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Comment by obviouslygreen | Hacker News Reader

I've been using and (for the most part) promoting Android ever since the G1... but after 2.x the rate of UI change has, in my opinion, been terrible from a usability experience.

Pretty much all software (whether that's apps, websites, programming languages, or anything else) past a certain complexity has quirks. Getting used to the quirks is part of learning the software.

Massively changing large swathes of your built-in software is bad for users! I get that it'd be suicide to say "OK, permanent feature freeze... now," but big changes to the UI on apps that are (to many normal users) fundamental to using Android break the user's understanding of their use, often amounting to months of acclimation down the drain.

It's very frustrating.

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I too have been using Android since the G1 (I still have it for testing on!) and I would agree that the introduction of new paradigms/ways of interacting with apps (seemingly introduced every I/O every year) is frustrating.

The hamburger menu is in fashion. Then it isn't. Swiping from the left is, then it isn't. All of the examples in their design spec of how NOT to do things was precisely what they did on 2.x.

I know you have to be seen to be "innovating" for attention-deficit new phone buyers, but living in a world of constantly shifting sands just means it's hard to see from all the dust blowing around in your face.

I don't see it the same way - Android's been behind the other smartphone operating systems in UI quality, and has had to iterate quickly in 2.x, 4.x and 5 in order to catch up. As they reach a point where Android has as good or better user interface as the competition (I think they're close to that now), the rate of change will most likely slow down.

Also, it's a kind of new field for ergonomics and usability so all these changes (both hardware and software-wise) are something to be expected.

Whilst true to some extent, it isn't as new as we think. Window Mobile has been around for a very very long time and Palm OS preceded it with usable Palm Pilot devices.

Although it's not obvious, I guess popularity as a lot to do with ergonomics and usability and their evolution so something will only continue to be pushed forward if there's enough people to actually use it. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud why something which has been on the market for such a long time only recently has seen such a crazy amount of innovation.

"A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them." - John C. Maxwell

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