[mostafah]

I gave two examples of Apple’s recent designs in my first comment: one looks great but is bad, IMO, and one is great. I’m just saying that there are too many of the first category in the last few years. Does that make it more clear?

[sbuk]

It didn’t need clarification. I vehemently disagree with your assertion that treatment of the stairwell boils down to poor UX. Let’s flip your opinion on its head; why compromise a space with heavy ballustrading when the technology and materials exist to hide them in plain sight? The stairs are immediately obvious when you approach them. Isn't that the very idea of good UX?

[mostafah]

Not in how I see design. Design should be obvious and easy to use. Assume I would design an app so perfect and beautiful that a settings icon would ruin its look, so I would hide it under a swipe. That’s not good design. Dieter Rams’ “good design is unobtrusive” is about that. So is the famous Steve Jobs quote: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

[sbuk]

Ok. Let’s take those quotes in context. First Rams - my hero at design school. Any kind of balustrading in the space would be obtrusive. It literally gets in the way of the space the designer is trying to create. The space performs the function of an entrance to a hidden theatre. It’s primary goal is to evoke feelings of excitement and awe. To paraphrase Jobs, it’s supposed to be magical.

Next the Jobs quote. It’s also not just how it works! In fact, I disagree with that quote. Design isn't about any of the those in reality, it’s about solving problems. This is a quote that gets banded about a lot and one that fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the design process. The end goal may be how it works, looks and feels. Good design is an elegant solution. Balustrading in the space is inelegant.

The Principle from Rams 10 principals that I’d apply is the one about honesty as hiding the stairs and balustrading could be considered dishonest - however that’s tenuous.

[mostafah]

I don’t want to repeat what I’ve already said. It just seems that we have different views on design.

[rusk]

> It’s primary goal is to evoke feelings of excitement and awe.

lame design-school whackery. The only thing that should be giving me feelings of excitement and awe is how well the space functions. Not your tacky visual tricks.

[nkkollaw]

> The stairs are immediately obvious when you approach them

How do you know you have to approach that?

This is like the mystery meat of architecture and you're defending it (and with a bad attitude and tone of voice throughout the thread, I might add).

[sbuk]

I'm an architect.

[nkkollaw]

I use stairs.

[sbuk]

Can you only use stairs with obvious balustrades?

[nkkollaw]

Actually, yes. I need to know I have to walk towards them so I need to see them from afar.

Your attitude is exactly the problem I have with Apple, and the way you think is exactly why you don't see any problem with Apple: you're building the stairs for those who use them, not for yourself.

People don't care if a laptop is 4.7 millimiters or 4.9. We need battery life. We actually use the headphone jack, and we don't care if the phone is 0.2 millimiters thinner if the tradeoff is we can't use the expensive headphones we have without a dongle. We might use the USB-C port, but we're still using USB, SD cards, etc., keep them there, please.

You might argue that these are silly requests, but then I guess I won't spend $2000 for an Apple laptop again, and I won't be using your stairs. Luckily there is a lot of choice.

[kbenson]

People can only use stairs they can find. If you can't find the thing you want to use, it's useless.

There is a trade-off here that's being glossed over. Features that are unobtrusive to the point of being hard to find initially are perfectly fine in a space that is meant to be used almost exclusively by people that have been there before, such as an office space. Those same designs are very poor choices if a large percentage of users of that space have not been there before or will likely not be there again any time soon.