[wampus]

Apple has been a driving force for better UI in a number of areas, but some of their choices are baffling. Even in this page, the "Contrast" section uses a large black header, but a small grey font on a white background for the content. Who chose Shift-Command-] for switching tabs in Safari? Why include the power switch in the keyboard, which makes it challenging to clean? Could their glossy displays be any more reflective?

[bananaboy]

I also feel like iOS has gone downhill. I know they were trying to get away from skeuomorphic design, but I feel they went too far in the opposite direction. Everything is flat, it's hard to tell what is a button that can be clicked on sometimes (usually it's just a blue label with no distinguishing background), and there seems to be a frequent lack of contrast generally.

[rbritton]

I've never fully embraced Apple's view of flat design for that reason. I feel buttons should resemble something that looks like it can be tapped on, and that that is not against the current aesthetic of iOS (e.g., http://ipadportfolioapp.com/images/overview/Customization_2x...).

[gurkendoktor]

I found it interesting that the button in the link actually has a border. When will we see bordered buttons in iOS again? iOS 10?

[batiudrami]

Yeah, also I feel the rainbow colours with a Gaussian blur looks pretty dated too - reminds me of Aero Glass. Android at its best looks much nicer, though it can be very inconsistent, even within Google-developed apps.

[frik]

AeroGlass looks still very nice and fresh in Windows 7. Windows 8x/10 theme is too flat for a desktop OS and the color choices imo plain ugly. Microsoft removed most of the complex transparent effects because the Nokia/MS WinPhones 7-8 devices were too slow to handle them, that's why the desktop has to suffer as well. The iOS 7-9 and OSX themes have a lot better colors.

[kagamine]

Grey text on a white background is generally accepted as easier on the eye/mind when reading sentences, whereas on the header it is not necessary, it's just one word, there is no train of thought to follow there. This would be considered good UX [source: I don't have anything to link to right now, but I do have a degree in Interaction Design]

The rest of your points get top marks and I hope to Cod that someone at Apple is listening. The power button on the keyboard is retarded (no other word for it, sorry), super glossy screens so you can't even see it in your own house.

As for Apple shortcuts, well, many make perfect sense and this isn't something anyone else does better. MS Word even changes them depending upon system language, so Word in Norwegian uses Ctrl+F for "fett" or bold. Imagine how annoying that is when someone asks you for help. It happens at application level too, especially with non-US keyboards, just press ctrl+[ to access this feature, and no you cannot remap the shortcuts. Well, dandy, I can't access [ without pressing 2 other keys already. So I'll just press the X in the corner instead.

[TuringTest]

> Grey text on a white background is generally accepted as easier on the eye/mind when reading sentences

That may the single most propagated unfounded myth in UI design this decade. [1] While it's true that pure black on pure white causes problems for some dyslexic users, there is also a _minimum_ required contrast [2], which is routileny ignored by many "stylish" web sites.

The plague of contrast-less "light grey on white" have been adopted by plenty of "web 3.0" sites out of following fashionable trends, to the point of making them unreadable.

I've been forced to place a "Contrast" bookmarklet on the toolbar of all my browsers to fix all those terrible contrast-less pages I found everywhere, and I'm forced to use it dozens of times a day to alleviate my aching eyes. (Hexadecimal #333 is my personal upper level of comfort on white backgrounds, anything above that begins physically hurting my eyes when reading any kind of long text).

[1] http://contrastrebellion.com/

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color-contrast

[kagamine]

Notice I said grey, not light grey. Good designers will understand that there has to be a contrast between the background and the foreground. There will always be some who misinterpret the rules.

The first site you linked could exist for any design principle found on the web, just change the pattern to fit. The example they give also has negative text-shadow (engraved effect). That is not evidence of anything. Anyone could make a website with focus on a single design error like that.

The W3 link doesn't support your argument either, as all they are saying is to make sure there is enough contrast, not that grey text is wrong. They also include "provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits" in the title, which I took to mean people with impaired sight. IF you want to go down the rabbit hole that's is more than 1% of the www friendly toward people with accessibility problems you will be lost in there until rabbits evolve to live in houses.

Think of the kindle, is that black text on a white page? Now search for why people like e-readers over tablets, you will see that black on white is not good for the eyes.

[TuringTest]

> There will always be some who misinterpret the rules.

Right, though the problem is when the misinterpretation takes on a life of its own and it's propagated as a good practice, as it happened with light grey and its purported benefits to dyslexic readers. This practice is too widespread to be left unadressed without correction.

As for e-readers, the newer models of the Kindle and other competitors have darker text over whiter background as a selling point, and the early grey-on-grey was touted as a huge limitation of the format. I've tried both and I clearly prefer the high-contrast versions.

Also, people prefer e-readers because they are based on reflective light instead of emiting LEDs - it has nothing to do with them having grey text.

[__z]

I, too, have problems reading many websites that insist on using light grey. Perhaps off black would be better to read but the misuse of grey text has a real world effect on people who are older and/or people with bad eyesight. Off black and grey aren't the same thing. I am baffled by designers coming in and discounting the people who say "this is hard to read for me" with "no it isn't."

For me, I open up firebug and change the text to black. It is amazing how often I can't read something some "designer" thought looked good with a complete disregard for functionality.

I am wondering (serious question) if grey on white is so easy on the eyes why are all books (as far as I'm aware) published with black text?

[kagamine]

> why are all books published with black text?

One of the web's greatest problems has been defining itself in relation to printed media. From use of font types, colour and page layout, margins and line spacing, the web is not on printed paper. Why do you think the two are the same?

I am not disputing that there is a lot of bad design out there, one of my personal peeves is tiny text. I've seen real UX people use a 9pt font because it looks good on their screen, but is impossible to read on anything else and when you don't hold your face 4 inches from the glass.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, one of the problems with UX is the number of "experts" who are self-taught. It's like web-design/development circa 2001, everyone was claiming to be a "web-dev" but in practice hardly any could do more than basic html & tables. UX, imo, is like that now.

[kagamine]

> I've tried both and I clearly prefer

I think we can end this debate here.

[TuringTest]

> I think we can end this debate here.

We could have done that when you said "why people like e-readers over tablets" :-P

[coldpie]

> I've been forced to place a "Contrast" bookmarklet on the toolbar of all my browsers

Could you please share these? I'm not web-programming-savvy enough to make anything that'd be generally useful.

[TuringTest]

I didn't make it myself, I found it here:

http://megpickard.com/2011/06/nifty-bookmarklet-to-make-web-...

This reminds me that I didn't thank the author enough, I'll have to drop her a line.

[coldpie]

That is wonderful, thanks for the link!

[coldpie]

> Grey text on a white background is generally accepted as easier on the eye/mind when reading sentences

This sounds like wives-tale baloney. Please disregard this "advice" and make your text readable. The text on this page from Apple is too low contrast.

[kagamine]

Feeling a bit confrontational today are we? Call it what you will, but this is "generally accepted" which means exactly what it says. You seem to have confused "this user's opinion" with "what the textbooks say". Still, I'm open to hear about all the UX books you have read.

[coldpie]

You don't need to read a textbook to see users complain about it, or to know that I go out of my way to fix low-contrast webpages to make them easier to read. Poke around elsewhere in this thread. Check out <http://contrastrebellion.com/ >.

[kagamine]

That's the same link I debunked earlier in this thread. Just because someone made a website about something does not make it a real thing. I know there are a lot of sites that do text wrongly, not just colour, but size and font too, but they don't all need a movement.

[sandofsky]

Most likely, that shade of grey was chosen precisely because the section headline is black. If both were black, it would compete with the typographic hierarchy, making it distracting to skim the entire page.

Good design is a form of engineering. You have a set of principles and successful patterns– such as the ones on the linked page– but your job is adapting to real world constraints. In this case, the challenge is making a headline look like a headline only relative to the example, not the page.

As far as the Safari tab shortcut, that's consistent with the rest of OS X. How did they originally arrive at that shortcut? They probably tried several combination, all within reach of the home keys, and that felt most right.

Why include the power switch on the keyboard? I know every user's first question is "where is the on switch?" and that position seems highly visible, and it can be consistent across all macs. In my entire history of using Macs, I've never had an issue cleaning the power key.

No idea why they made the displays more reflective. But given their overall attention to detail, a lot of thought probably went into it.

[DanBC]

Attention to detail?

http://imgur.com/Q9AhXKI

That font, in the section that talks about the importance of larger fonts, is fucking tiny.

[sandofsky]

Nobody visits the developer portal on mobile devices. I know I don't browse reference docs on my phone since I can't run Xcode on it, so that's probably why they haven't optimized for mobile yet.

[mhomde]

"a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"

[sandofsky]

"Read a book."

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/d...

Consistency is an important tool. In the absence of obvious visual affordances, it's even more important.

[mhomde]

Agreed, but its as important to know when to break consistency as to follow it, but the former requires more experience.

[Washuu]

OS 10.9 and iOS 7 have taken contrast and thrown it out the window. They are both following current designer trends of less contrast overall while claiming better readability. The low contrast trend started around 2011 to 2012 with web sites. It typically takes Apple one year to catch up with the trends on their operating system releases.

Both their recent releases result in more eye strain for me looking for a way to fix their messed up ideas of contrast.

[mikro2nd]

Do you suppose that this might be related to the oft-discussed-on-HN ageism that the Silicon Valley-based industry is accused of?

Low contrast may be pleasing to twenty-something year old eyes, but unreadable to fifty-something year old eyes, and, if I consider my own attitudes and thinking at a younger age, I would almost certainly not have been considering how UI design choices would impact people with less-than optimal vision but for a mother-in-law with severe vision limitations.

[Washuu]

It could have a minor bit to do with relative age of the designers, but I would assume it is more do with current designer trends. Personally, I do not wear glasses and have considerably good vision as well I even go to the extent of using good monitors with IPS panels that are properly calibrated. Even then there are issues with font contrast in OS 10.9 and iOS 7 where they decide to use a white font with a very light drop shadow.

I have always made sure to design with disabilities in mind.(Section 508 government work.) There was a previous designer I worked with a couple years ago that came from the Silicon Valley area that would require a weekly reminder that low contrast designs would not be acceptable.

[gutnor]

It is probably more a fashion trend like what affect everything around us.

Low contrast works especially well with the retina and above screens we currently on everything nowadays.

[camillomiller]

Well, even better: this page [https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/documentation/Net...] is two clicks away.

[namenotrequired]

This very page is also a bad offender of the very first principle...

[wingerlang]

Definitely. The titles seems related to the image above them, not below as intended.

[kaolinite]

You can switch tabs in Safari using Ctrl + Tab (and Ctrl + Shift + Tab to go backwards).