Man, iOS 7 feedback is incredibly frustrating for no reason that actually matters.
I feel like I spent the past few years falling in love with flat design, on mobile and on the web -- and I read article after article from historically pro-Apple bloggers/authors explaining that no, flat design was fundamentally a bad move: the strongest metaphor is that of the phone as a tool -- that we needed skeumorphism, we need hints for interactivity, we needed polish.
And now iOS 7 is out! And I'm excited, because the flat (okay, 'mature') design philosophy that I've been told is a bad idea is finally here -- and now it's suddenly a great leap forward because Apple decided to do it? When Microsoft decided that the average consumer understood what a smartphone was for and no longer needed the physical cues, they were wrong and fools -- but when Ive decides it, its because its time to move to mature and modern?
Here's the thing, though: I think iOS 7, on the whole, looks worse than iOS 6. The stock icons look outright ugly; interfaces like the call-answer screen and the calculator look poorly designed, and everything has the sense that it just needs another run or two through the review process. Not that it's irreversibly bad, but I don't think it's executing as well as WP or MIUI are. (With exceptions, of course: I think the translucency paradigm looks great, as well as the changes to the UI Kit.)
(People arguing 'its just a beta, it'll obviously change over time': what happened to Apple's relentless pursuit of quality before introducing something to the public? What's the point of secrecy if you're showing off v0.8 and not v1.0?)
I imagine actually using the new iOS won't be bad at all. It's just reading about it that frustrates me, which is definitely a sign I should be doing less of it.
It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum. Android copies from iOS and vice versa - they each follow the cultural trends of smart design.
I would much rather see blog posts like this - where the author considers the iOS in its own right instead of insisting on nitpicking what's original. Now I can actually see the innovation that went into designing the iOS 7 interface. And as someone typing this comment on iOS 7 beta, I've come to a deeper appreciation of what's already in my hands.
It's not helpful to accuse large design houses and engineering teams of copying each other. That's like saying supercars aren't original because they universally use sleek, aerodynamic ("sexy") design features. No, that's just what sells and what makes sense. It's a natural maturation and trend towards intelligent design. It's just iteration.
It's true that touch interfaces no longer need to be "taught" really. We intuitively know that gestures will do things in the same way (and more efficiently) than buttons. It's all about reducing cluttered design and adding more functionality without reducing usable space. I'm glad we're moving towards this.
> It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum.
I agree, but the similarities are being pointed out precisely because Apple (and their major pundits like Marco and Gruber) makes a big deal about how others have borrowed ideas from them.
For example, the infamous "Redmond/Mountain View, start your photocopiers" lines, and Marco/Gruber's frequent quips like "Hmm, I've seen something like this before..." in regards to something Google or Samsung has done.
Apple's smugness is what's getting them, not their borrowing of ideas, itself.
I think that is happening because Apple is usually the one to cry foul, and now everyone wants to expose them for the shameless hypocrisy. That is all.
I don't care about flatness or skeutransmogrification or whatnot, but the damn thing must WORK.
Look at his iMessage screen comparison [1]: yes, the old screen looks a bit geocities, but you can actually read text very well; the new screen is almost unreadable. The prime aim of iMessage is to make people read text, not to look cool.
It doesn't matter if there are options to thicken the font -- the whole point of OSX/iOS UI was that you should not need options, because defaults should be good enough for most people. This is clearly not the case with what we've seen of iOS7, and that's a problem.
From a fellow know-nothing when it comes to "flatness" and skeu-something I was a little bit surprised when the author complained that the old "receive a call" interface was full with alert-like buttons. They are supposed to be "Alert" buttons, for crying out loud, as in you're asleep in your bed, the phone starts ringing which means you have been "alerted", you're now woken up and ready to answer the call or deny it.
Which brings me to my second point, that is where is the "Deny" button/action in the new interface.
? I could only see "Answer" and "Remind me later".
> I don't care about flatness or skeutransmogrification or whatnot, but the damn thing must WORK.
Absolutely. I don't understand how so many people are focusing on the highs and lows of the UI but are ignoring serious UX problems like the one you pointed.
Apple says "Nothing we’ve ever created has been designed just to look beautiful. That’s approaching the opportunity from the wrong end." but then they change the perfectly readable Messages screen to a less readable one that has the only advantage of arguably looking better. And it's not the only problem IMHO.
On that screen used to be a send button that invited interaction. You look there and you know that it's "actionable". Now in the new version there is no button, only a gray text with "No Perceived Affordance" that looks more like a description than an "actionable" element. The most important "action" on that screen happens when you press a gray text on a gray background!
And the call screen? On the iOS6 one it was easier to read the name of the person who is calling because the white text is above a black overlay giving it enough contrast. On the new one the text although bigger is lighter (as in less bold) and is directly on the image. Light backgrounds (sky, clouds, etc) will make the text barely visible. Also how can I reject a call? There is nothing on that screen supporting the second most important functionality that is expected from it. Even accepting the call is now more complicated. The size and position of the elements makes more sense now but the text is lighter (less readable) and it's now more complicated to accept a call: before you only needed to touch accept, now you need to slide.
The home screen: even ignoring the aesthetics that I personally don't like, it's undeniable that the text is much more readable with iOS6. The small border and shadow made it readable with virtually any background. Also the icons were easier on the eyes, the new bright colors tire/irritate the eyes more. Also the relationship between icons and the functionality they represent was already hard in some cases. For instance for someone that didn't know Safari it was not easy to tell which was the browser and which was the compass from just the icons. Also the photos icon was not obvious at all and the Music vs iTunes Store icons are almost the same with different backgrounds but now it got worse: none of the exisiting problems got any better and at least reminders, settings and game center got worse.
Of course there are a lot of screens that got better imho. Music, contact view, the calendar, clocks, compass, weather...
As a counter-example (although I agree with you), the hideous and unusable directions on iOS 6 Maps (the all-capitals blue and white highway sign look) seems to have given way to something more readable.
To me, reading messages is a more pleasant experience on iOS 7 compared with previous versions. It's actually one of my favorites of the new stock apps they created. Sure the design is a little lacking, but as far as usability goes - it's actually quite nice.
Hopefully I'm not the only one that thinks this is going to kill usability. The reason old people can figure their way around <=iOS6 is that everything that can be tapped looks like a button. A more "mature" audience isn't what apple's good at appealing to.
I'm volunteering at a center that teaches senior citizens various computer skills. One of the courses we teach is on how to use their iPhones. I'm dreading the moment that iOS7 is released: all of these people are going to have to start right back at the beginning in their understanding.
If you go to the Apple Developer forums (https://developer.apple.com/devforums/ Dev account needed) the "Getting Started" sub-forum is filled with devs, from just signed up to veterans with multiple apps under their belt, asking usability questions.
I think it's telling when your own developing base has to post to forums asking simple questions like:
Where did my spotlight search go?
How do I rate songs?
I agree. I think my parents can easily use iOS 6 on the iPhone or iPad while they have trouble with other computing devices. Same goes with my toddler. I actually thought Apple purposely kept this style because they're aware of the great usability it was compared to what other manufacturers are doing.
It turns out that perhaps I was giving them too much credit.
Agreed - this design is very disappointing. I want to be able to glance at my phone and understand what I'm looking at as easily as possible. Another person in this thread mentioned waking up from sleep and looking at their phone - that's exactly it for me. I'm not getting AARP magazine yet (early 30s), just want using my phone to be easy.
The thin fonts and thin border icons are just ugly in my opinion. They dont represent clarity or a lighter feel; they look cheap. I like flat design. It's possible to create beautiful flat icons:
http://asianmack.com/homescreens
iOS7 just doesnt get that aesthetic right. I've only been using it for two days but I doubt I'll change my mind.
This seems like a compromise. Someone knew that the standard text was somewhat hard to read, so he tried to change the standard setting, but someone with more power wanted to keep it. So they implemented the larger size as an option.
If I built iOS 7, I would have created these settings specifically for the dev beta and instrumented them. Knowing that 58% of dev users turn on the extra legibility setting is good info for how heavy to make the text in the production release.
Great: Picture organization. Airdrop, this will be big. No more search field/page when you slide left on the home screen! Slide up settings is helpful (wish they had a link to settings.app there too. Screenshots of background apps are helpful. App store is back to vertical scrolling for the top charts. Safari top and bottom nav shrink when you are scrolling a site.
Not great: New keyboard is harder to see and type on, space bar got smaller. Not a fan of the icons and thin fonts. Wish messages were more compact. Calendar doesn't indicate events at the month view (or i haven't figured out how.) iRadio is a clone of pandora that's less simple.
Also, iOS7 now pops up a "This cable is not certified" when I plug in third party lightning cables. Looks like they are stepping up their proprietary authentication. Not a fan of that.
I cant believe how quickly UI and design have fallen now that Jobs is gone. Things like childish gradients and terrible icons.
Don't even get me started on the contrast -- light text on fluorescent green background and the really thin font.
I could only draw one conclusion from the comparison of iOS 6 vs 7 --- it's as if Apple has done everything possible to make it unusable.
Steve would probably have fired the tasteless "designer" who came up with this utterly broken redesign.
I feel he focuses on the best parts of iOS 7, which I admit are quite nice. But there are definitely a few things that, to me, don't meet the old Apple standards of great usability.
Just a few things I noticed:
The confusing unlock and initial welcome screen. They lack clear indication on which way to swipe or that you're even supposed to swipe at all (welcome screen). It's a subtle and momentary weakness that is addressed the moment you figure it out, but truly excellent design should avoid such issues; minimalism doesn't mean zeroing things out.
The month view being useless for showing upcoming events in the calendar app (the previous version would show you a scroll of upcoming events for the currently selected month).
Spotlight is summoned via a downward swipe, but is dismissed by an asymmetric action (either x out your search field to clear your search results, or hit the physical home key).
All minor quips, but it's the difference between UI designed by, say, your avg coder who trivializes the UX domain, and UI designed by a truly talented UX guy. But I'm hopeful since it's only the first beta.
It is certainly possible to de-clutter without making it look like complete shit. It's the odd decisions all over that just don't make sense, for example using red for primary actions or providing no contrast. Those are basic things even non-designers would know.
I think the reason for the backlash, and rightly justified, is that these seemingly capricious design decisions would seem to underpin a larger fundamental flaw with the overall direction - one that Apple historically is not known for. You can justify the goal, which is of course a good one, but there is not way in hell you can justify the implementation.
I am usually a fan of Jony Ive's design, but this seems to exhibit a lot of windows-envy. When did Apple start copying design from Microsoft?
The home-screen icons are probably the worst part of the design. There are certainly good parts as well. But Apple's skeumorphic borders and backgrounds were always distinctively Apple, and contributed to make people love the brand, now the iOS just looks like everything else. Android is flat. Windows is flat. And as people pointed out, what about the colorblind?
I agree with the author of the article that overall iOS 7 represents a big step forward in terms of design.
However, there are some glaring warts that weren't discussed. Most notable among the goofs is the new "Control Center" feature. What's odd is that Apple seems particularly proud of it judging by how frequently it appears in their iOS 7 marketing materials. To be clear, I think that the idea of giving quick access to frequently used controls is a good one. However the current visual design execution of this idea is abysmal.
IMHO, the current design of iOS 7 Control Center is a jumbled mess that doesn't seem consistent with the rest of the new design. It violates a bunch of the new design conventions, and conceptually represents a grab-bag of misfit controls that have little reason to be together on the screen at the same time.
The controls shown in Control Center don't use the new convention of tinting to a bright color to indicate interactivity, but instead opt for inverting between light and dark to indicate on/off. Additionally, some of the buttons have borders, while others don't. Some are circles, some are rounded rectangles, others are floating in whitespace. Some less important controls (AirDrop) are big, other more important ones (WiFi) are small, and they're all stacked on top of each other in a big jumbled mess.
Here's how I propose Apple improve the design of iOS 7's Control Center:
- Adopt a consistent control element design: no borders, color hinting etc.
- Remove the bottom row of app shortcuts. Except for the flashlight these are not controls, they're links.
- Remove AirDrop and Airplay. Not controls either.
- Refine that ugly down arrow on the top of the pane. It's too chunky and is encroaching on the icons below.
- Increase the opacity on the panel to improve readability.
> The thing is, we’ve grown up. We don’t require hand-holding to tell us what to click or tap... iOS 7 is an iOS for a more mature consumer... who doesn’t want anything getting in the way of their content.
Even though the author is defending this, this hits the nail on the head for why I dislike this style.
I do want hand-holding to know what to click or tap. So does my mother. I don't want to have to guess what the designer wanted. I don't want to have a phone that requires me to be a "mature" consumer. I don't want to have to think when using it. And I want things to get in the way of my content -- things that help organize it, delineate it, and let me interact with it in clear and unambiguous ways. I didn't buy my phone to admire pretty pictures of my contacts -- I bought it to tap and swipe my way to getting stuff done quicker.
The original quote above isn't really about flat design -- I personally think flat design, done right, is great. The quote is about a different philosophy -- that just happens to have gone hand-in-hand with the new flat design movement. But I don't know what to call it -- an anti-interface movement? A make-the-user-guess movement? Microsoft's been doing this for a few years now; only now has Apple jumped on the bandwagon.
Do you really think that you have to.. well.. think more, given the new design?
Look at the old vs the new - the chrome is still there, it's just taken backseat to the content. It's not at all unclear what to click on to accomplish what you want to do. The call screen for instance. It's still immediately obvious what does what.. slide to answer, and a couple of buttons to decline with a note.
Settings and contacts screen - the "<" cue on the top left which goes back, similar to every modern web browser.
Maybe I'm missing something here, is there a thing or two you can point out that seems harder or more confusing on IOS 7 than 6?
I've been waiting for blog posts like these, the ones that used to criticize everything that wasn't Apple until Apple starts to do them also, and now they're the best thing ever.
That first image says it all for me. We are on a iOS 6 contact page and I want to facetime. There is a button right there. I know I can click on it and what exactly it will do. The contrast on the text is right and my brain is scanning for a section/button to latch on to. It finds it. Okay, change of mind. I don't want to facetime but rather send a message. Brain scanning for "message" button starts and finds it in a fraction of a second (not just visual but the expectation that a related feature will have have a similar way to be invoked).
Now iOS7. Scanned for facetime. They don't have it on the contact sheet. Wait... they do. For some reason I didn't register that at all on the first glance. Now message. They definitely don't have it: home, mobile, facetime, iCloud and work. That's it. Wait.. that cannot be right. Re-scan slowly. I see a speech bubble next to mobile phone number. Maybe that is it. I hope it is clickable. Doesn't look like a button.
You will, however, probably find that it feels more fluid, responsive and modern.
Sounds like someone who hasn't actually installed it yet. Perhaps it will feel more fluid and responsive when it ships, but that is not the case today.
I really like the side-by-side comparison, buy why use a dark, non-default background for the iOS 6 home screen and a light one for the iOS 7 home screen? It looks like you're tossing objectivity to push a point.
It reminds me of the Windows Phone. The specifics of the UI are different, but the philosophy behind the UI seems to be the same.
It seems inevitable, when I first saw the original WP7, I thought it made the iPhone look old and that one thing that Apple does not like is looking dated.
[+] [-] jmduke|12 years ago|reply
I feel like I spent the past few years falling in love with flat design, on mobile and on the web -- and I read article after article from historically pro-Apple bloggers/authors explaining that no, flat design was fundamentally a bad move: the strongest metaphor is that of the phone as a tool -- that we needed skeumorphism, we need hints for interactivity, we needed polish.
And now iOS 7 is out! And I'm excited, because the flat (okay, 'mature') design philosophy that I've been told is a bad idea is finally here -- and now it's suddenly a great leap forward because Apple decided to do it? When Microsoft decided that the average consumer understood what a smartphone was for and no longer needed the physical cues, they were wrong and fools -- but when Ive decides it, its because its time to move to mature and modern?
Here's the thing, though: I think iOS 7, on the whole, looks worse than iOS 6. The stock icons look outright ugly; interfaces like the call-answer screen and the calculator look poorly designed, and everything has the sense that it just needs another run or two through the review process. Not that it's irreversibly bad, but I don't think it's executing as well as WP or MIUI are. (With exceptions, of course: I think the translucency paradigm looks great, as well as the changes to the UI Kit.)
(People arguing 'its just a beta, it'll obviously change over time': what happened to Apple's relentless pursuit of quality before introducing something to the public? What's the point of secrecy if you're showing off v0.8 and not v1.0?)
I imagine actually using the new iOS won't be bad at all. It's just reading about it that frustrates me, which is definitely a sign I should be doing less of it.
(I own an iPad, iPhone, and MBA.)
[+] [-] dylangs1030|12 years ago|reply
It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum. Android copies from iOS and vice versa - they each follow the cultural trends of smart design.
I would much rather see blog posts like this - where the author considers the iOS in its own right instead of insisting on nitpicking what's original. Now I can actually see the innovation that went into designing the iOS 7 interface. And as someone typing this comment on iOS 7 beta, I've come to a deeper appreciation of what's already in my hands.
It's not helpful to accuse large design houses and engineering teams of copying each other. That's like saying supercars aren't original because they universally use sleek, aerodynamic ("sexy") design features. No, that's just what sells and what makes sense. It's a natural maturation and trend towards intelligent design. It's just iteration.
It's true that touch interfaces no longer need to be "taught" really. We intuitively know that gestures will do things in the same way (and more efficiently) than buttons. It's all about reducing cluttered design and adding more functionality without reducing usable space. I'm glad we're moving towards this.
[+] [-] runjake|12 years ago|reply
I agree, but the similarities are being pointed out precisely because Apple (and their major pundits like Marco and Gruber) makes a big deal about how others have borrowed ideas from them.
For example, the infamous "Redmond/Mountain View, start your photocopiers" lines, and Marco/Gruber's frequent quips like "Hmm, I've seen something like this before..." in regards to something Google or Samsung has done.
Apple's smugness is what's getting them, not their borrowing of ideas, itself.
[+] [-] mtgx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prollyignored|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|12 years ago|reply
Look at his iMessage screen comparison [1]: yes, the old screen looks a bit geocities, but you can actually read text very well; the new screen is almost unreadable. The prime aim of iMessage is to make people read text, not to look cool.
It doesn't matter if there are options to thicken the font -- the whole point of OSX/iOS UI was that you should not need options, because defaults should be good enough for most people. This is clearly not the case with what we've seen of iOS7, and that's a problem.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgemmell/9023510971/
[+] [-] paganel|12 years ago|reply
Which brings me to my second point, that is where is the "Deny" button/action in the new interface. ? I could only see "Answer" and "Remind me later".
[+] [-] Vieira|12 years ago|reply
Absolutely. I don't understand how so many people are focusing on the highs and lows of the UI but are ignoring serious UX problems like the one you pointed.
Apple says "Nothing we’ve ever created has been designed just to look beautiful. That’s approaching the opportunity from the wrong end." but then they change the perfectly readable Messages screen to a less readable one that has the only advantage of arguably looking better. And it's not the only problem IMHO.
On that screen used to be a send button that invited interaction. You look there and you know that it's "actionable". Now in the new version there is no button, only a gray text with "No Perceived Affordance" that looks more like a description than an "actionable" element. The most important "action" on that screen happens when you press a gray text on a gray background!
And the call screen? On the iOS6 one it was easier to read the name of the person who is calling because the white text is above a black overlay giving it enough contrast. On the new one the text although bigger is lighter (as in less bold) and is directly on the image. Light backgrounds (sky, clouds, etc) will make the text barely visible. Also how can I reject a call? There is nothing on that screen supporting the second most important functionality that is expected from it. Even accepting the call is now more complicated. The size and position of the elements makes more sense now but the text is lighter (less readable) and it's now more complicated to accept a call: before you only needed to touch accept, now you need to slide.
The home screen: even ignoring the aesthetics that I personally don't like, it's undeniable that the text is much more readable with iOS6. The small border and shadow made it readable with virtually any background. Also the icons were easier on the eyes, the new bright colors tire/irritate the eyes more. Also the relationship between icons and the functionality they represent was already hard in some cases. For instance for someone that didn't know Safari it was not easy to tell which was the browser and which was the compass from just the icons. Also the photos icon was not obvious at all and the Music vs iTunes Store icons are almost the same with different backgrounds but now it got worse: none of the exisiting problems got any better and at least reminders, settings and game center got worse.
Of course there are a lot of screens that got better imho. Music, contact view, the calendar, clocks, compass, weather...
[+] [-] jcampbell1|12 years ago|reply
Have you tried the current Gmail app? It uses thin fonts, and I don't find it to be a problem.
[+] [-] jonahx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cormullion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bennyg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ryanstout|12 years ago|reply
This article seems to sum up some of my other complaints fairly well: http://wolfslittlestore.be/tasteless/
[+] [-] mintplant|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdeuchler|12 years ago|reply
I think it's telling when your own developing base has to post to forums asking simple questions like:
[+] [-] klancaster|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wvenable|12 years ago|reply
It turns out that perhaps I was giving them too much credit.
[+] [-] jcc80|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daughart|12 years ago|reply
I'm sorry I just don't see why many of these things are so terrible. It's like every designer thinks their personal taste is an objective standard...
[+] [-] antidaily|12 years ago|reply
iOS7 just doesnt get that aesthetic right. I've only been using it for two days but I doubt I'll change my mind.
[+] [-] bcks|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rogerbraun|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluthru|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hop|12 years ago|reply
Great: Picture organization. Airdrop, this will be big. No more search field/page when you slide left on the home screen! Slide up settings is helpful (wish they had a link to settings.app there too. Screenshots of background apps are helpful. App store is back to vertical scrolling for the top charts. Safari top and bottom nav shrink when you are scrolling a site.
Not great: New keyboard is harder to see and type on, space bar got smaller. Not a fan of the icons and thin fonts. Wish messages were more compact. Calendar doesn't indicate events at the month view (or i haven't figured out how.) iRadio is a clone of pandora that's less simple.
Also, iOS7 now pops up a "This cable is not certified" when I plug in third party lightning cables. Looks like they are stepping up their proprietary authentication. Not a fan of that.
[+] [-] r00fus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kraemate|12 years ago|reply
Steve would probably have fired the tasteless "designer" who came up with this utterly broken redesign.
[+] [-] smacktoward|12 years ago|reply
Good thing there aren't people out there who are color-blind, then...
Oh, wait.
[+] [-] moogleii|12 years ago|reply
Just a few things I noticed: The confusing unlock and initial welcome screen. They lack clear indication on which way to swipe or that you're even supposed to swipe at all (welcome screen). It's a subtle and momentary weakness that is addressed the moment you figure it out, but truly excellent design should avoid such issues; minimalism doesn't mean zeroing things out.
The month view being useless for showing upcoming events in the calendar app (the previous version would show you a scroll of upcoming events for the currently selected month).
Spotlight is summoned via a downward swipe, but is dismissed by an asymmetric action (either x out your search field to clear your search results, or hit the physical home key).
All minor quips, but it's the difference between UI designed by, say, your avg coder who trivializes the UX domain, and UI designed by a truly talented UX guy. But I'm hopeful since it's only the first beta.
[+] [-] methodin|12 years ago|reply
I think the reason for the backlash, and rightly justified, is that these seemingly capricious design decisions would seem to underpin a larger fundamental flaw with the overall direction - one that Apple historically is not known for. You can justify the goal, which is of course a good one, but there is not way in hell you can justify the implementation.
[+] [-] EGreg|12 years ago|reply
The home-screen icons are probably the worst part of the design. There are certainly good parts as well. But Apple's skeumorphic borders and backgrounds were always distinctively Apple, and contributed to make people love the brand, now the iOS just looks like everything else. Android is flat. Windows is flat. And as people pointed out, what about the colorblind?
[+] [-] Yhippa|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jgrall|12 years ago|reply
However, there are some glaring warts that weren't discussed. Most notable among the goofs is the new "Control Center" feature. What's odd is that Apple seems particularly proud of it judging by how frequently it appears in their iOS 7 marketing materials. To be clear, I think that the idea of giving quick access to frequently used controls is a good one. However the current visual design execution of this idea is abysmal.
IMHO, the current design of iOS 7 Control Center is a jumbled mess that doesn't seem consistent with the rest of the new design. It violates a bunch of the new design conventions, and conceptually represents a grab-bag of misfit controls that have little reason to be together on the screen at the same time.
The controls shown in Control Center don't use the new convention of tinting to a bright color to indicate interactivity, but instead opt for inverting between light and dark to indicate on/off. Additionally, some of the buttons have borders, while others don't. Some are circles, some are rounded rectangles, others are floating in whitespace. Some less important controls (AirDrop) are big, other more important ones (WiFi) are small, and they're all stacked on top of each other in a big jumbled mess.
Here's how I propose Apple improve the design of iOS 7's Control Center:
- Adopt a consistent control element design: no borders, color hinting etc.
- Remove the bottom row of app shortcuts. Except for the flashlight these are not controls, they're links. - Remove AirDrop and Airplay. Not controls either.
- Refine that ugly down arrow on the top of the pane. It's too chunky and is encroaching on the icons below.
- Increase the opacity on the panel to improve readability.
[+] [-] crazygringo|12 years ago|reply
Even though the author is defending this, this hits the nail on the head for why I dislike this style.
I do want hand-holding to know what to click or tap. So does my mother. I don't want to have to guess what the designer wanted. I don't want to have a phone that requires me to be a "mature" consumer. I don't want to have to think when using it. And I want things to get in the way of my content -- things that help organize it, delineate it, and let me interact with it in clear and unambiguous ways. I didn't buy my phone to admire pretty pictures of my contacts -- I bought it to tap and swipe my way to getting stuff done quicker.
The original quote above isn't really about flat design -- I personally think flat design, done right, is great. The quote is about a different philosophy -- that just happens to have gone hand-in-hand with the new flat design movement. But I don't know what to call it -- an anti-interface movement? A make-the-user-guess movement? Microsoft's been doing this for a few years now; only now has Apple jumped on the bandwagon.
[+] [-] Karunamon|12 years ago|reply
Look at the old vs the new - the chrome is still there, it's just taken backseat to the content. It's not at all unclear what to click on to accomplish what you want to do. The call screen for instance. It's still immediately obvious what does what.. slide to answer, and a couple of buttons to decline with a note.
Settings and contacts screen - the "<" cue on the top left which goes back, similar to every modern web browser.
Maybe I'm missing something here, is there a thing or two you can point out that seems harder or more confusing on IOS 7 than 6?
[+] [-] gfodor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacobparker|12 years ago|reply
Author of the blog: an interesting and insightful read, thank you.
[+] [-] sheri|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therandomguy|12 years ago|reply
Now iOS7. Scanned for facetime. They don't have it on the contact sheet. Wait... they do. For some reason I didn't register that at all on the first glance. Now message. They definitely don't have it: home, mobile, facetime, iCloud and work. That's it. Wait.. that cannot be right. Re-scan slowly. I see a speech bubble next to mobile phone number. Maybe that is it. I hope it is clickable. Doesn't look like a button.
[+] [-] tolmasky|12 years ago|reply
Sounds like someone who hasn't actually installed it yet. Perhaps it will feel more fluid and responsive when it ships, but that is not the case today.
[+] [-] mullingitover|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kfury|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adaml_623|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aloisius|12 years ago|reply
It seems inevitable, when I first saw the original WP7, I thought it made the iPhone look old and that one thing that Apple does not like is looking dated.
[+] [-] sp332|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrykubin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] publicfig|12 years ago|reply