[pseudometa]

The lack of affordance in iOS7 is a real usability killer. People argue that the lack of button borders and inconsistency invites exploration. That's the kind of BS argument bad designers make when their designs test poorly. iOS7 is great in many ways, but is harder to use than ever before. Ugg.

[MaysonL]

The lack of affordance in iOS7 is a real usability killer.

Actually, it's a learnability problem: once you learn how to use its features, iOS 7 is a vast improvement over 6.

[rescripting]

I actually do believe iOS7 a step back usability wise (at a component UX level, not in features). The reduction of visual affordances in controls makes it very hard to tell at a glance what is interactive, and often even where the touch areas of controls begin/end. This slows you down, and I find it takes me a few moments to orient myself on a new page.

[opnitro]

Ok, maybe you can explain this to me then. Before iOS7 came out there were a bunch of people saying that Apple had to stop holding users hands as much.

[rescripting]

Could you point to an example? 'Hand holding' could mean many different things. Hiding configuration settings? Verbose instructions? Big shiny pulsating continue buttons?

If you mean people were complaining that the controls were too visually complex and they attempted to differentiate themselves too much, I guess personally I'd have to disagree with those people.

[josteink]

Actually, it's a learnability problem: once you learn how to use its features, iOS 7 is a vast improvement over 6.

But that can be said about anything which involves "knowledge in the head" vs "knowledge in the world": Once you learn how to use it, it's superior to simpler systems restricted to only what can be operated by knowledge in the world alone.

And so far everyone has argued that iPhones are "better" by virtue of being "simpler" and "more intuitive" than Android because you don't need to figure out how things works, i.e. it only depends on knowledge in the world.

And now with iOS7 the tune is that you just need "knowledge in the head" and all is good. That's not a very consistent story.

[andrethegiant]

What about when people back in the day argued that links on the web were difficult to use because they were just underlined text instead of buttons? Lots of link styles today have no text decoration but are rather just a different color, and are as easy as ever to use.

[kllrnohj]

Web browsers let you hover over a link to query if it's clickable before clicking it.

Also in this case the problem is if a site has some text that's blue & clickable, and some text that's blue & not clickable. That's more or less what iOS 7 is doing. Colored text doesn't mean it performs an action. It might, it might not. Similarly, black text might be clickable, it might not. It might have a border, it might not. And these are all mixed together in the same app, or even a single screen such as the case of the alarm that the article is talking about.

[oneeyedpigeon]

Mousing over ever piece of text in a document to see if it's clickable isn't a great user experience. If you've ever tried using a site whose link style is 'non-underlined, blackish blue', you'll understand the problem, particularly if you suffer from colour blindness. The Guardian is a prime example of poor-usability when it comes to text links.

[simonholroyd]

This doesn't seem like a very fair comparison. Most browsers account for this (by default) by using a different cursor symbol for linked text vs. non-linked text. Some also show the linked url in the browser UI also.

A web developer can override both those conventions and when they do, their links become less recognizable and their apps become less usable. Since there's no cursor on iOS touch screens, losing the visual cues is a similar problem.

[edit] You might argue that just tapping on something serves as the way to discover if a visual element is tappable on iOS. But it doesn't, as the original article states, it just makes the user wonder if something might be broken.

[masklinn]

> Lots of link styles today have no text decoration but are rather just a different color, and are as easy as ever to use.

They're not, and their relative ease of use is only because users have learned over years that a few words looking markedly different (but not emphasized) might just be links.