Double Clicking, Force Touch, and other strangeness

[wraith808]

Looking at a tweet from Jeff Atwood led me to an article from 2004 that clarified some things for me.

As coders, we come up with some strange ideas that are to get around hardware deficiencies.  We convince ourselves that we're making strides in UX, when all we're really doing is making a lot of problems for people that will come after us.

Mouse Gestures
Finger Swiping
Double Clicking
Force Touch

Heck, let's add right clicking into it.

From a developer's standpoint, they seem cool, and add a lot of functionality in an 'elegant' fashion.  But in all reality, they in general add a layer of complexity and frustration that our users will be hampered by.

Sometimes, simple, no matter how inelegant it may seem, is just better.

What is this rant for?   A reminder to myself, I suppose, of a quote by Einstein that I sometimes forget.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

[mouser]

Sometimes, simple, no matter how inelegant it may seem, is just better.

-wraith808 (September 06, 2015, 03:59 PM)

it is very hard advice for a programmer to take -- and as much as i give it to myself i still find it hard to take -- but one of the things you learn over time as a developer is the extremely high price that one pays over time for complexity.
The initial development cost is misleading and unimportant compared to the accumulated maintenance costs over time with complexity.

[TaoPhoenix]

Sometimes, simple, no matter how inelegant it may seem, is just better.

-wraith808 (September 06, 2015, 03:59 PM)

it is very hard advice for a programmer to take -- and as much as i give it to myself i still find it hard to take -- but one of the things you learn over time as a developer is the extremely high price that one pays over time for complexity.
The initial development cost is misleading and unimportant compared to the accumulated maintenance costs over time with complexity.

-mouser (September 06, 2015, 04:37 PM)

Except be really careful, because in the FF-Chrome wars, this is rapidly becoming
"Yeah! Simple! We'll only put 18 of the 70 existing features there, call it Simple, and save ourselves 4690 dev hours! Win!"

[wraith808]

Sometimes, simple, no matter how inelegant it may seem, is just better.

-wraith808 (September 06, 2015, 03:59 PM)

it is very hard advice for a programmer to take -- and as much as i give it to myself i still find it hard to take -- but one of the things you learn over time as a developer is the extremely high price that one pays over time for complexity.
The initial development cost is misleading and unimportant compared to the accumulated maintenance costs over time with complexity.

-mouser (September 06, 2015, 04:37 PM)

Exactly.  I love making 'innovative' UIs.  But they're for me in the end.  I made what I considered one of my best UIs for a job that I had when we actually had UX testing.  It was a disaster, and I was demoralized.  So I went in, stripped everything out, and simplified out of frustration... and it got raves.

*sigh*

[anandcoral]

I agree.

After burning my fingers in maintaining codes for newest UX, I now keep things simple in all my programs. In fact they all look and behave similarly.

Main menu bars then dialog box and buttons. That's all. I do make features which are not the main purpose of the program, say changing color of dialog window, in right-click menu. It is like testing features which do not affect the day to day working of the program, if useful, then may put it in menu bar or button.

Regards,

Anand

[Deozaan]

What the smurf is a force touch?

Some sort of Jedi power?

[Stoic Joker]

Mouse Gestures
Finger Swiping
Double Clicking
Force Touch

-wraith808 (September 06, 2015, 03:59 PM)

I frequently have to turn these off because they drive the clients nuts on laptops when a casual - and accidental - brush of the touchpad causes applications to respond in unexpected/unwanted ways.

[TaoPhoenix]

I gotta check my settings, maybe look into some kind of function key disable widget. Because I don't use them, and they sorta only seem to show up when I reach for a "real key" and then my browser goes crazy doing something.

But then, those are often the only ways to do low-level boots, so it feels dangerous!

[wraith808]

What the smurf is a force touch?

Some sort of Jedi power?

-Deozaan (September 07, 2015, 11:56 PM)

LOL!  No... it's the new thing invented with the apple watch... and that is now going to be on all iOS devices.

http://www.theguardi...ed-haptic-technology

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352

http://techcrunch.co...uch-trackpad-review/

[Deozaan]

What the smurf is a force touch?

Some sort of Jedi power?

-Deozaan (September 07, 2015, 11:56 PM)

LOL!  No... it's the new thing invented with the apple watch... and that is now going to be on all iOS devices.

-wraith808 (September 08, 2015, 11:42 AM)

Oh. Thanks for educating me.

[anandcoral]

LOL!  No... it's the new thing invented with the apple watch... and that is now going to be on all iOS devices.

http://www.theguardi...ed-haptic-technology

-wraith808 (September 08, 2015, 11:42 AM)

wraith808, I read the link, but have doubt. Is this new hematology or name for long press ?
As in long press we are force touching / pressing !

[wraith808]

LOL!  No... it's the new thing invented with the apple watch... and that is now going to be on all iOS devices.

http://www.theguardi...ed-haptic-technology

-wraith808 (September 08, 2015, 11:42 AM)

wraith808, I read the link, but have doubt. Is this new hematology or name for long press ?
As in long press we are force touching / pressing !

-anandcoral (September 08, 2015, 02:20 PM)

It's really strange.  You press.  Then it tells you that you can 'press harder' to get more options.  So it's press, hold... then press harder without releasing.  Or something like that.  It's VERY confusing to me.  I might get used to it in time.  But it definitely wasn't as intuitive in first use as they're touting.  It's one of the reasons that I immediately threw out the apple watch as an option, even though I love the heart rate monitor (well, and the fact that it doesn't have a GPS and isn't water proof so I can't use it for swimming or biking).