Will he address the keyboard blunder caused by his obsessive need for thin?
Oh, but you are so wrong about Jony! They should stage a real-world test to demonstrate how GREAT his work is. They should prove his unbelievable brilliance to the world!
They should sit Jony Ive, Stephen Fry, and let's say 98 random people (for sample size) down for a few tests. Only criteria is that they must be reasonably decent typists, know how to use a mouse-based UI and touch-UI, and have reasonably close to 20/20 vision with or without correction: Here are the tests:
Test 1: They present 12 different lovely flat grey shapes and then see how quickly the participants can repeatedly touch the correct shape. The shapes will move around occasionally.
Test 1b: Same test with 12 different oh-so-ugly non-flat colored shapes.
Expected result: Surely this test will finally prove that people will work much
more quickly when presented with the flat grey shapes.
Test 2: Present all of them with the fantastic new butterfly keyboard and have them take a typing speed and accuracy test.
Test 2b: Same test with some nasty old keyboard. Maybe that
awful old IBM thing.
Expected result: This should finally put to rest the silly argument that tactile feedback and narrow keys with considerable gap between the key-tops make for a better keyboard. Fully expect typing speeds to be at least double on the butterfly keyboards!
Test 3: Present them with a number of buttons they can push. Each button produces a real-world result but is a basically random shape that in no-way, or only vaguely, represents said real-world result. (i.e. a square grey button with three parallel vertically-aligned squiggles ("steam") might produce nice warm cup of coffee for the tester to drink). Ask them before they push the button what they think it will do. Test the accuracy of the guesses and then time the amount of time it takes them to memorize the functions of all the buttons.
Test 3b: Perform the same test with buttons that do represent real-world results (i.e. A button that produces warm coffee will have a picture of a cup of coffee on it.)
Expected Result: This should prove the people can more quickly determine the functions of the buttons that in no-way represent anything in the real world, thus disproving those idiots
who insist that skeuomorphism is generally a good thing.
Test 4: Present them with 4 software packages, each of which uses a completely different way of interacting with it. Time how long it takes the participants to learn to use all 4 packages and complete a set of 20 tasks.
Test 4b: Present them with 4 software packages, all of which adhere to a single uniform set of rules governing how to interact with them. Time how long it takes the participants to learn to use all 4 packages and complete a set of 20 tasks.
Expected Result: Most people will learn the software and complete the said set of tasks in Test 4 faster than in Test 4b, thus disproving that relatively rigid control over how apps function on, for example, iOS devices is totally unnecessary and a thing of the past (point to the
excellent UI of the SnapChat app as an example in-support of this hypothesis).
- humor mode off -
My real guess is that Jony "moron" Ive (my personal nick-name for him) is a full-bore-self-unaware-hipster-idiot who truly believes his minimalist aesthetic is actually "good" for the users of the products he helps design. The alternative is that he is a self-aware egotist who knows full well that he is creating absolute feces but that he just doesn't give two flying squirrels because he thinks it looks good.
