What Happened to Apple Design?

An open letter to the designers of World. As some of you know, recently I ditched an iPhone 6 for an old generation 5S. Some of you asked if I was trying to be old fashioned. Well, the short answer is No. But I don't like to repeat myself, so here is the long answer...

Surprisingly, my students do not see Apple as cool anymore.

When Steve Jobs died in 2011, I asked a senior developer whether we should short Apple shares. Now that the 'lone genius' was gone - we pondered - it was just a matter of time for shares to go South. I was naive. In fact, the opposite happened and since 2011 Apple kept growing like there was no tomorrow and, to date, it is still the most valuable company in the World! However, shortly after Jobs death, users (and everybody, really) started noticing a string of un-Apple-ish glitches in their products:

First was the maps blunder. Second, a steady increase in bugs, and third: plain poor User Interface design (UI). 1 and 2 are forgivable, but not poor UI. Where did this come from? At some point, Apple must have forgone its 'trademark respect for the user' and replaced it by an 'adulation of the consumer'. And there lies the root of the problem. Below, I write a list of aggravations available for you to experience at your closest iPhone6 screen... (If you do not own one, it shouldn't take you long to bump into one because about 20 million are roaming around ᵃ ).

Apple design relinquished its legendary respect for the user and replaced it with 'adulation' of the consumer.

1 Getting rid of Skeuomorphism was a rookie mistake

OK, Scott Forstall was an unloved figure, but skeuomorphism had a good side effect: use of textures. In the real world, all objects have textures. Our brain is pre-wired to process, track and detect texture patterns. Textures help us estimate and track movement and to stabilise optical flow in the retina. But when there is no texture to detect, (such as when one stares at a flat background on an LCD), the visual cortex kind of loses its North and goes into crazy mode because it can't find any reference points to track optical flow. Ever wondered why reading a paperback is more relaxing than reading on an LCD? (Hint: the paper has easy-to-detect texture). Flat designs look neat on paper, but they are ergonomically wrong on LCDs.

A good User Interface is transparent, a bad one becomes the topic of conversation.

2 Colour saturation will get you more sales but tire your eyes

When I was an undergrad and LinkedIn didn't exist, Prof. Vazquez (of Barcelona's ETSETB) used to tell us 'samurai' stories in his signal processing lecture. One remarkable tale was the 'Sony vs. Panasonic battle for TV market share'. In 1992, Sony's sets were superior in image quality to Panasonic's. However, Panasonic outsold Sony with its inferior product. How!? Panasonic's engineers artificially jacked up the colour saturation of their TV sets. At the shops, undiscerning consumers compared TV sets side by side and guess what brand they thought was better? Unfortunately, abusing colour saturation has a price: It tires the brain over long periods of exposure (Zhou 2013)¹. (That is why professional security TVs systems are always in Black and White). Abusing colour saturation is wrong. Using strident colours for non-optional icons such as the 'phone' icon (which cannot be described in any other way but as Fukushima Green) is not OK. A 'music' icon in fluorescent magenta is not OK. Add to this that since they removed textures from the icons, now your brain gets more confused and tired! Every day, I have to stare at these icons and it really hurts my eyeballs! Moreover, users cannot even decrease the artificially high saturation level of the whole iOS interface. :(

3 It is Okay to learn one thing once, it is not Okay if I have to learn it twice

That was Don Norman at his best. ² When I come back from a hard day's work I do not expect my toaster to have changed colour. After all, 'me' bought a toaster not a chameleon. So why do they think that changing the colour of my icons without me having a say is OK? It is not OK. More disrespectful UX 'tics': App icons that do radical colour changes: off-putting. For example, in her last update, the Bloomberg iPhone app changed from mid-saturated orange to 'radioactive' purple-blue. Reason: unknown. Probably, some designer (who is not a user anyway) woke up in the morning and had an Aha moment... But me, after two years of clicking on an orange icon I feel (unnecessarily) disoriented. Where is my option to keep my old icon? Not a fair process. Another: Colour consistency. When I enter a house that is white outside I expect to find some white elements inside. And if it was pink I would expect some pink inside. But what happens when I click the iOS 'radioactive' green icon? The only green I see thereafter inside is the 'call' button, but the dominant colours otherwise are blue and patternless grey. This violates the 101 principle of colour consistency and it increases users' micro-fatigue and disorientation levels.

4 Jumbo screens: Sometimes a bit more, results into an unexpected a lot worse*

Bigger screen is always better. Studies show that every additional inch in a screen enhances productivity monotonically. For example, using two screens on desktop instead of just one increases a programmer's productivity by 40% (CERN, 2006). But bigger screens can lead to feature creep. The iPhone 5S could hold 6 rows by 4 icons in one screen: That's... 24 icons per screen! The iPhone 6 can one more row (28 icons). A mere 16% increase. But a tipping point? Maybe it is just me, but a few times I caught myself scanning the iPhone as I used to do in cluttered desktops (-,-'). Tipping points work like that. Sometimes a bit more results in a lot less in some other area. (See tipping points in traffic jams). Sometimes adding just a few more cars, can jam the whole thing.

5 Large size is not for Everybody

Another: iPhone 6 is not a phone, it is a phablet and it is not comfortably handheld anymore unless you have large hands like (whoever has large hands! Not me!). It is another example of a tipping point. It is just a bit larger, but now instead of one hand you need two hands to operate safely. More contradictions: Because of the larger screen size, 40% of the icons are out of thumb reach. If you have less than eight icons on the screen and also happen not to have been endowed with Gollum-length-fingers, then most of those icons will be out of reach because icons are arranged from top to bottom.

6 Form should always follow Function, not the other way around

Yes, iPhone 6 is a slim beast. A engineering feat, but what is the point of being slim if the device is so large it won't fit in my pocket anymore? Slim things are not easier to grasp either. Actually, sometimes they become flexible to the point that, for some, 'Bending Anxiety' has become the latest addition to their list of daily worries. Keys, wallet, bendable phone, set, go! What I see here is (degraded) function following (a questionable) form factor. The form should have followed a good function. Not the form has compromised the functional performance! (Unless of course you secretly planned for selling more replacements because of bended iPhones, if that is the case: chapeaux!).

7 Leave Gimmicks for the Monkeys

Another contradiction: Look, I already know that the home screen is two dimensional. I have known this for a long time in fact. Why do you trick me, faking it is 3D with that 'pathetic' parallax effect? Apart from distracting my cat, how does facking floating icons improve the user experience? It does not! What? Oh, you are trying to help my brain orient itself? But you just removed all reference texture!! (Contradiction).

Flaws of 'incremental design' Thinking

In summary, Apple has fallen into a (for now moneymaking) incremental design trap. 'More Screen', 'More Slim', 'More Flashy'. But they honestly forgot about the user. They just seem to repeat what worked in the past because it worked in the past - and which investor dare blame them? Example: Did updating key interface elements work in the past? Let's update again! Saturating colours jacks up teenager sales? Let's do it! But is it fundamentally improving the product? It is not. We all know that designers need to come up with novel designs every season that justify their payroll but... Why has no one the courage to stick to good design once they find it? Why is it so difficult? I know a few brands that do just that and they go by just fine. In fact more than fine...

Few have the courage to stick to Good Design once they have found it

BMW Motorbikes (they change design every 7 years or longer), Louis Vuitton Bags (change seldom), Faber Castel pencils (never), Moleskine (never), Brompton bicycle (never). What would you think if the Brompton bicycle underwent a cosmetic makeover every two years just to get more noticed? I would think they are foolish and greedy. Funnily enough, that is what my iPhone6 experience has become to me - a makeover carrousel were honest ergonomics go down and colour saturation goes up.

Having to re-learn (UI) elements because of a pointless upgrade is a huge waste of my valuable time - Paul Bussey

One more Samurai Tale

Finally, there is another company that built a pot of wealth based on incremental improvements. They started with a bulky device called Walkman. In fact, the first 1979 Walkman was so bulky it 'would not fit in the pockets of Japanese shirts'. ᵇ Then Akio Morita (Sony's CEO at the time) ordered his tailor to sew some shirts with larger pockets. He then gave them to his employees and told them to ride the Tokyo metro with the Walkman in them. The product sales took off. The rest is history. Over the next two decades, Sony concentrated on making the Walkman: slimmer, faster and cooler. In time they added more features such as equalizers, bass boost, FM radio and then, when nonsense took over (about the time when Hartmut Esslinger left ³) they went all-in with fashion gimmicks. The array of Walkman models and colour choices exploded. Over time, Walkmans became truly desirable and beautiful objects on their own, but the music listening experience had not fundamentally improved at all for years. One day, while execs were occupied in such 'strategic' fashion decisions, they 'forgot' to invent the iPod. Now Sony is irrelevant ᶜ. Can happen to anyone who is distracted.

Poor user interface design is no laughing matter - it has been linked to all sorts of accidents including nuclear meltdowns.

Poor Design Kills

I am glad Apple might finally enter the car arena (rumours). That might force them to take ergonomics ᵈ seriously again because if you design a car's dashboard that is not OK, (like when it is hard to read and needlessly-tires-the-driver's-eyes...), then you know what statistically happens... a crash. Maybe then someone will realise that poor design is not just wrong, it can kill you. ᵉ

References

¹ Zhou et al. A coherent assessment of visual ergonomics of flight deck impacted. Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics: Applications and Services ; 10th International Conference, EPCE 2013, Held as Part of HCI International 2013, Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 21-26, 2013, Proceedings. Part II, Page 228

² Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 2002

³ Esslinger, A Fine Line, 2009

FootNotes

ᵃ Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2014/10/05/iphone-6-launch-continues-hot-streak/

ᵇ Nathan, Sony the Private Story, 1997

ᶜ It became a supplier of camera components to Apple

ᵈ Berengueres, Human Computer Interaction + User Experience, A Graduate Course Book, Chapter 6 Car UX.

ᵉ 40% decline in traffic accidents when service was unavailable... http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/blackberry-cuts-made-roads-safer-police-say

* Jumbo Phone, term coined by Dmitry Mukhamadeev. What are you doing with that Jumbo phone?. Referring to a Samsung S-III. Palace hotel, Dubai.

Proofread Kaizen: Magnus Snorrason, Scott Lelo and Andrew Cath.