I have the highest regard for these terse, but information-dense displays that enable humans to quickly grasp all information they need to do their jobs, and nothing more. This is also something avionics provide - a modern cockpit displays are a work of art in layering needed information for what is happening at the time, both the dense PFD and the much specific that communicate aircraft status.
UI designers who were trained in the currently-popular paradigm would be at a complete loss to design such things. "Swipe left from the home screen, tap the nothingness on the screen to reveal the controls overlay, find the ••• in one corner of the screen, tap "More" in the 3-item menu, and then tap 'Bond Quote' in the modal dialog that takes over the entire screen." Keyboard shortcuts? "Hmm... interesting idea. Never thought of that. We might add those in a V2."
> But it’s not like the designers are unaware of more information dense alternatives.
Strong disagree. I have been in UX reviews for products like Bloomberg terminals as the intended user. I specifically asked for information density and the designer looked at me like I was from the moon. Their counter offer was a permanent floating chatbot that covered the small amount of information still on the page. No joke. Information density is something those web designers genuinely could not comprehend.
“ You can remove the drawn-in borders just by adding a little visual space, and use subtle color differences to separate rows if needed” ———> “Let’s make it 10 rows per screen (and somehow still with low-legibility font choices and low-readability text design)! Make the design breathe, you know, white space!” ———> Me, having an aneurysm
I described it as being lost in an ocean of white pixels. Then they added padding and broke hyperlinks. I know it was incompetence but it started to feel malicious.
rbanffy · · focus · HN ↗
xp84 · · focus · HN ↗
afavour · · focus · HN ↗
Don’t get me wrong, I get the complaint. But it’s not like the designers are unaware of more information dense alternatives.
mulmen · · focus · HN ↗
Strong disagree. I have been in UX reviews for products like Bloomberg terminals as the intended user. I specifically asked for information density and the designer looked at me like I was from the moon. Their counter offer was a permanent floating chatbot that covered the small amount of information still on the page. No joke. Information density is something those web designers genuinely could not comprehend.
meristem · · focus · HN ↗
mulmen · · focus · HN ↗