this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Yea, I think they make honest to god bad design decisions that hurt usability. A common thread is hiding features / reducing discoverability while making no attempt at progressive disclosure, requiring memorization to complete certain tasks with the interface. This isn't only bad UX, it's an accessibility issue for users with attention and/or memory deficits. Creating a new paradigm is one thing, but with that comes the task of building affordances that help users with the transition, like skeumorphism did back in the day (...and to an extent, skeumorphism should have never been abandoned in the way it was...), something that the GNOME project simply does not do. They also ignore common accessibility recommendations, for example, by using icons without text in their applications, and utilizing mystery-meat navigation methods like hamburger menus, and ignoring long-established patterns for even very basic tasks, like allowing titlebars to become cluttered with interface elements leading to confusion when the user wants to move the window and widgets are in the way. I don't think it's bad at all that the GNOME project is trying to build their own paradigm, but they do so without consideration for the most fundamental usability guidelines.
I see. I haven't thought of that before, but when I look at Windows 11 file explorer, the one in GNOME seems way easier for me to understand despite it having the flaws that you mentioned. Maybe I just got used to it.
Yea, I get you. That's why usability research is so important - these interfaces may be simple for you and I, but small issues / contributors to increased cognitive load make a big difference for the large majority of people who do not live and breathe computer interfaces. I get that not everyone can afford to conduct their own studies, but that's why small orgs (and even modestly funded FLOSS projects) need to be making use of the work of players like the Nielsen Norman group who release their reports very affordably, even if they have an expert on hand. I always try to remember that every interface is contrived, so there is no such thing as an "intuitive" computer or machine interface; interface usability lives or dies with discoverability.
That is true, good point.
What is an alternative to a hamburger menu for a mobile layout?
There are many options; it just takes a bit of creativity, and it's better to involve the designer in the early planning stages to nail down what needs to be immediately accessible, and what can be revealed via progressive disclosure. I did a website for a beverage company a few years back that used a bottom-aligned series of pills for the navigation that scrolled horizontally - a shadow appeared on the side to indicate that it can be scrolled. (We used JS to add shadow to any side which had overflowing elements. See below for a very rough little wireframe.) Twitter, like many sites and apps, also used to have no hamburger menu if you can remember.
Hmm, that's interesting, thank you ☺️ I bet you're expensive