{"id":30,"date":"2021-07-01T20:55:52","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T00:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iterudio.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2021-07-01T20:55:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T00:55:52","slug":"user-interfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"User interfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Making a product “easy to use” is never “easy.”

“Elegant” products are few and far between. Merriam-Webster tells us that “elegant<\/a>” means “marked by elegance” – which then requires another click for “elegance<\/a>” and we get “dignified gracefulness or restrained beauty of style”

An “elegant product” becomes an example of “beautiful simplicity.”

Under Steve Jobs leadership Apple<\/em> was known for “striving for elegance.” When he was alive Mr Jobs liked to say that they (i.e. Apple<\/em>) didn’t do a lot of “product research” – which I believe, BUT we have to distinguish between “product research” as in “asking users what new products they want” and “product testing” as in “testing and improving the user experience with existing products.”

e.g. Apple<\/em> did not invent the “mobile music player” but they perfected the “mobile music device” with the iPod. The first couple generations of the iPod become a case study in the “search for elegance.”

I have had several “iPods” – but I distinctly remember not being able to figure out how to change the volume of an “earlier” release. The product had a “rocker dial” which I assumed if I held down on one side the volume would go up, and if I held down on the other side the volume would go down.

ANYWAY – It turned out the the volume was controlled by “sliding” and not “rocking” – and once I was shown how it worked<\/em> it was obvious (and I admit “better”) – so early iPods were beautiful and easy to use, but not “elegant”<\/em>

Of course the first step in designing an “elegant” product is that the product does what it is supposed to do (i.e. form still follows function) – this tends to require “high end components”. SO Apple<\/em> has never sold “cheap” products.

The number of products that exhibit “pure elegance” is probably zero – i.e. “pure elegance” is (probably) unattainable.

This becomes an interesting thought experiment: e.g. There are a great number of products that are “easy to use” once you have been shown how to use them<\/em>. However the number of products that “announce how they work through their design” is very small if not zero.

Remember that we have to start with a “user” that has no exposure to the product – e.g. if you’ve seen “Demolition Man” (1993)<\/a> (a “not bad” Sylvester Stallone\/Wesley Snipes vehicle) you might remember the “three seashells” joke.

If you haven’t seen the movie (it is fun, you can probably find it with little effort) – Sylvester Stallone gets brought out of “suspended animation prison” to catch super villain Wesley Snipes – but the plot isn’t important. Mr. Stallone plays the comedic “fish out of water” that doesn’t understand the simplest aspects of “modern civilization” one of which is the “modern” bathroom facilities that consists of “three seashells.”

The point (if I have one) is that in the movie the “three seashells” are a great example of “un-elegance” (which was used for comedic effect – and no, they never explain how the seashells are used, BUT they make it clear that EVERYONE knows how to use the seashells).

SO in “modern times” the best we can hope for are products that are obvious to use for those that have experience using similar products.

The “web design” gold standard has been (some form of) “don’t make the user think” (probably) as long as there have been “web design suggestions.”

From a “software design” point of view “elegant user interfaces” are also few and far between. “Functional” interfaces are a dime a dozen – but systems that are actually “pleasant to use” are numbered in single digits.

Combine “functionality” and “ease of use” is never easy BUT if you get it right and have a little bit of luck – you might be the next Google or Facebook …

This song<\/a> (“Something” by the Beatles)<\/a> came to mind as I was composing this post. Beatles fans will recognize this as a “George” song – the song would peak at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1969.

George Harrison was the youngest of the Beatles – which really doesn’t mean anything in the “big picture” (i.e. it isn’t like the age difference was a big deal – they were all within three years of each other) – but becomes significant when we talk about “song writing development”.

e.g. three years difference is like the difference between “high school seniors” and “high school sophomores” – fwiw: Mr Harrison admitted that he always “looked up” to John Lennon.

SO “George Harrison songwriter” had the benefit of seeing two of the all time greats become two of the all time greats (“Lennon and McCartney”) but also developed his own distinct “elegant” style.

(the disadvantage to being a Beatle for “developing song writer” Mr Harrison was that some of his “early” work ends up being compared to “Lennon and McCartney” unfavorably – not that his early work was “bad” so much as “not as good”)

“Something” becomes a compact “mature love story” – Mr Harrison was in his late 20’s when he wrote the lyrics, so he is writing about the experience of “falling in love” with the realization that what he is feeling might not last.

Compare that with the “more mature” view in “What is Life<\/a>” from George Harrison’s first solo album (1970) – and we see why “George was the spiritual one”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making a product “easy to use” is never “easy.” “Elegant” products are few and far between. Merriam-Webster tells us that “elegant” means “marked by elegance” – which then requires another click for “elegance” and we get “dignified gracefulness or restrained beauty of style” An “elegant product” becomes an example of “beautiful simplicity.” Under Steve Jobs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}