IOS7 not an option for those with poor eye sight

[Dangerous Theory]

I really don't think Ive is sitting in a room all by himself, mocking up design and pushing that concept through without input from the standard methods all major firms go through to maximize, the best they can, the usability across all target groups.

I don't know. I think Ive thinks of himself as quite the design visionary. I wouldn't be surprised if he very much pushed this idea.

 

[EJ8]

originally posted by thekrs1 view post
settings --> general --> text size: Turn up
settings --> general --> accessibility --> "larger type": Turn on
settings --> general --> accessibility --> "bold text": Turn on

as i stated in my original post, i have already done those things.
It helps (obviously), but its not nearly as easy to read as it was in ios6.

just how old are you???

 

[Smith288]

I wonder - do any design programme include courses on statistics, psychophysics, and human factors research? Does Apple even have a human factors division? [Obviously I have my doubts, but I honestly do not know and would welcome any information.]

Not sure if they have ever described their exact process but this link they give a little bit of insight as part of their Human Interface Guideline document for Mac

https://developer.apple.com/library...iples.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000353-TP6

 

[kevpan815]

Hi,
Just tried out IOS7 for the first time today and think its 1 step forward and 2 steps back.
The main backwards step is how difficult it is to read a lot of the UI..
Text is so thin and light that for anyone (like me) with less that 20-20 vision, it's much more difficult to read than it was in IOS6 - even with the high contrast option and the bold turned on.
You can make text bigger for SMS & contacts, but even so its just a wall of white with black text on it.
For emails, the little text number icon telling you how many messages you have unread is very difficult to see and easily missed - and that's meant to be a bullet point!
For someone like me who has 6 email addresses, its MUCH more difficult to see which accounts have unread messages.
Likewise with the contacts. In IOS6 you have a nice, clear, blue dividing line between each letter, but that's been replaced with...you guessed it...white with a black letter showing when the alphabet changes.
All these changes would be fine...if they were optional but they are not...they are mandatory.
Don't get me wrong I'm not registered blind or anything, but I don't want to have to struggle just to read something that need not be difficult to read.
Its the same for the phone keypad and keyboard in text messaging too. All thin black on plain white.
Ironically the easiest keyboard to read in IOS7 is the one presented when you do a search using spotlight.
If all future iPhones are to have this UI, I genuinely believe it will stop being a viable option for many (like me) with less than perfect eye sight, who would otherwise be happy iPhone users.
It certainly stops me considering a new iPhone, which is real shame as I love them and have owned one since they first came out.
Apple's obsession with making everything difficult to read (grey on grey icons in finder in OSX and now ultra thin low contrast in IOS), has finally cost them a customer.
Not through desire, but through necessity. I simply cannot read their phones easily any more - madness!

Works just fine for me and I have poor eye sight. Set the brightness to 100%!

 

[VulchR]

Interesting thread, and it makes me wonder if Apple should allow skins. One of the problems with impaired visual function is that the remedy might differ from person to person. At least allowing skins would give patient groups the opportunity to experiment and make suggestions for their fellow sufferers.

Not sure if they have ever described their exact process but this link they give a little bit of insight as part of their Human Interface Guideline document for Mac

https://developer.apple.com/library...iples.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000353-TP6

Not a single reference to any empirical work in that document. And the Mac GUI is hardly perfect from a human factors point of view (sub menu's is an example - how many times have you lost focus on the current menu item when mousing over to activate the options in its sub-menu? Mouse trajectories do not follow straight lines and 90° corners, but arcs....)

 

[Smith288]

I don't know. I think Ive thinks of himself as quite the design visionary. I wouldn't be surprised if he very much pushed this idea.

Oh don't get me wrong, the flat, white+contrasting colors idea he pushed for sure. Just not every single interface you see.

My guess, is he laid out the design concepts he wanted and then the process began of making the design accomplish both the above idea as well as ease of use for most.

Doesn't mean nobody will have troubles. Like the OP... but im sure it met most requirements that the majority will be able to use it with ease.

The only issue I have had with the design concept is in the calendar when you get a new invite. It has an "ok" at the bottom of each invite/event that I missed but I owe that to poor location of the button. Should be to the right side of the table cell at least based on apple's guidelines there.

edit: Actually, looking at the Replied tab, it does make sense where it's at now. Because there is the row of Accept | Maybe | Decline buttons which to a user, seems to indicate actionable items at glance. The OK by itself, has issues announcing itself as an action item, at least to my eyes.



----------

Not a single reference to any empirical work in that document. And the Mac GUI is hardly perfect from a human factors point of view (sub menu's is an example - how many times have you lost focus on the current menu item when mousing over to activate the options in its sub-menu? Mouse trajectories do not follow straight lines, but arcs....)

I didn't say they had any in that link, just the motivations behind design concepts.

And yea, Mac isn't exactly a beacon of UI/UX simplicity but I think with Ive, you will probably see it coming.

 

[PNutts]

No, but many seem to fancy themselves more knowledgable on what a product should be rather than the proven ones in the field.

Gotcha, thx. Yes, the "experts".

Back to the OP, I hope this is on topic as he's commenting on hard to read text.

The issue as I see it is that you now *have* to read. A lot. For instance, forwarding an iMessage. In iOS 6 you had a button at the top "Edit". You pressed it and greyed out buttons appeared at the bottom (Delete and Forward with icons). Select a message and the buttons become active. Easy Peasy. In iOS 7 there is nothing. Tap a message, nothing. Tap and hold and a "menu" comes up so you press More to see what happens. Now you have text scattered around: Delete All in one corner, Cancel in another, an arrow in another, and a trashcan. You had to find, read, and interpret all that.

For this thread it's about usability (which includes being able to read the text). In a different thread it would be about skeumorphic design.

I don't like it. A personal preference. After awhile muscle memory will take over but it feels like change for the sake of change. Even text in the same spots as the old buttons would be an improvement.

 

[C DM]

Gotcha, thx. Yes, the "experts".

Back to the OP, I hope this is on topic as he's commenting on hard to read text.

The issue as I see it is that you now *have* to read. A lot. For instance, forwarding an iMessage. In iOS 6 you had a button at the top "Edit". You pressed it and greyed out buttons appeared at the bottom (Delete and Forward with icons). Select a message and the buttons become active. Easy Peasy. In iOS 7 there is nothing. Tap a message, nothing. Tap and hold and a "menu" comes up so you press More to see what happens. Now you have text scattered around: Delete All in one corner, Cancel in another, an arrow in another, and a trashcan. You had to find, read, and interpret all that.

For this thread it's about usability (which includes being able to read the text). In a different thread it would be about skeumorphic design.

I don't like it. A personal preference. After awhile muscle memory will take over but it feels like change for the sake of change. Even text in the same spots as the old buttons would be an improvement.

Bingo, a lot of it comes down to that.

 

[rrghjsisus]

Agree with OP ... Too much white and too hard to read and my vision isn't even that bad.

Hi,
Just tried out IOS7 for the first time today and think its 1 step forward and 2 steps back.
The main backwards step is how difficult it is to read a lot of the UI..
Text is so thin and light that for anyone (like me) with less that 20-20 vision, it's much more difficult to read than it was in IOS6 - even with the high contrast option and the bold turned on.
You can make text bigger for SMS & contacts, but even so its just a wall of white with black text on it.
For emails, the little text number icon telling you how many messages you have unread is very difficult to see and easily missed - and that's meant to be a bullet point!
For someone like me who has 6 email addresses, its MUCH more difficult to see which accounts have unread messages.
Likewise with the contacts. In IOS6 you have a nice, clear, blue dividing line between each letter, but that's been replaced with...you guessed it...white with a black letter showing when the alphabet changes.
All these changes would be fine...if they were optional but they are not...they are mandatory.
Don't get me wrong I'm not registered blind or anything, but I don't want to have to struggle just to read something that need not be difficult to read.
Its the same for the phone keypad and keyboard in text messaging too. All thin black on plain white.
Ironically the easiest keyboard to read in IOS7 is the one presented when you do a search using spotlight.
If all future iPhones are to have this UI, I genuinely believe it will stop being a viable option for many (like me) with less than perfect eye sight, who would otherwise be happy iPhone users.
It certainly stops me considering a new iPhone, which is real shame as I love them and have owned one since they first came out.
Apple's obsession with making everything difficult to read (grey on grey icons in finder in OSX and now ultra thin low contrast in IOS), has finally cost them a customer.
Not through desire, but through necessity. I simply cannot read their phones easily any more - madness!

 

[KeanosMagicHat]

Yes, and I probably know more about the visual system than most people here, having worked at the US National Eye Institute. Very few people have perfect vision to begin with, it degrades with age, and in addition to optical problems there can be neural issues that make visual perception difficult.

It's simple: one can make life harder for the visual system or one can make it easier. Inevitably when 'arteests' inject their notion of 'style', it makes it harder. This is not an issue about aesthetics, but equality.

Best post in the thread . . .

 

[GoCubsGo]

I'm not sure which side your on. Sarcasm?


Either way, I think Ives and his team know more about design than nearly everyone on these forums with the possible odd exception who is registered here and is an actual designer working for a multi billion dollar company.

FYI, the best designers in the world can design something remarkable that can't be read/seen by people with vision problems. Hold the Ive fan flag all you want, if his design makes the OS difficult to read and the accessible settings do not help, then that could be a problem for some. It doesn't make him a bad designer, it simply means the iPhone won't be useable by those who have trouble with certain colors, fonts, etc.

I suspect most people will download the update without ever seeing it "perform" first-hand. Isn't that usually the case?

Yes, normally. The accessible settings are there but as the OP stated, it doesn't help him/her enough.

I've played with the settings myself and I can understand how those with vision problems can be adversely affected. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sort of legal action against Apple for it. I wouldn't be in support of any action, but I work for a company who has been sued (although lost) for not providing options to folks with vision problems. It can happen.

 

[FlatlinerG]

FYI, the best designers in the world can design something remarkable that can't be read/seen by people with vision problems. Hold the Ive fan flag all you want, if his design makes the OS difficult to read and the accessible settings do not help, then that could be a problem for some. It doesn't make him a bad designer, it simply means the iPhone won't be useable by those who have trouble with certain colors, fonts, etc.

My main point is not that Ive is the end all be all of design, but that everyone on here who claims that the design is #### instead of posting the actual reason for why they think that way. MacRumors =/= the entire iOS population.

 

[JazzyGB1]

My main point is not that Ive is the end all be all of design, but that everyone on here who claims that the design is #### instead of posting the actual reason for why they think that way. MacRumors =/= the entire iOS population.

I'm not sure who the 'everyone' is you're referring to, but I believe I was quite clear in my original post as to what my problems were with the UI and I never said it was ####.

Let me be clear too, that I am an Apple fan.
I'll be keeping my iPhone, I just wont be able to buy a new one until they change the UI from being the way it currently is, or give me an option of customising it to suit, as at the moment its much more difficult for me to read than IOS6 was.

However, to broadly summarise my complaints...

Email: wall of white with thin black text
Contacts: wall of white thin black text
Notes: Wall of white thin black text
SMS: Wall of white with light blue/green bubble and thin white text or grey bubble with thin black text.
Calendar: Wall of white with thin black text (a bit of thin red too)
Numeric Keypad:Wall of white thin black text
I'm sure you're getting the gist of my complaint.
I'm not saying it's ******, it's just now difficult for me to read the UI in many instances now because of these 'improvements', where it wasn't at all difficult before.
I'm all for the multitasking improvements, the notification improvements, camera swiping, better Safari etc etc, that's great but the UI 'enhancements' are largely the opposite.
And to add to this all the buttons have been changed to...you guessed it...THIN TEXT!
My frustration is compounded by not being able to effectively do anything about it - going bold makes everything garish and ugly.
If the phone becomes difficult to read it becomes difficult to use too.
I don't wish to be challenged when using my phone.
Apple has always been about making the difficult tasks simple - in IOS7 they seem to have made the simple act of reading unnecessarily difficult - bizarre!

 

[FlatlinerG]

I'm not sure who the 'everyone' is you're referring to, but I believe I was quite clear in my original post as to what my problems were with the UI and I never said it was ####.

Let me be clear too, that I am an Apple fan.
I'll be keeping my iPhone, I just wont be able to buy a new one until they change the UI from being the way it currently is, or give me an option of customising it to suit, as at the moment its much more difficult for me to read than IOS6 was.

However, to broadly summarise my complaints...

Email: wall of white with thin black text
Contacts: wall of white thin black text
Notes: Wall of white thin black text
SMS: Wall of white with light blue/green bubble and thin white text or grey bubble with thin black text.
Calendar: Wall of white with thin black text (a bit of thin red too)
Numeric Keypad:Wall of white thin black text
I'm sure you're getting the gist of my complaint.
I'm not saying it's ******, it's just now difficult for me to read the UI in many instances now because of these 'improvements', where it wasn't at all difficult before.
I'm all for the multitasking improvements, the notification improvements, camera swiping, better Safari etc etc, that's great but the UI 'enhancements' are largely the opposite.
And to add to this all the buttons have been changed to...you guessed it...THIN TEXT!
My frustration is compounded by not being able to effectively do anything about it - going bold makes everything garish and ugly.
If the phone becomes difficult to read it becomes difficult to use too.
I don't wish to be challenged when using my phone.
Apple has always been about making the difficult tasks simple - in IOS7 they seem to have made the simple act of reading unnecessarily difficult - bizarre!

My apologies for coming off like a jerk, I have a tendency for that and I am sorry. I am not saying it is a design that everyone should like, but I am simply defending it as being dubbed a poor design period.

I can appreciate that you have an opinion and are being an objective consumer.

My original reply to this thread was refuting a blanket statement that Apple designers know nothing about visual design.

 

[GoCubsGo]

My main point is not that Ive is the end all be all of design, but that everyone on here who claims that the design is #### instead of posting the actual reason for why they think that way. MacRumors =/= the entire iOS population.

I agree on that but I am saying that even a be all end all designer like Ive can be wrong when it comes to ADA compliant UIs.

 

[JazzyGB1]

My apologies for coming off like a jerk, I have a tendency for that and I am sorry. I am not saying it is a design that everyone should like, but I am simply defending it as being dubbed a poor design period.

I can appreciate that you have an opinion and are being an objective consumer.

My original reply to this thread was refuting a blanket statement that Apple designers know nothing about visual design.

Hey, no worries!
I must add too that I've tried it on an iPhone 4s not a 5.
It might be more legible on the iPhone 5, but its far more difficult to read on a 4s than it was to read IOS6.

 

[MonstaMash]

I personally find that iOS 7 has more clarity due to better contrast and borderless icons (easier to differentiate shapes) but to each their own.

You can turn on Zoom under Accessability to magnify the screen if needed.

 

[C DM]

I personally find that iOS 7 has more clarity due to better contrast and borderless icons (easier to differentiate shapes) but to each their own.

You can turn on Zoom under Accessability to magnify the screen if needed.

How is it easier to differentiate shapes with loss of borders? That almost seems counterintuitive.

 

[MonstaMash]

How is it easier to differentiate shapes with loss of borders? That almost seems counterintuitive.

I find that the lack of borders allow an easier focus on the functions of the buttons. I find that it's clearer.

 

[xStep]

I guess we'll see how reception turns out when it's publicly released. If the majority of people are displeased with the update then it's a failure. If the majority welcome the update, then I and the other minority will just have to accept we have an unpopular opinion.

The great thing is, you can choose another platform based on your own opinion. If a large number of current iOS users choose that path, then Apple failed regardless if the majority welcomed the update.

 

[benji888]

My frustration is compounded by not being able to effectively do anything about it - going bold makes everything garish and ugly.

As someone with previous typesetting/design experience, I have to say, the "bolder text" option is a "pseudo" bold, in other words, they add pixels around the text to make it a bit thicker, it doesn't change the actual "weight" of the font, this is why it looks garish and ugly...and it's something that's been carried over from previous iOS's.

What would work is if Apple would allow people in "accessibility" to change the actual font. (Technically speaking, ...change the weight of the font). The font used is Helvetica Neue, It think the weight is "Thin". If they would have the option to switch to "Medium" weight, this could solve your problem.

A thread was made during the beta period about the overall design (the first betas used the thinnest weight "Ultra Light"). This comment shows the font being used, so you can see what I mean: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17564246/

Personally, I like the way it's been designed, but, I can understand why some people might have a bit of a problem.

edit: have you tried these?: Another couple options: "increase contrast" or "Invert Colors" but I think that one's for the color blind.

I also would like to see Apple making a manual on/off "night mode" option, I think this would be nice at night instead of having to change brightness, and it would make it easier for someone like you to read. If you use turn by turn navigation in Maps, it will go into night mode edit: it's an automatic thing that happens at night (I think it gets the sunset time from weather). ...BTW, If you go to safari, turn on private browsing, it also turns the white to dark grey.

I happen to like the changes a lot, but, this is where Apple needs to offer better options for those that have difficulty with the bright white/bright colors and thin font.

----------

I must add too that I've tried it on an iPhone 4s not a 5.
It might be more legible on the iPhone 5, but its far more difficult to read on a 4s than it was to read IOS6.

The iPhone 5's screen is a bit taller, but, they both have the same retina resolution. The 5 has a bit better color and is brighter, but, I don't think this will make a difference for you.

 

[Carlanga]

I'm not sure which side your on. Sarcasm?


Either way, I think Ives and his team know more about design than nearly everyone on these forums with the possible odd exception who is registered here and is an actual designer working for a multi billion dollar company.

AFAIK Ive became famous due to his hardware design. This is the first time he is doing software design in a product. It's like telling a civil engineer to make a car (even though a mechanical engineer is different type of engineer) because his buildings are beautiful or something like that. In other words he might create something pretty, but it might turn out impractical.

 

[MVRL]

AFAIK Ive became famous due to his hardware design. This is the first time he is doing software design in a product. It's like telling a civil engineer to make a car (even though a mechanical engineer is different type of engineer) because his buildings are beautiful or something like that. In other words he might create something pretty, but it might turn out impractical.

i see, you don't work in design or engineering

 

[Carlanga]

i see, you don't work in design or engineering

nope, do you? point?

 

[MVRL]

nope, do you? point?

yes, I do both. point? your analogy makes no sense.