inconsistency
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On UI inconsistency in iOS 5
A while back, designer Jake Marsh commented on an inconsistency in Apple's use of linen textures in iOS 5 (hat tip to Daring Fireball). In both OS X Lion and iOS 5, the linen texture is "underneath" other UI elements in almost every instance. In Lion, linen textures lie beneath the Mission Control interface, the main login screen, folders in Launchpad, and web pages in Safari. In iOS 5, linen lies beneath the multitasking tray, in Siri's interface, in folder backgrounds, and once again (on the iPad) underneath web pages in Safari. Marsh points out that the metaphor of linen textures lying "beneath" the interface completely breaks down with Notification Center. With Notification Center acting as an overlay on top of other interface elements, it essentially means that the standard interface is "sandwiched" between two layers of linen textures. Two different proposals exist for fixing this inconsistency. Max Rudberg proposes shifting Notification Center to a background layer, so instead of sliding over the home screen or whatever app you're in at the time, the foreground layer would slide away with Notification Center appearing from "underneath" it. This would be a decent solution on the iPhone, but it wouldn't work quite so well on the iPad. An arguably better solution is the one Nik Radjenovic proposes: get rid of the linen texture in Notification Center and replace it with a background that more clearly establishes Notification Center as a pullover UI element separate from the "what lies beneath" metaphor implied by the linen background. This may seem nitpicky at first, but Apple's usual attention to UI details like this is arguably one of the things that makes iOS a pleasure to use. Inconsistencies like the "sandwiching" of linen-textured UI elements are subtle, but when UI inconsistencies start stacking up they can result in an experience that drastically and negatively affects usability. [We looked at inconsistent iPhone UI concepts back in 2007, before there was an App Store or iOS even. –Ed.] The iPad's Music app in iOS 5 is a perfect example of how UI inconsistency creates a subpar experience. I've already described at length how Apple's overhaul of iOS 4's iPod app rendered music playback on the iPad a frustrating experience in iOS 5; I got so fed up with the poor interface in the Music app that I've almost completely stopped using my iPad for music playback and defaulted to using my iPhone 4S instead. Apple has already fixed some inconsistencies in iOS's look and feel; as of iOS 5, pages in the Calendar app can be "turned" just like pages in iBooks, which wasn't possible in iOS 4. Sadly, the same is not true of the Contacts app on the iPad; despite having the same "pages in a book" design as both Calendar and iBooks, swiping on pages in Contacts does precisely nothing. [See our post from last week on the 'leaky abstraction' problem in skeuomorphic UIs. –Ed.] Top to bottom: Swipe to turn page, swipe to turn page, swipe to experience frustration. UI inconsistency across devices can be just as irritating. Again, the Music app is a great example. On the iPhone and iPod touch, the Music app is largely list and text-driven, and playback controls are consistently colored throughout the interface so you can tell the state of a control at a glance. On the iPad, the Music app is visually-driven, with control colors that are not only inconsistent with the color scheme on smaller iOS devices but also internally inconsistent within the app itself. Putting the same app from the iPhone and iPad side-by-side, it's very hard to believe they both came from the same design team. The same company designed both of these apps. True story. The Camera app is another example of contradictory behavior in user interfaces across devices. On the iPhone and iPod touch, the shutter button, controls for switching between still photos and video recording, and a link to your camera roll are all pinned to the screen edge near the home button, which makes taking a picture extremely easy and something you can do one-handed. On the iPad, these controls shift around depending on the device's orientation, constantly presenting the controls on the screen's bottom. This makes taking pictures and recording video on the iPad far more difficult, particularly in landscape orientation where the shutter button is several inches away from the edges of the device you're actually gripping. iPhone: Easily reachable camera controls. iPad: Not so much. Just like the use of linen in the background of Notification Center, all of these UI hiccups are easy to fix, but I have to wonder why they need to be fixed in the first place. Apple usually pays far better attention to the tiniest details in its interfaces; it may be time for Apple's designers to step back from piling on new features and instead do a Snow Leopard-like audit of what's already in iOS.
The state of twinking pre-3.1
Our friend Drayner has posted an open letter to Blizzard over at Twinkinfo.com in which he basically laments the breaking of WoW's twinking game. We've covered twinking quite a few times before here -- it's the game-within-a-game of beefing up lower-level characters to their maximum power using enchants, low-level items, or whatever else they can find. Officially, Blizzard hasn't endorsed or condoned twinking -- if you want to do it, you're free to, but you've got to live with the rules they set on items and enchants, and so forth.And that seems to be Drayner's main issue with Blizzard: they aren't consistent on twinking. They'll make changes that level the twink field, and then they'll ignore bugs that almost completely break it. They kept the latest enchants off of players below level 60, but then they grandfathered in players with the 450 profession buffs. He's got a whole list of changes they've made for and against twinking, and basically asks Blizzard to either support twinking, or (and obviously he's less happy with this decision) end it for good.Unfortunately for him, he probably won't get an answer. There are plenty of players twinking, but not nearly enough for Blizzard to consider making changes based on twinks alone (and while twinks are howling at some of the changes, the rest of the player population either dislikes the whole idea of twinking, or couldn't care either way). And considering that twinking does draw some players into the game, it's not likely Blizzard will ditch it anytime either. Twinks, they would likely say, are playing a meta game already based on made-up rules, so why should it matter that they've also got to abide by other inconsistent rules? Based on what we've heard from them in the past, it seems twinking is a player creation, not a Blizzard creation, so it's up to players to deal with the issues, not Blizzard.
Size matters: Tauren shrinkage
For those of you who do not frequent the forums, you might not know that since patch 2.4, there has been a Tauren outcry. It seems that cows everywhere are logging in to find that their weapons are roughly 50% smaller than they were previously. Should you take your weapon out to get a better look at it, you'll get to watch it grow back to pre-patch size. Unfortunately, this is not a bug. Hortus has confirmed that it was an intentional change because certain weapons would clip the ground while sheathed. While the Tauren have been getting some support on the forums, some players seem unsure of why this is such a big issue. Let's take a deeper look into why players are upset, including the fact that cows will seemingly be the brunt of even more jokes. Not innocent jokes either; not like "steak! It's what's for dinner!"
Breakfast Topic: Your WoW personality
I have a friend who doesn't play WoW, but his roommate does. As a psychologist, my friend is a more astute observer of individual behavior than I am. At lunch one day, he theorized that we tend to play World of Warcraft with the same attitude that have in the real world. On this surface this statement seemed to be correct. People in game and in life vary from kind, helpful souls to nasty boorish trolls. I like to think of myself as WYSIWYG (what you see what you get). I try to portray myself online with the same values that I feel define me as a person. I set goals and work hard to achieve them. I consider myself a good friend. Every once in a while I go too far and take on the role of martyr in both game and in life. This is something I'm proud of; on the contrary, I wish I could stop myself from doing it.
