I regularly use on my iPhone is their Photos app, and I like that it's cohesive across platforms. The subtle switch to being material design land on iOS gives me reassurance that my pictures will be safe in google's cloud. This feels worlds away from the design wars 20 years ago, when all you got was frustration and no real user benefit.

d0m• 10 years ago

TL&DR: Author doesn't like material design

ysavir2• 10 years ago

I think the author misses the point. Using a native-looking interface will only encourage users to stay on their iTems, and Google (not so) secretly wants to convert those users to their own native platforms+.

digi_owl• 10 years ago

I for one miss the 3.x-4.x Holo UI.

ocdtrekkie3• 10 years ago

Holo was the best UI Google ever did. It felt like the future. Now I feel like Android is living in some wannabe iOS thing with paper-based skeu.

deprave• 10 years ago

WebKit and Blink: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

bikamonki• 10 years ago

I agree with the point being made: I would be really pissed if a desktop app had the window management buttons on a different corner, even the same corner but different icons would feel bad. However, mobile apps are more like websites rather than desktop apps. The 'shell' has to be consistent with UI design and behaviour whereas the 'content' can have a UI relevant to function and maybe a different brand. For example, if you open gmail on Chromium and Safari, you'd expect it to behave and look the same on both.

Tyler-Durden• 10 years ago

Material design is not android design. It is googles design concept. Being surprised that the company uses it for their applications, is like an American traveling to a far off country called Great Britain and be surprised they speak English there

ajoy394• 10 years ago

Material Design isn't just about Android Apps though. They make libraries for websites too, and have guidelines for all types of devices built into the spec. Google isn't using MD in their iOS apps to bring Android design to iOS they're using MD in their iOS apps because they believe MD should be a universal design paradigm for applications and web apps. You can argue that it shouldn't be, you can not like it as a design framework in general, but it's not about Android vs iOS it's about Google's vision of application design regardless of platform.

imissmyjuno• 10 years ago

The article's point still stands though: sticking to a platform's design == jarring user experience.

Not to say that I agree that it's necessarily bad: his example of Word on Mac vs. Windows is actually interesting bc, given sufficient differences, users would have a hard time switching between the two if they own both platforms and the applications look completely different. I think it should be possible to retain certain UI paradigms (e.g. back buttons, toolbars) while staying uniform across all platforms in other respects.

Zombieball2• 10 years ago

Is it a jarring experience though? I imagine many Google product users use more than just one app, be it Gmail on iOS and the web browser, or docs, etc. Material design creates a consistent experience across devices and platforms for Google apps.

I think the result is not jarring but a feeling of familiarity.

TheAnimus• 10 years ago

Which is true enough. Maybe they should look at iTunes on Windows for a good example of why it's horrible to ignore the host UI designs.

Or maybe QuickTime.

emodendroket5• 10 years ago

I've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one and they probably should have hewed more closely to the Windows look and feel. It's like emacs -- how many people choose to use Aquamacs or something instead of just the traditional one?

danielweber• 10 years ago

It's also a jarring experience if I switch from using Google Maps on Android to using Google Maps on iOS and it's totally different. Granted this is less common.

danudey6• 10 years ago

The whole 'app consistency' vs. 'platform consistency' ignores that most users (probably very close to 'all users') change back and forth between apps on a given platform far more than they change between platforms for a given app. I use Google Inbox, and I switch between that and iOS Mail, Tweetbot, FB Messenger, etc. extremely often. I can't imagine a circumstance where I would have an Android device and switch back and forth between Google Inbox on iOS and Google Inbox on Android more frequently than switching between apps on iOS.

Switching to Google Inbox to read an e-mail and then not being able to swipe back, like you can in basically every other iOS app, is jarring and ridiculous. There's no reason for it, other than arrogance. They could keep 'material design' and still make it feel like an iOS app, but they don't bother. Likewise, they seem to have reimplemented text input and text fields, and done so extremely badly, for no reason that I can tell, causing significant problems with selecting text or using third-party keyboards.

If you're switching from Windows to Mac (or Android to iOS) and back frequently, then you're going to be frequently switching UI paradigms, but you'll be dealing with consistency in a given context. You use iOS for a bit and everything behaves one way, then you pick up an Android device and everything works another way.

When you pick up an iOS device and all your paradigms change, except for this one app where they change back and nothing you're used to works, that's more jarring than switching to iOS and having Google Inbox behave like an iOS app, the way every other app on that device works.

In other words, it's not even about material design; it's about fundamental interaction with the app and breaking all of the user's expectations and habits, for no real gain other than, maybe, developer time.

nwah1• 10 years ago

True, and even if they could add little changes to make diehard mac users happy, without compromising their vision, it would still be a bad idea. Creating different user interfaces for a functional application is just wasting resources and increasing the likelihood for bugs.

capote• 10 years ago

Isn't it kinda ridiculous to believe your design should be the universal design for all apps?

Their motivation makes it even worse in my opinion. It's something they should know, and we all know, will never happen. That's why the article sees it this way, and I agree.

ollerac• 10 years ago

Google wants to automate the design process as much as possible. They have so many products that if they want to achieve any kind of consistent branding in their interfaces, they have to do this.

They've probably gone to far. I have, more than once, logged into a Google product I haven't used before and been confused about which product it was because it looked so similar to 3 other products.

Their efforts to automate whatever is possible to automate is laudable, however, and I think they've pushed the field of interaction design further than just about any other web company in the past decade.

ocdtrekkie3• 10 years ago

The concept that everyone everywhere should adopt Google branding as their design style isn't even reasonable or sane. When you look at a website using Material that isn't made by Google, you know one of two things: Either the designer is a hopeless fanboy, or they were just too lazy to design their own website.

ajoy394• 10 years ago

I don't view using googles Material Angular library any different than I view people using bootstrap.

MBCook9• 10 years ago

The article explicitly covered that point. MS used to say the same thing.

As an iOS user, it's still jarring as hell to have a native app feel like something from other OS. I don't want to learn another platform's conventions to use my own platform.

On Android it makes sense, they make android. On the web it's OK because websites all look different. But all iOS apps generally work the same and when you stand out it's annoying.

You know all those people who complain about Java applications not feeling right? Yeah, same kind of thing. As a long time Mac user you can tell when the program you're using is a lazy port from Windows because it doesn't fit in.

ajoy394• 10 years ago

but if you're a docs user wouldn't you expect docs to look and feel the same everywhere? That's the choice google has to make. Do we worry about our app matching YOUR OS's design patterns, or do we keep our applications consistent across all platforms?

danudey6• 10 years ago

The funny thing is that Microsoft had a tendency to do the same thing on their own OS.

For example, Office would come out with some new paradigm – draggable toolbars, for example – that didn't exist anywhere else in Windows, and wasn't part of the standard libraries that other developers had access to. They'd use that for a while, and slowly those features would make their way into other Windows apps (first- and third-party), and right when that started to get standardized, Office would do something else – like the ribbon – which, again, didn't exist anywhere else.

In other words, Microsoft had a tendency to eschew standard OS behaviours even on their own OS, and kept pushing the bar by making new UI paradigms as fast as everyone else could try and keep consistency with them.

mempko• 10 years ago

Programming languages are interfaces too. Google saying MD should be the universal design is like saying Java should be the universal programming language.

panglott• 10 years ago

That's the most '90s-Microsoft comment I've seen. Google aspires to have such a pervasive monopoly that its design paradigm should be treated as universal.

isidoreSeville• 10 years ago

I've never really used iOS so can someone tell me if this is even a real problem?

The apps shown in the linked piece seem totally fine to me, so maybe there are better examples out there?

MBCook9• 10 years ago

They seem fine to you because you don't use iOS.

I'm guessing you're an Android person. Have you run across apps that don't feel like Android apps? They feel like someone made a least-effort attempt to port an iOS app over to "the other platform" and the result is just sort of jarring and weird?

That's the issue. It's not necessarily that they look bad, your app can look like what you want. The issue is that they don't follow lots of little platform conventions that you get used to and so they feel foreign and slightly annoy you every time you try to use them.

Zigurd• 10 years ago

The article has some good points. Material Design is a fine convention for Android and for Google's Web apps, and is well-supported for those if you use Google's libraries and frameworks. But I would not recommend that app developers should take MD to iOS. iOS has it's own conventions. Observe them. On top of all that, Web UI design lacks universal conventions. There isn't much to be gained by aping Google's style on the Web, unless you really like it. Every developer needs distinctive design elements in the areas that are not covered by platform conventions, and their Web UI is a good place to develop distinctive elements.

BUT that doesn't mean Google is making a mistake, except possibly on iOS. If Google's iOS apps are not close enough to iOS conventions, Google is, at least potentially, confusing their iOS users.

edko• 10 years ago

Apple has strict rules for allowing apps into the iOS AppStore, and they are enforced for every developer, including Google. While I disagree with the contents of the article, the rant should not be against Google only. If material design apps are accepted then it is not only Google's "fault".

makecheck• 10 years ago

While I prefer adherence to the OS’ conventions, I can handle variations as long as they solve some problem. For example, one could argue in favor of something like a non-standard icon if that makes gestures easier to discover than they are by default on iOS.

Gratuitous redesigns are silly though, and by nature have to consume engineering effort that otherwise would’ve been spent elsewhere. And when engineering effort has clearly gone into a new veneer while there are still broken app features, I become really angry. Too many apps on iOS alone have been “updated” with redesigns and mysteriously lost functionality in the process (or effectively lost functionality, by hiding previously-known features somewhere new).

DeadReckoning• 10 years ago

Totally disagree. I love the iOS material design apps like Inbox and Google Photos

jasonm23• 10 years ago

The more you understand product design and usability, the more you value consistency with the platform.

The problem is, no one starts out with this knowledge or value system.

rdiddly• 10 years ago

UI "conventions" (i.e. fashions) wouldn't be such a big deal if people adhered more closely to first principles like discoverability, etc.

Apps made for one OS shouldn't insist on aping the design elements of another

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