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Zen

52. The Perception - Action Loop.
A principle from psychology, it describes a method by which humans interact and learn from their environment. it goes:

1. Perceive situation
2. make prediction about it
3. take action
4. observe result. if it matches prediction, reinforce that mental model.
go back to 1.

this principle relates to constraints and affordances, in that the perception step can exploit pre-existing experiences, and observing a result can either reinforce or contradict them

17 Jul 2020 at 16:29 | Open on mastodon.social
35 comments
Zen replied to Zen
Zen replied to Zen

54. THE BLANK PAGE problem
-if a user is presented with a blank screen, a blank search field, or a blank page, it can be very difficult to know what to do or what to try. In this case it is better to lead by example, not by patronising tutorial.

3 Apr 2021 at 2:50 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

55. All manufactured things should be designed to be used by one hand. either hand.

there are safety features of some industrial equipment that require both hands so that both hands are no where near the dangerous hand mangler part- use best judgement

via @space_cadet

4 Apr 2021 at 0:36 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

56. on Unskippable Cut Scenes.
Game UI seems to live in an alternate universe, immune from both the advances and blunders of mainstream computer interfaces. unskippable Cut Scenes and dialogue bubbles are a staple annoyance for Video Game Afficiandos. What everyone secretly wants is for story cut scenes and dialogues to just be presented with ordinary vhs controls and scrolling text planes to read at our own pace. The game industry is to cowardly to do it for reasons.

9 Apr 2021 at 2:54 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

57. Negativity Bias
related/mentioned in #35.
humans are wired to notice and remember negative experiences more strongly than they notice or remember positive experiences. negative yelp reviews are more likely than positive yelp reviews. if your software is successful at being easy to use, it will be invisible, and most people won’t remember it.

10 Apr 2021 at 6:49 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

58. more on episodic memory

ever stand up to do something, walk into another toom and forget what you were doing?

it turns out there’s a reason for this. since human memory is organised around episodes, experiments have found that walking through a door is a trigger for ending an episode- the result? short term memory is cleared and primed for new input.

what triggers exist in software? how often have you picked up your phone to do something, saw a notification and lost your flow?

10 Apr 2021 at 6:54 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

59. Please don't use confirmation dialogues, but if for some reason you absolutely must, don't sleepwalk through writing the the messages and the button labels. Don't just label them "okay" and "cancel" Without thinking about whether that wording harmonises with the message text. If possible, label the buttons as what they actually do, specifically.

Enable ads for rotten tomatoes or continue without disabling
Cancel disk format? cancel, ok
10 Apr 2021 at 10:22 | Open on mastodon.social
clacke: looking for something 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 replied to Zen
Adrian Cochrane replied to Zen

@zensaiyuki This is exactly why I advise against using JavaScript's alert(), confirm(), or prompt() functions: They don't allow you to label your buttons anything other than "Okay" & "Cancel".

I generally prefer native UIs, but in this case: PLEASE implement your own! Preferably something non-blocking like GTK's InfoBars.

30 Apr 2021 at 20:25 | Open on floss.social
Zen replied to Adrian

@alcinnz those also (at least in some browsers) block the main thread of execution.

1 May 2021 at 6:47 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen
Zen replied to Zen
Zen replied to Zen

how not to manufacture consent
2 Jun 2021 at 0:09 | Open on mastodon.social
Frost, Wolffucker 🐺:therian: replied to Zen

@zensaiyuki I really like how NMS both does this and - crucially - says "your game was last saved X minutes ago".

So I can go "saved 1 minute ago? yeah okay we're all caught up." or "oh, 6 minutes? we were just sitting in our ship the whole time, 's'fine."

29 Aug 2022 at 17:58 | Open on masto.brightfur.net
Zen replied to Zen

60. Plan for failure

software breaks. hardware fails. services go down. users make mistakes. Anticipate as many failure modes as you can, and design recovery plans and craft reasonable, well written communications for the user. Technical writing is its own topic, but for error messages the important things to accomplish are
a. clearly communicate the situation in language that is relevant to the user demographic. e.g. if it’s not a technical audience don’t use jargon
b. explain what to do next

21 May 2021 at 11:10 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

61. Label your buttons. With words. don’t do clever shit like only showing labels on hover. hidimg the labels is mystery meat navigation.

20 Jun 2021 at 14:45 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

62. Stop making your updates so intrusive. I open an app to use it. if you force me to stop and update it first i forget what I opened it to do. this is user hostile behavior. Ideally, users should not be bothered about updates at all- but unfortunately they a necessary.

a less intrusive pattern is asking for permission to download and install an update on app EXIT.

21 Nov 2021 at 0:47 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

just don’t ask using a blocking modal dialog, for the love of durga.

the least intrusive pattern of all is web apps that are just automatically always the latest version, and at worst, occasionally ask you to reload your browser so the front end matches the back end.

this is a tradeoff of course because those updates happen without consent.

21 Nov 2021 at 1:02 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

63. Never indicate semantic differences with only color. Always use the trifecta of color, shape, and text. This way, people who can't distinguish colors see shapes and people who can't see shapes can hear text.

Add texture where that's possible.

via @liw
13 Dec 2021 at 17:58 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

64. never steal focus, never generate a button directly under the cursor, never enable a button immediately after it is displayed, never disappear a button immediately after it is pressed.

28 Apr 2022 at 10:11 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

65.

IF YOU PROGRAM A "NO" BUTTON TO SAY "MAYBE LATER" YOU HAVE FAILED AT BOTH INTERFACE DESIGN AND BASIC CONSENT

via @HTHR

IF YOU PROGRAM A "NO" BUTTON TO SAY "MAYBE LATER" YOU HAVE FAILED AT BOTH INTERFACE DESIGN AND BASIC CONSENT - heather flowers
10 May 2022 at 2:06 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

66. if something has low odds of happening, that means it’s still going to happen. Don’t ever use that as an excuse not to fix a problem, especially if it could cause damage to life or data; or reduce accessibility.

4 Jun 2022 at 23:09 | Open on mastodon.social
calcifer :nes_fire: replied to Zen

@zensaiyuki @zens yep. As any D&D player will attest: 1% is a lot higher chance than you think

5 Jun 2022 at 14:07 | Open on hackers.town
Zen replied to Zen

67. don’t do whatever the fuck this is. bad reddit. this made me replace “www” with “old” so fast.

a reddit a pop up confirmation box says “the app has unlimited cats” a cat graphic sits atop a button that says “use the app”, small tiny barely visible text says “i’m a dog person”
19 Jun 2022 at 23:04 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen
Zen replied to Zen

what do you even call this pattern? a surveillance wall?

2 Jul 2022 at 13:06 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

68. don’t assume your users’ devices resemble yours or your close circle of friends when deciding minimum requirements- especially if you intend to reach a wider audience with a range of socioeconomic conditions and internet connection speeds.

brought to you by the Australian government locking welfare payments behind a mininum iOS version.

7 Jul 2022 at 6:11 | Open on mastodon.social
Lien Rag replied to Zen

Tiens @Natouille tu considères ça aussi comme de l' #UXFail ?

7 Jul 2022 at 16:25 | Open on mastodon.tedomum.net
Natouille 🍷 🥃 🍾 replied to Lien
Lien Rag replied to Natouille 🍷 🥃 🍾

@Natouille

Le dernier message avant le mien, "the Australian government locking welfare payments behind a mininum iOS version."

7 Jul 2022 at 16:39 | Open on mastodon.tedomum.net
Zen replied to Zen

69. via Jan Niko @nihilazo

nothing a computer does should ever feel like magic. if something a computer does feels like magic, that's because it doesn't sufficiently inform you (the user) of what it is actually doing or allow you to create a mental model of the system

13 Jul 2022 at 7:48 | Open on mastodon.social
Zen replied to Zen

70. your ui should not passively animate for anything less important than a carbon monoxide leak.

it's effective at getting attention, often way too effective.

via @binarycat

14 Aug 2022 at 23:05 | Open on mastodon.social
Evelyn fra denne andre øya replied to Zen

@zensaiyuki@mastodon.social It's a fairly straightforward argument to make that this is illegal per GDPR too, data minimisation is a binding legal requirement and demanding people register when there's no actual necessity seems to contradict that

2 Jul 2022 at 13:07 | Open on misskey.bubbletea.dev
‏‏ ‏fedifriend (pride aspect) replied to Zen

@zensaiyuki Wow, they're like shop security asking you to buy something or leave. Except they also want you to open a loyalty account.

13 Jul 2022 at 9:27 | Open on vocalounge.cafe
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