The new design is not easier and more intuitive. In fact simplicity = confusion now.

[joemeetsjane]

i would rather apple dare for a change rather than compromise advancing out of fear like Microsoft prior to windows 8.

 

[Krevnik]

personally, I see no confusion with either of those layouts....it is clear who it is from, what is the subject, and what is the message.

My point wasn't exactly clear, I guess. I mostly was comparing and contrasting to show how the OPs point isn't terribly accurate ("sea of white"), and how Windows Phone uses almost entirely whitespace to position elements. Compared to how iOS 7 is still using quite a few other visual cues that Windows Phone does not.

However, when discussing visual cues, they are more helpful at guiding interaction with the device. And iOS 7 has completely changed those visual cues to something new. And some of those cues vary throughout the OS.

Using Mail as an example again. In the header and footer, blue is used to signal something clickable. Yet, in the list, a grey chevron (or double chevron) is used to signal something clickable. Color in the list is used to show status of the e-mail.

In the Music app, "T-Mobile Pink" is used to signal clickables in most places, except in the playing screen where you have interaction with other types of buttons as well that are black like the non-clickables.

And this is where confusion can become a problem. The visual cues are more limited, and makes it a little less clear in places what can be interacted with, and what can't. In practice I find this is more of a problem when you are first being introduced to a piece of software. However, that is also the time where you can make or break your relationship with your customer too. If they are frustrated early on, they aren't likely to keep using the software long enough to become familiar with it, and will move onto something else that they are more familiar with.

And I do like the ideas Apple is trying with visual cues, which is to use color. Since you don't have depth, it is a good way to go. Windows Phone doesn't even really try that, it uses luminance, which can mean multiple things depending on the control. However, Apple does apply it inconsistently in the beta at this point, which isn't terribly helpful to those making the switch.

 

[Night Spring]

And I do like the ideas Apple is trying with visual cues, which is to use color. Since you don't have depth, it is a good way to go. Windows Phone doesn't even really try that, it uses luminance, which can mean multiple things depending on the control. However, Apple does apply it inconsistently in the beta at this point, which isn't terribly helpful to those making the switch.

While color is better than nothing, I think clearly demarcated buttons are even better. Like in the Mail example, I know that the blue "Edit" at the top is clickable, yet every time I'm doing something in Mail and start looking for the "Edit," I can feel my brain stuttering as it tries to parse that yes, that blue word up there is the "button" I'm looking for. Maybe I'll get used to it given enough time, or maybe my brain is too old to make the adjustment after, I don't know, over twenty years of working with GUI where buttons looked like buttons. I just know that every time I spend some time working with iOS 7, and come back to iOS 6, (I have iOS 7 on my iphone 4S, while my other devices are all on 6) I feel like, "oh, thank god, this is SO much easier!"

 

[Krevnik]

While color is better than nothing, I think clearly demarcated buttons are even better. Like in the Mail example, I know that the blue "Edit" at the top is clickable, yet every time I'm doing something in Mail and start looking for the "Edit," I can feel my brain stuttering as it tries to parse that yes, that blue word up there is the "button" I'm looking for. Maybe I'll get used to it given enough time, or maybe my brain is too old to make the adjustment after, I don't know, over twenty years of working with GUI where buttons looked like buttons. I just know that every time I spend some time working with iOS 7, and come back to iOS 6, (I have iOS 7 on my iphone 4S, while my other devices are all on 6) I feel like, "oh, thank god, this is SO much easier!"

Learned behavior is hard to break. Doubly so when going back to the old behavior at the same time dealing with the new. Apple very specifically kept button locations as similar as possible in iOS 7 to try to ease the transition. Of course, if your learned behavior is "look for X" and X is now Y... that's gonna be a lot tougher than it is for someone who's learned behavior is "X is in the top right corner".

And I'd argue it doesn't help when the new visual cues are inconsistent. However, I can kinda see why removing the "button" is being looked at, since web design has been about interactions without a "button" for over 15 years.

 

[alec6542]

Worst of all it "feels" stylistically like android. Everything thats bad about it, I guess Jony Ive (rip my unequivocal respect, I guess Jobs was a lot more a sobering factor than I thought) liked that look?.

I read that Steve Jobs left four years worth of plans for the future of Apple since his death, so I'd say it's more than likely He approved of this design change. I can't imagine this being all last minute when Ive took over.

 

[Hexiii]

Excellent post, OP, that's pretty much why I don't like iOS7 yet. I don't mind changes (even the big ones), but this just wasn't done right. There are tons of imperfections... e.g. the magnifying glass in spotlight search is not centered with the text, all of those bottom application menus (App Store, Safari) have different margins on top and bottom and sometimes the screen is just too cluttered.

And great, the leather everbody hated on, was replaced by weird freaking paper imitation which fits even less with this design.

 

[elistan]

It's enlightening to watching the video of the "What’s New in iOS User Interface Design" session.

(A free developer account is required.)

https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/videos/?include=208#208

In it, the presenter mentions several times how interface elements in iOS 1 through 6 were included to provide clues on how to use the interface. Like Notes looking like a legal pad, Weather looking like cards, or Compass looking like it's from a yacht. And he mentions how many of those elements have been removed from iOS 7 because we now know how to operate the interface, via swipes and pinches and touches.

Of course, that assumes that the user is already familiar with iOS. By Apple's own admission, iOS 7 is deliberately less intuitive. Not an issue if you already know your way around, but it's a steeper learning curve for somebody new to smartphones.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

The only blur effect I do like is in the media player.

They should make everything uniform to that and the rest uniform with the phone call screen.

 

[Cod3rror]

I agree a lot regarding the white space. A big white space with numbers and words without any lines and sections of different colours is very confusing and hard to quickly glance at.

Take calendar for example.

iOS 6's calendar is much easier to look quickly glance at and get the information than iOS 7's because iOS 6's has sections top bar, the calendar, bottom bar, events section. Not to mention dots of days with events, how could they omit such a useful little detail?

 

[FlatlinerG]

The majority of what?

Whiners.

 

[Shrink]

Whiners.

Oh, OK...I can buy that.

 

[PrometheusGeek]

The majority has spoken.

ya. Typical narcissistic myopia. You and some of your equally vocal discontents don't like something because it didn't match the preconceived vision of your overly entitled minds, so you assume you're the "majority" and that most of the planet is with you. Same old story every time Apple releases anything new. People calling themselves the "majority" also didn't like the iPad and iPhone. Now they wish they'd just kept their mouths shut in the first place.

 

[sclawis300]

You apparently have not read all my posts on MR. I have read many of your recent posting, post WWDC, and you do sound like you are about 13-14 years old...am I close?

On topic: iOS 7 is currently a mess. It will get better, I hope it gets much better.

So he joined when he was 8??????

 

[gadget123]

With hundreds of millions of iOS devices sold, who exactly is Apple's core user base?

Most likely the ones who bought all the Iphones from 2007?

 

[Bobby Corwen]

I don't agree with the OP across the board, but I have to say I notice this with Safari now. With pages with an all-white background, it's now confusing where the page starts and the interface starts, and when it comes back in, it takes my eyes a few seconds to "find it" every time again.

I would totally vote for something like a flat, dark gray bar or something rather than white in this case.

I actually love iOS 7 for the most part, but he's right in some of what he says here.


Also, saying things like "I gave it to my mom and she figured it out, so it's fine." is missing the point.

I could give my mom a hardcover book and tell her to hammer a nail into a wall and she would figure it out, but that doesn't mean its the best way to do it. UI and UX is all about small details, how your eyes flow across a page, things that distract you for even a millisecond that can be improved, etc.

I think all of this will get better, but some of it is definitely not an improvement right now.

Well said. Continuity.

OP I agree with most all of what you said. This feels more like change for the sake of change. I did just figure out how to forward a text message so the quest for knowledge continues.

I think people underestimate how valuable things like disabled controls and colors go towards guiding users to accomplish a task. Or at least something, anything. Now it's a game of hide and seek where I'm staring at a screen where I know I can do something but I don't know how and there is no visible control. So try the same things over and over... Swipe, tap, double-tap, etc., and hopefully stumble onto something.

I'll use deleting or forwarding a text message in iOS 7 an example of design gone wrong or in this case "regressing usability".

Thats a huge point right there. Its just change for the sake of change and not because they had an even "slicker" interface.

Also, as much as I love that the Safari interface gets out of the way now, it took me quite a while to figure out how to get it back, or to go back and forward.

It's great that you can swipe from the edge for Back and Forward now, too, but most cases get in the way of that, and there's no way to just intuitively know you can do that, which is the problem with most gestures.

I didnt think of that. For cases its a problem.

what's interesting is that in a way they have introduced a huge skeuomorph across the whole phone.

Pre computers our dominant source of knowledge was books and magazines, which we interacted with via flipping back and forth between pages. Which is not unlike what all this swipe from the left, from the right is.

And yet because there are no page curls etc we don't see it like that.

Thats pretty much it, its just a different kind of skeuomorph.

it is different, obviously there will be a learning curve. my mother and father picked it up in quite no time at all

Well they are already used to it...

I think the new OS is actually fine to use. The extra functionality is a big improvement. Apple have done a great job there.

My beef is purely with the aesthetics.

1) The icons are dull and amateurish. I appreciate that using a grid-based design can be a fantastic template for print and web-sites but it works because it makes a fantastic use of white-space. In my opinion it is foolish to apply the same principles to a design aimed at one centimeter squared.

2) Gaussian blur is as bad as Corinthian leather, quite frankly it is tacky and not deferential in any way. How can blurring content be deferential to it? Content is important - if it is visible it should pop.

3) The dock is dull, boring and ugly. Gaussian blur at its worst.

4) Folders, which should give a sense of depth, are weird dull blobs.

5) Some animated transitions take too long.

The re skinned apps are great. I would probably rather have seen a border around buttons but the tint in text color for clickable user interface elements is fine.

Overall dull.

I reckon it will be close to how it will look so its been marketed.

Be interesting to see how it goes down to people who don't use these sites and just update by surprise.

Im sure Twitter will hate it. Guaranteed. They will annihilate it when it releases. I guarantee it.

This beta will change more significantly than usual. All the reports about needed extra engineers transferred from OS X etc leads me to believe we will see a lot of beta releases, and that the current one is far from finalized.

I honestly hope it changes.

I agree.

I don't like that a lot of the icons have been replaced by words. It's a lot more difficult to navigate and looks uglier.

For example, in mail, swipe LEFT (instead of right), and you get 2 large blocks, a grey one and a red one. I can hardly read the white text in the grey block that says 'More'. The red one says 'Trash'. Why not have small icons that have a trash can and a ... or something? It's a LOT more intuitive to have pictures instead of words.

The slide to unlock is annoying. There is no clue WHICH WAY to slide to unlock. I've been used to a left-to-right swipe, and that works, but the other swipes don't work, and there is no clue that that is the correct way to swipe.

The OS is a lot harder to operate for a newbie. You need more training to use it. It's just as easy to use after you have the training, but it's just not Apple.

What if the trash can in OS X was replaced by a big giant red box with the word 'trash' in it? Is that nicer or uglier? Jonny Ive - what are you thinking?

I agree. The words are huge downfall.

i would rather apple dare for a change rather than compromise advancing out of fear like Microsoft prior to windows 8.

Yeah but only if the interface is better, not an ugly side step. (sister?)

My point wasn't exactly clear, I guess. I mostly was comparing and contrasting to show how the OPs point isn't terribly accurate ("sea of white"), and how Windows Phone uses almost entirely whitespace to position elements. Compared to how iOS 7 is still using quite a few other visual cues that Windows Phone does not.

However, when discussing visual cues, they are more helpful at guiding interaction with the device. And iOS 7 has completely changed those visual cues to something new. And some of those cues vary throughout the OS.

Using Mail as an example again. In the header and footer, blue is used to signal something clickable. Yet, in the list, a grey chevron (or double chevron) is used to signal something clickable. Color in the list is used to show status of the e-mail.

In the Music app, "T-Mobile Pink" is used to signal clickables in most places, except in the playing screen where you have interaction with other types of buttons as well that are black like the non-clickables.

And this is where confusion can become a problem. The visual cues are more limited, and makes it a little less clear in places what can be interacted with, and what can't. In practice I find this is more of a problem when you are first being introduced to a piece of software. However, that is also the time where you can make or break your relationship with your customer too. If they are frustrated early on, they aren't likely to keep using the software long enough to become familiar with it, and will move onto something else that they are more familiar with.

And I do like the ideas Apple is trying with visual cues, which is to use color. Since you don't have depth, it is a good way to go. Windows Phone doesn't even really try that, it uses luminance, which can mean multiple things depending on the control. However, Apple does apply it inconsistently in the beta at this point, which isn't terribly helpful to those making the switch.

Well put.

While color is better than nothing, I think clearly demarcated buttons are even better. Like in the Mail example, I know that the blue "Edit" at the top is clickable, yet every time I'm doing something in Mail and start looking for the "Edit," I can feel my brain stuttering as it tries to parse that yes, that blue word up there is the "button" I'm looking for. Maybe I'll get used to it given enough time, or maybe my brain is too old to make the adjustment after, I don't know, over twenty years of working with GUI where buttons looked like buttons. I just know that every time I spend some time working with iOS 7, and come back to iOS 6, (I have iOS 7 on my iphone 4S, while my other devices are all on 6) I feel like, "oh, thank god, this is SO much easier!"

And thats a huge demerit to iOS 7 that you feel that way. iOS 7 is supposed to make you feel that way, not vice versa.

I read that Steve Jobs left four years worth of plans for the future of Apple since his death, so I'd say it's more than likely He approved of this design change. I can't imagine this being all last minute when Ive took over.

I honestly think this was a new thing starting around before the time when Scott Forstall was ousted.

Excellent post, OP, that's pretty much why I don't like iOS7 yet. I don't mind changes (even the big ones), but this just wasn't done right. There are tons of imperfections... e.g. the magnifying glass in spotlight search is not centered with the text, all of those bottom application menus (App Store, Safari) have different margins on top and bottom and sometimes the screen is just too cluttered.

And great, the leather everbody hated on, was replaced by weird freaking paper imitation which fits even less with this design.

I looked at this after you mentioned it and it made me cringe.

I agree a lot regarding the white space. A big white space with numbers and words without any lines and sections of different colours is very confusing and hard to quickly glance at.

Take calendar for example.

iOS 6's calendar is much easier to look quickly glance at and get the information than iOS 7's because iOS 6's has sections top bar, the calendar, bottom bar, events section. Not to mention dots of days with events, how could they omit such a useful little detail?

Yup it just feels amateurish.

 

[gadget123]

Im sure Twitter will hate it. Guaranteed. They will annihilate it when it releases. I guarantee it.

There's a lot of fuss about it now but once it goes live and people update I'm sure the mixed views will become more wide spread.

How will Apple convert the half who dislike it that's the question?

 

[darngooddesign]

There's a lot of fuss about it now but once it goes live and people update I'm sure the mixed views will become more wide spread.

How will Apple convert the half who dislike it that's the question?

There is no proof that half the people dislike it. You are assuming based on yours and the vocal minority's opinion.

 

[gadget123]

There is no proof that half the people dislike it. You are assuming based on yours and the vocal minority's opinion.

Course not.

But blogs and these sites is just like surveying say 300 people and getting a percentage.

It's obvious such a large change will draw bigger differences of opinion this time.

 

[darngooddesign]

Course not.

But blogs and these sites is just like surveying say 300 people and getting a percentage.

It's obvious such a large change will draw bigger differences of opinion this time.

Do you really think that people who read tech blogs and frequent tech forums are representative of the majority of smartphone users? Those blogs sure wish it were true as they get rich from all the page views.

If a star trek blog took a poll of star trek fans they would get a percentage, but how does that percentage have any bearing on the general public.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

Do you really think that people who read tech blogs and frequent tech forums are representative of the majority of smartphone users? Those blogs sure wish it were true as they get rich from all the page views.

If a star trek blog took a poll of star trek fans they would get a percentage, but how does that percentage have any bearing on the general public.

If a bunch of Apple fans hate it this much, on blogs and on this site, how do you think a bunch of indifferent people are going to react?

What about people who hate Apple? They will see in the worst light possible. People who are indifferent will have no reason no to give their honest opinion.

Twitter has attacked and made a mockery of Apple for much much less.

 

[darngooddesign]

If a bunch of Apple fans hate it this much, on blogs and on this site, how do you think a bunch of indifferent people are going to react?

Some apple fans and some other people.

What about people who hate Apple? They will see in the worst light possible. People who are indifferent will have no reason no to give their honest opinion.

They were criticizing apple anyway so nothing has changed

Twitter has attacked and made a mockery of Apple for much much less.

Twitter is an app.

 

[Holty123]

I may be wrong, but aren't apple beta's usually a really good representation of the final product. The beta's are usually just to iron out bugs....not to redesign the look and feel based on the users? That is how apple usually does it right?

Yes you are right things won't change that much
(In my opinion)

 

[gadget123]

Do you really think that people who read tech blogs and frequent tech forums are representative of the majority of smartphone users? Those blogs sure wish it were true as they get rich from all the page views.

If a star trek blog took a poll of star trek fans they would get a percentage, but how does that percentage have any bearing on the general public.

Well the best way is a thread where users here ask people what there friends and family think of it? Like or not like ?

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Some ideas here. http://stam-design-stam.blogspot.com/2013/06/ios-7.html

 

[Jimrod]

I have been using iOS 7 since Monday and not a single thing has confused me. In fact, I love the look and feel of everything so far.

I guess I'm in the minority of people who understand arrows.

You see this is where my problem comes in - the unlock screen, "Swipe to unlock" and being left-handed I naturally swipe my thumb to the left where nothing happens (same for swipe to answer calls etc etc). I never even noticed this in iOS 6 due to the obvious slider. This is also if I ignore the ^ arrow that sits below the swipe text of course. 4 days in and I still do this from time to time, I think either indicate a direction or make swipes of both directions work. Seems simple enough but it's something I never had to get used to before...