There’s a funny conflict to the idea of user interfaces: a good one tends to go unnoticed, the thoughtful design decisions too subtle to notice; a bad UX or UI is one that makes you want to scream. It’s a tension that designers have to think about every time they conceive a new website, app, or device.
You, me, and UI
How designers run the world.
In this special series from The Verge, we explore the small design decisions that have had an outsize impact on our lives. From simple card game browser UIs to deliberately complicated video game setups, all-too-forgotten accessibility options for colorblindness to the curious incentive-driven histories of the shuffle and log out buttons, these stories delve into the ways that user interfaces have driven us forward, or failed, or found an entirely new way of living.
Image: Mengxin Li / The Verge
Image: Mengxin Li / The Verge
- The mixed-up history of the shuffle button
- My beautiful life with too many remotes
- The Apple Lisa was a design revolution — and it still feels like one today
- The delightful excesses of smartphone maximalism
- Microsoft Flight Simulator tricked me into getting a pilot’s license
- My bad VR trip
- The hellish design of the Crusader Kings video games
- The impossibility of logging off
- The revenge of the pop-up
- A poker website that is actually good
- The Color Quiz
- The poop emoji: a legal history
- This is what it looks like to be colorblind
- The sudden death and rebirth of Tweetbot