Nielsen Norman Group Slams iOS 7
The Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g), a user experience firm founded by usability gurus Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman, has appraised iOS 7, and the verdict isn’t great. “Early experience with applications redesigned for iOS 7 is fairly negative: several have worse usability than their iOS 6 versions.” In particular, NN/g cites action labels that are indistinguishable from content, the confusing date picker, confusing swipe actions (for example, activating Notification Center when you wanted Spotlight), and the redesign of many icons, of which NN/g said, “Apple has demolished millions of hours of user learning by changing the icons.” However, NN/g said that iOS 7’s design isn’t fatally flawed, and praised how controls are hidden in Safari, global font size controls, and the streamlined Settings app.
For my wife and I the Calendar app presents the greatest challenge. Not to be able to see a compact list of events for a single day with a single gesture is frustrating.