Thursday, June 19, 2014

What's the Matter with U(I)?

One of my passions is beta testing new things.  As a part of that, I always reach out to the developer with my thoughts, comments and suggestions with how to improve their product. There is NOTHING more important than the User Interface in my opinion.  I do not care if your app. solves world hunger, if users are confused with how to navigate - or even if it just looks ugly...they aint coming back.

So as part of exploring new products, sometimes this is with little obscure start-ups like  Ubi . with whom I have been working with back and forth via emails with suggestions.  I do not however reach out to large and mature companies directly, as they should know better.  And it bothers me just how prevalent BAD UI's are in the mature company world.

I'm just opening my Twitter app (I am on Android, but I am certain the experience is similar on an Iphone), and I scroll down through all the new Tweets since I last opened the app. Now I want to get back to the TOP (Latest Tweet)... how to do this?  You would think they would simply have a button that says 'home' or such - but no.  In the Twitter app, the only way to get to the latest Tweet is to scrollllllll all the way back through all those Tweets you've just read [Disclaimer - Technically the app does have a home button, however it is not dedicated - such that when you scroll down, it disapeers from view].

Think about your UI first and foremost, and if your grandmother can't figure it out, go back to the whiteboard.