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by mgkimsal 1477 days ago
To go further, it seems to make things look 'cleaner' from a 'look at this screenshot' standpoint, and I understand that. But, this design style has an interaction load which makes it harder to use day to day, and I bet adds little 'microstresses' to users, even if they can't quite put their finger on any one 'thing'.

"Looks cleaner" shouldn't have to be the mortal enemy of "easier to use", but it seems that too often things come down on one side or the other.
1 comments
agumonkey 1477 days ago
I believe that too. It also happens in games. Magazine can drool over infinite beauty of in game screenshots, while playing I see near nothing of all this (even though I'm fully aware of the acrobatics involved). It's a low usefulness quest for its own sake.
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doubled112 1477 days ago
Speaking of games and cognitive load, am I getting old? Or is keeping track of the button scheme getting more complicated as time goes on?

Jump used to jump, and run used to run, and that was that.

Let's use the Batman Arkham series for example. Every button seems to do something else depending on context and I can't keep track anymore.

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Avshalom 1477 days ago
It really got started with prince of Persia sands of time. Ubisoft spent a lot of time going on about their context sensitive controls (which they actually credited to sports games at the time) then it spread from there.
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agumonkey 1477 days ago
I can't answer, it's been years since I played something more complex than CoD (and even then it's due to younger siblings insisting).

To me the most overloading part is the pacing and degrees of freedom. Everything is moving everywhere, yet somehow they manage to feel at home and instinctively act clean while I struggle to pursue the basics. I guess it's just young brains being too good at sipping whatever is required to play, while we're having to fit our legacy views and needs.

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mgkimsal 1475 days ago
not the parent, but... I had to give up past Pitfall, Asteroids, Donkey Kong and others. One stick... 1-2 buttons - that's ... all I can handle. The switch to Nintendo and the "A-BB-B-UP-UP-X-Y-AABBA" key codes people would memorize from magazines... I just couldn't keep up. And that was... 35 years ago...
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