What we can learn about UX fundamentals from iOS: Case Study
What makes the iOS experience so great and how we can learn from it.
There are many great things about the iOS user experience that contribute to its incredible success. From its minimalistic fashion to its fluidity to its spatial consistency, iOS demonstrates simplicity and sophistication in every part of its software, producing an extraordinarily rich experience for its billion-plus users around the world. In this review, I am going to try to show you what makes the iOS experience so great by covering the fundamentals of UX design.
Intuition & Consistency
If there is one word we can use to summarise UX design, it is intuition. I believe that the best designs are those which can be blatantly intuitive while also managing to appear radically unique and recognisable. iOS lies right at the centre of the intersection of this Venn diagram. Apple has managed to build an extremely intuitive system without sacrificing on the visual appearance of the interface by making it look generic or uninteresting. Intuition is important because if the user can get around an interface without being told how to explicitly, it makes him feel in charge, as if he already knows the interface and how to use it. The importance of intuition in design can not be underestimated.
Apple believes that an iPhone, or any other tool, should be so intuitive that it feels like “an extension of yourself”. They manage to achieve this for a variety of reasons, the most important being consistency. iOS has some very consistent features and functionalities, across the entire system and even the native apps:
Visual Consistency
It is extremely evident that iOS and native apps have been designed to have some repetitive, striking visual similarities.
These visually consistent features across iOS establish a sense of familiarity. When a new user starts using iOS, he will see similar patterns and visual structures across the entire system. Gradually, the user subconsciously starts to expect these visual elements in every app he opens and is met with a sense of satisfaction when he does find them.
Once the user has used, say, the Music app a few times, if the user were to open the Clock app, he would be met with a recognisable screen. He knows exactly how these features work, how to interpret the hierarchy, what kind of views to expect when pressing a specific button, where to find any button, and so on. Consistent design is intuitive design. The more the user uses your system, the more intuitive it should seem to him.
There are some standard icons and glyphs that are used all around iOS. These are uses in buttons or as symbols. They are easily recognisable. Since these are standard vectors used across the entire system, users tend to associate the icons with some specific action. For instance, when a user taps the share icon (shown below), they expect it to open the share action sheet.
This kind of consistency helps the user recognise and identify buttons and functionalities without being explicitly told.
Spatial Consistency
Spatial consistency is an area to which Apple assigns great value. Spatial consistency fits in with our sense of real-world space and area. When a view goes off a screen in the direction of the right side, you as a user subconsciously expect that the same view will be waiting for you on the right end of your screen:
These views enter and exit our field of vision consistently from the same end of the screen. This is essential to create a fluid, intuitive system.
An example of an app in which the designer hasn’t kept spatial consistency in mind is Google Drive for iOS:
Spatial consistency is an important concept that every designer should take care of while designing interactions.
Fluidity
Hand in hand with intuition comes fluidity. A rigid interface seems unwelcoming and therefore hard to get around. Without fluidity, there can be no intuitiveness. Fluidity makes the interface feel more natural in its behaviour. It matches the user’s expectations based on real-world experiences.
In a WWDC18 talk on Designing Fluid Interfaces, Apple spoke about the principles that go into the working of a truly fluid experience. Do check it out for a better understanding of this area.
Instant response and constant redirection
Good UX means immediate responses to our inputs and movements, to mirror how we think and act. Covered ahead in section “Responsiveness.”
Maintaining spatial consistency
Spatial consistency fits in with our sense of real-world space and area. When a view goes off a screen in the direction of the right side, you as a user subconsciously expect that the same view will be waiting for you on the right end of your screen. Covered above under “Intuition & Consistency.”
Hint in the direction of the gesture
The precursor of a gesture serves as an indication of what action is expected ahead. Example: in the control centre when you press on, say, the music player, it enlarges to indicate that this is something like what your final action is going to look like.
Lightweight interactions, amplified output
When a user engages in a lightweight interaction with the interface, iOS infers the trajectory by the position, velocity, speed and force, and then carries forward the momentum and energy of the motion to produce an amplified output. Example: while scrolling.
Soft boundaries and transitions
Soft movements and transitions without creating any lag or overlap or pixelation. Restricted visual changes per second for increased clarity. Smooth frames of motion.
Find in-depth explanations at https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/803/
Responsiveness
The Apple design team has aligned the iOS interfaces to not just how we think, but also how we move. Good UX means immediate responses to our inputs and movements, to mirror how we think and act. Our decisions and gestures need to be made redirectable, editable and reversible. This makes the user feel safe, comforted.
Apple uses these slides to illustrate this concept:
As is shown in the slide, we tend to act (“Gesture”) immediately on a thought, even before we have made the decision. We release the gesture once we have made the decision. Until release, the gesture is still cancelable. This entire experience gives the user a sense of control over the experience. It is only achievable by a rapid micro-responsive system, which responds to every intended gesture instantly. iOS measures acceleration of our fingertips during our gesture so that it can sense and react accordingly. It senses the change in our motion rather than the duration or speed of the motion. The faster you stop the motion, the faster iOS responds. This further helps produces a sense of control in the user, therefore enriching the experience.
The 8 Rules of UX Design and how iOS achieves them
According to the California Institute of the Arts graphic design professor Michael Worthington, there are 8 things to look at while designing any experience.
1. Real-world knowledge
Take into account what real-world knowledge your users might have in connection with your system.
iOS native apps have been inspired by real-world objects for usability & familiarity. The calculator app has been designed specifically to resemble traditional calculators. The keypad in the phone app has been designed to resemble keypads in traditional telephones.
2. Learned behaviour:
Conventions that your users might be acclimated to before they come in contact with your system.
In this sphere, Apple has a unique advantage while designing iOS. Being the gatekeepers of the App Store, Apple sets the conventions for iOS apps. The only conventions they need to be mindful of is the conventions they themselves have set for themselves in previous versions of iOS.
3. Cause & effect:
Users should see some effect or consequence of any cause or stimulus produced by them.
Every interface element that looks like an interactive button in iOS is connected with some standard task. Pressing these buttons will result in standard tasks as you would expect, as illustrated above with the ‘Share’ button example.
4. Logic & familiarity:
Your system should be logical, clear, and intuitive.
Hierarchies in iOS are very clearly visible and distinguishable. Hierarchies are produced by contrast.
As shown in the example alongside, hierarchies in iOS are produced by contrasting the font face (display/text), weight and grayscale of text labels. The app title “Messages” is heavier, set to SF Pro Display (Bold), and even has a larger font size (34p) while the individual cell titles (contact names) are lighter, set to SF Pro Text (Semibold) and have a smaller font size (17p). The preview of the last message in the chat in the cell under the cell title is of similar font size as the cell title (contact name), but contrast is produced by varying the grayscale and setting to font type to SF Pro Text Regular as opposed to semibold. In this manner, iOS contains easily identifiable and logical visual hierarchies.
5. Fast & Seamless:
Your system should be extremely responsive.
iOS is widely regarded as the fastest OS in the world. Speed of the OS depends on how well the software and hardware can be integrated, which is best in iOS products.
6. Immediate intuition:
A few interactions with your system should be good enough to learn the nuances of the entire system.
What makes iOS especially intuitive is the restricted customisability. Users don’t have many options or the liberty to customise their OS much. This gives Apple exclusive and complete control over your iOS experience from end to end, producing a richer experience.
Consistency in the system enhances intuition for more weathered users.
7. Payoff, results, fulfilment:
Users should be greeted with some sort of satisfaction or gratification after performing some action on your system.
After using iOS for a very short period of time, users start having expectations from each similar-looking button and similar-seeming gesture. Example: When you swipe right on a cell in a table (like in the messages app) and are met with an option to delete.
This principle goes hand in hand with the immediate intuition principle. Only in an intuitive system will a user be able to predict the consequence of an action before performing the action, and thereby experience a sense of satisfaction after performing the action and having their prediction be proven right.
8. Undo, redo, confirm:
Users should have the comfort of knowing that they can undo/erase any mistakes they make while using your system.
iOS has famously had the “shake to undo” feature for years, applicable all across the system. Apart from that, iOS makes use of standard, recognisable alert boxes everywhere, highlighting the destructive action in red colour for emphasis and to communicate the nature of the action.
This produces a sense of alertness and urgency in the mind of the user. As a result of these functionalities, the user always knows that he can undo his mistakes and will be warned before taking any destructive action.
When it comes to design or any other creative process, it is important to experience and analyse similar pieces of craft that already exist. Analyse what works and what doesn’t. iOS has some of the best UX work that has ever existed and is definitely a piece of software that every designer should marvel at and take inspiration from.
It is interesting to see how the principles that we read and learn about in theory are actually all around us in our day to day life, improving our experiences and interactions without us even realising it. This is the beauty of UX design — it’s always hiding in plain sight. You will never be able to find and articulate what is and isn’t good about an experience unless you specifically go looking for it, and that is exactly what I intend to do with this publication.
