#Desktop User Experience

[sm-techved]

The Multi-Screen Challenge: Mastering User Experience Across Devices

The digital landscape is a battlefield of screens – phones, tablets, and desktops – each demanding a unique user experience (UX) strategy. Today's savvy customers expect flawless, engaging interactions no matter which device they choose. This blog delves into the complexities of crafting a winning UX for both mobile and desktop environments.

The Two Faces of UX: Speed vs. Depth

Mobile users crave lightning-fast loading times and intuitive navigation. Studies show over half abandon a mobile site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This means prioritizing minimalism and eliminating clutter to keep users engaged. Responsive web design ensures layouts adapt to different screen sizes, delivering an optimal experience on any device.

On the desktop, the focus shifts to depth and complexity. Users expect interfaces to handle intricate tasks like data analysis or complex online shopping with multiple tabs open. Desktop UX should facilitate easy information architecture and seamless integration with other tools and services.

Emerging Trends to Watch

Mobile:

Microinteractions: Subtle animations enhance the experience without overwhelming users. This could be simple feedback, guiding users, or creating a delightful micro-moment.

Voice User Interface (VUI): As voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant become ubiquitous, mobile designs are increasingly incorporating voice-activated controls.

Gestural Navigation: Swipes, taps, and pinches replace traditional buttons for a more immersive and intuitive interaction.

Desktop:

Dark Mode: This is beyond a trend; it's a user preference. Dark themes are easier on the eyes for extended periods, making them ideal for desktop use.

AI-powered personalization: Artificial intelligence tailors layouts, content, and features based on user behavior and preferences. This creates a truly personalized user experience.

Advanced Keyboard Shortcuts: Enhanced shortcuts improve productivity by reducing unnecessary clicks and streamlining workflows.

Bridging the Divide: A Seamless Multi-Device Experience

The future of UX lies in creating harmonious yet platform-specific experiences. Here are some strategies to embrace:

Responsive vs. Adaptive Design: Responsive design ensures content adjusts for different screens. Adaptive design takes it a step further, creating layouts specifically tailored to each device type (mobile or desktop), resulting in a more "native" feel.

Fast-tracking and Cross-Platform Functionality: Imagine picking up where you left off on a Google Doc or Slack app, regardless of your device. This seamless cross-platform functionality enhances productivity and user engagement.

User-Centric Design at its Core: Whether mobile or desktop, user-centric design is paramount. Analyze user interactions with the product across devices and iterate based on that data. This ensures users always have a positive experience.

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs): These combine the best of both worlds, delivering app-like experiences within a web browser. PWAs provide a smooth experience regardless of device, eliminating the need for separate apps.

Winning the Multi-Device UX War: Your Roadmap to Success

Invest in Data-Driven Design: Understand user demographics and how they interact with your platform across devices. Data should inform every design decision.

Prioritize Different Performance Metrics: Mobile UX emphasizes speed and minimalism, while desktop focuses on richer content and deeper engagement capabilities. Optimize for each platform's unique requirements.

Embrace New Technologies: Leverage AI, machine learning, and automated UI optimization to personalize user experiences. These technologies can personalize and optimize websites for various devices, preferences, and contexts, boosting engagement across all platforms.

Conclusion:

Forget the "mobile vs. desktop" debate. The real winner is the company that delivers a seamless, user-centric experience across all devices. By understanding your audience's needs and adapting your UX strategy accordingly, you can cultivate loyal users and unlock the full potential of your multi-screen presence. Ready to create a winning multi-device UX strategy? Contact us today!

[slutpoppers]

the torture dance -

[evilasiangenius]

This is what Tumblr has to say:

"The new dashboard is here to stay, and there isn’t a way to switch back to the old dashboard, so we’re committed to improving the new experience."

I believe this is called, "Fuck you, get used to it, we're a shitty Twitter clone now."

[walugus-grudenburg]

Huh, replies looks different. And unlike last time, actually in a good way. Yay

[queenerdloser]

it's been literal years since i had a personal desktop computer (as in, not since i left for college way back in 2011, so literally 13 years) bc i switched to a laptop for school and never looked back but. jesus christ. i forgot how nice desktops are. i pretty much just planned to use mine for working remotely & gaming but it's just soooo easy to be on i'm using it more and more lol

[failfemme]

they did this purely to humblr us mobile users i know it

[vohtaro]

why are there thick white borders around the dm icons.... the images are just smaller now.... my ailing eyes cannot take this

[todayisafridaynight]

I have no clue how to turn email alerts off and at this point I'm too afraid to ask and Also At This Point they're a godsend because

Search Works

It is important that Search Works because I write in often enough that your inbox feels more like "my blog" than my actual blog [THAT'S WHY IT FEELS WRONG NOT TO WRITE IN EVERY DAY BTW not because it IS wrong but because it is a Habit... feels like I forgot part of my Routine if I don't... And For Better Or Worse, I Am Autistic.] WEIRD AS HELL TO ADMIT but back during the initial series of essays I sent you [which I still want to revisit but You Know], I often struggled to find the motivation set my workspace up every day, but I'd go on your blog on mobile and the posts would be so long Tumblr'd throw up the Sign Up Or Log In Wall. So that got me thinking Might As Well Get On My Laptop

Still very exciting to get these notifs :]

I will regret saying all this come morning but let's call this a Bond Level Up moment 😎 for the sake of my ego 😎 catch you later [probably at the stream] 😎

pretty sure it's an option in notifications ngl or you just tell tumblr to stop sending you notifications like you would any subscription letter I Unno BUT YEAH if it ain't broke and is actually making the site usable aint no need to get rid of it ♪(´▽｀)

and FAIR NUFF: sometimes i joke to myself that you do co-run my blog with me, so i'm glad that's how you interpret sending in asks (❁´◡`❁)

[coldshrugs]

the search filters you're looking for will pop up if you tap the filter button next to the search bar. and as always, you can type "before:" or "has:" to search (i will admit that not having the "in:" search to look in a specific channel is a loss, imo).

the member list can be viewed by tapping the channel name at the top of the chat (the member list changes per channel and thread, depending on who has access to what).

Reasons Discord's New Mobile Layout Update is Bad

The reply function is redundant, as most people are used to just holding down and tapping the reply option at the top. If they're going to change it, they shouldn't have gotten rid of the member list for this functionally bad option. It also doesnt line up with any other platform in terms of swipe direction.

The member list is gone from easy viewing

It doesnt auto open your last group chat/DM making multiple simultaneous conversations far more difficult and longer

It's already broken my app once (Locked all channels including other servers' to one channel. I could not access anything except that and my DMs.)

You can not see images that have been pinned in the pins tab.

The search function was fine before. Where did your before, during and after date search go??

All of Discord's individuality is disappearing.

Getting used to a mobile format actually impedes usage of the desktop format and likely discourages people from multiplatforming discord because theyre so used to the "intuitiveness" of the new "tailored for mobile" experience

There is no way to CHANGE IT BACK. This is like Tumblr rolling out Tumblr Live without any Disable button At All.

Why are they marketing midnight mode as Something fucking ENTIRELY new??? It has always been a feature on Android as the AMOLED theme???????

If you, too, dislike the theme, head to settings (you can double tap your account picture) and go to Appearance, scroll to New Layout and Send Feedback.

Overall, what they've done is disorientate every single current user on discord, and you cannot avoid it unless you've not updated to the latest discord because this is not an update. It is a feature that has already been on the latest update and is being slowly rolled out, like Tumblr Polls.

Good Luck, and may we send as much feedback as possible and have them make it optional or at the least, revert it. I've already sent in at least seven complaints to discord, commented on their instagram post about the layout and I'm about one star review it on google play and app store.

This isnt just the appearance and vibes being off like the new (ish) app icon, this is a matter of functionality.

[transgenderdoctorwhomst]

i BELIEVE i have finished wrangling all the weird hyper specific retroarch directory nightmares. i feel like this thing could be better designed. i know its meant to work on like everything, but maybe it should be programmed to like, keep save data if retroarch has to hard exit instead of exiting through the "quit retroarch" button in the menu?? this is not a casual gamer emulator hub. the only reason i'm using it is for retroachievements. why is it like this.

[ajmishra]

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[futuretrain]

I started writing all of this in the tags, but then I got so many of them it just hit me it should be a whole post, so, here: i used linux (arch-based specifically) as my daily driver OS for 2 years and i loved it and it's great but it's not the solution

in fact the leap from ''i don't know how to move files between folders'' to linux is going to be too advanced for most people and make them more likely to give up. especially if a program they use and like doesn't have a native linux package.

like in my own experience i couldn't find a music player that could rival foobar for me on features so i just kept using foobar. and that meant that one of the first things i installed on a fresh linux install was wine. and some distros deal don't give you an easy way to do that. some do not even give you easy ways to install anything at all. and nobody who is not already comfortable with doing "advanced" user things on their preferred system is going to be suddenly more confident about using the linux terminal package installation process.

sometimes features that you don't even have to worry about on windows/native OS don't get automatically carried on linux distro installations. for example, my laptop's wifi card's drivers! it's not an old or obscure laptop - it's a lenovo legion. you know, a fairly popular laptop model! i had to urgently look for my ethernet cable and spent 3 days googling in my free time to figure out what driver i needed to install for my specific card and then way too much time fighting pamac over it because there were 3 different packages that had the name of my card but only one of them worked. or the fact that i searched for 2 years and still couldn't find a way to lower my screen's refresh rate, which was stuck at the max 165hz. so, you know, don't take your laptop off charging because you can't put it in a lower battery refresh rate, and just deal with the judder on movies because that's not going away. i lived with all of those issues and the inconvenience because to me, they weren't ~that~ big of a deal and at least some of them i could bypass or fix with a little bit of time. most people are not going to be fine with the inconvenience, especially if they remember using an OS where those same issues never even came up.

one thing i DO recommend people to do with linux is to keep a usb stick with a flashed linux distro that has a live mode, because you can use it without installing the OS. so if your main OS gets corrupted because of an update or anything else happens to it, you can just plug your linux usb into the usb port and boot into the live usb and have access to your files and go online if you want. on some distros you can even install programs on top of the base live distro, they are probably going to be gone next time you log in though. you'll need to learn how to access your bios menu, but it's significantly more user-friendly now than it was even a decade ago. if you, like me, have a fear of accidentally messing up your windows/etc OS and corrupting files in such a way that your computer just bricks itself basically, having that back-up linux live usb can do a lot for that anxiety. it definitely does mine!

bottom line don't offer people with no computer literacy linux as a user-friendly alternative. they WILL get confused by it and never want to try again in the future. offer them ways to learn their preferred system instead. in fact, chromeOS which powers chromebooks is a linux system. linux is not a catch all solution to computer literacy and never was

We need to lay more blame for "Kids don't know how computers work" at the feet of the people responsible: Google.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Tech literacy didn't mysteriously vanish, it was fucking murdered for profit.

[techdriveplay]

MIXLINE Review: Audio Mixing Made Easy

I’ve been loving MIXLINE so far. With a variety of audio devices and programs at my disposal, this software has simplified my audio management significantly. The layout is super simple and easy to use, making the process of audio routing, mixing, and streaming much less painful. The amount of audio devices I use Overview MIXLINE is an audio mixing software designed to streamline the complex…

[commodorez]

Start Me Up: 30 years of Windows 95 - @commodorez and @ms-dos5

30 years ago, Microsoft introduced Windows 95 and set the standard for graphical user interfaces that is still in use today. We will be displaying all major versions of 95, from one of the Chicago Beta releases, through the final update from 1997, on a wide variety of hardware from a number of prominent manufacturers. Come experience what made Windows 95 a household name, play some games, and see what made computing accessible and easy for everyone.

MS-DOS5 and I started planning this one in 2023, because we knew the anniversary was coming up and we wanted to give such a significant milestone in computing history the credit and spotlight it deserved. Computers and software come from both of our collections, with the exception of one desktop on loan from the Glitchworks. All of the 90s CRTs were on loan from our friends Sark, RadRacer203, and CJ.

The result was 18 feet worth of exhibit table, filled to the brim with copies of Windows 95, and associated software. We had computers running Chicago Beta 73g, RTM, OSR 1, OSR 2, and OSR 2.5 arranged in order to show the full life cycle of Windows 95 from 1993-1997. We also had companion software like Plus!, various versions of Microsoft Office (all from MS-DOS5's extensive collection), 95-specific games (from Microsoft and third parties alike), as well as training software. We included a number of important books about Windows 95, an era-appropriate network hub tying most machines together, a dot matrix printer, 90s mousepads, and even some big tractor-feed banners printed from one of the 95 machines.

All told, it was the most elaborate exhibit either of us have ever done, and the results were better than I could have imagined. That was a blast to put together, and super fun to show off at VCF East.

VCF East XX

[clusterduck28]

So I think the best strat here is for the users who did get the new layout to just stop using the desktop version of the site for a while, like a week or a month or however long their 'experiment' is supposed to last, while the users who didn't get the new layout should keep using the desktop version like normal or, perhaps, use it even more than usual.

My guess is that they're doing basic A/B testing on the new layout to see if it would boost engagement: the userbase is split roughly 50/50 between the 2 versions and they are going to be comparing the engagement data between the 2 groups of users to see if it's worth it switching everyone to the new layout or not.

Basically, if you got the new layout and don't like it - don't use it. If engagement metrics of group B (new layout) are lower than those of group A (no change), the experiment will be considered a failure and they will have to reverse the change.

If your tumblr suddenly looks like twitter - it's a sign to log off and go touch some grass! (or just use the mobile app since that engagement data isn't relevant to this particular experiment)