Posts categorised "UX"

Personal touch is crucial when you design products, whether it is about how the product looks and behaves, or the subconscious response after using it.

I couple of days ago, Github released its native client for Windows and Mac OS X, dubbed Github Desktop. As a long time SourceTree user, I was skeptical about the new solution, to the extent that I questioned the need for this product.

I checked the website out to get an overview, in case there are any innovations, and that is when I was pleasantly surprised. The entire website looked like it was designed for Windows.

GitHub Desktop Windows Cropped

GitHub Desktop on a Windows PC

Wondering how it would feel to a Mac user, i fired up the iMac. And things got downright amazing. The website looked like it was designed for OS X. The entire look and feel of the website, right from the images and fonts, to the colors on the backgrounds and buttons changed on the basis of the OS I was browsing from.

GitHub Desktop Mac Cropped

GitHub Desktop on Mac OS X

This is what I have always been talking about: design with the end-user in mind.

Love the personal touch. Kudos to the team for pulling it off with such style.

PS: Their attention to detail has at least got me to try GitHub Desktop. If they keep it up, they might have a convert!

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One big fail in Google+ (Web) that I have come across recently is that the search bar goes away as the user scrolls down. It’s frustrating to have to scroll all over the place, just to do a simple search.

Usually, the reason for hiding the top bar is be to provide more screen real-estate for the content, but the strange thing here is that there is a sticky bar, and the bar has more than enough space to accommodate the search bar. It’s just the bar which contains the search is not the one that sticks. The issue feels self-imposed, a limitation of the way the header is split. The behavior, introduced in the not-so-recent UI refresh just feels like a big UX miss, and I wonder what urged them to make it this way.

It’s a wonder how Google can make this mistake, considering all the other social network heavy-weights seem to have this right. Search is what made Google what it is, so this flaw feels all the more wrong. Misleading user feedback, or a simple miss, I wonder?

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