Despite the title of the article, I do not think this is about designing "one user experience" between mobile and desktop.

I think it's about consolidating the UIKIt and Cocoa frameworks, making it easier for developers to share code between platforms, but not necessarily creating a UI that's the same for both.

> I generally hate when websites redesign to "look nicer" based on the aesthetic du jour and in doing so throws away a significant portion of the functionality.

I'm right there with you. On the other hand, some of my accounts are still using half-broken UI that hasn't been touched in a decade (A&M plans still don't include UI apparently), even the minimum viable refresh would be an improvement.

They will probably refresh everything except this part.

That's an orthogonal problem. Why should the Apple platform arbitrarily require you to use different toolkits for different form factors or input modalities? They already support phones, tablets, TV's, and watches with the iOS toolkits. Adding desktops and laptops to that mix seems obvious.

And it goes the other way. The iPad Pro will probably benefit by gaining support for pointer input.

Ally made that idiot choice awhile back (mobile first, f-the rest) UI and they've been gradually dialing it back for better experience on desktop. It was like using iphone app on ipad in simulation mode; everything huge, functionally crippled.

Couldn't you just zoom out?

I've yet to find a browser where zooming out reduces the gratuitous padding around UI elements without shrinking the text beyond readability.

The banks had extremely functional websites after years of iteration.

Some of those sites had been more or less unchanged since at least the early 2000's.

A shining example of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm 99% certain people weren't leaving any bank because of an old website design.

The new ones have so much padding and empty space, and hide everything behind "clever" menus. I'm a PM and avoid this clever bullshit like the plague.

Tons of people leave banks because of old website designs. Old websites typically don't support newer technologies on the backend because they're entirely outdated. Just because something worked when it was developed doesn't it mean it stands the test of time and, if customers can't access new features, they won't use that bank.

I would leave a bank because it lacked features, not because it's design looked old.

A bank is a tool, I don't care how pretty it is, I care how functional it is.

That was kind of my point. The new designs don't incorporate any new functionality.

The designs don't necessarily look outdated, they look out dated to us because we live and breathe that stuff.

I'm not speaking in absolutes here though - some bank sites do need to be completely reimagined. Chase specifically comes to mind for example, but Wells Fargo's site was perfectly usable and did not feel dated.

To go even further, I'm not entirely arguing against redesigns, I'm arguing that if you do go that route it should at least be simple and straight forward, it's a bank site not the next social media behemoth.

It's always a really tough problem to keep old users happy who've been using the old sites for possibly years while treating new users to something more modern. This is one of the toughest problems I've encountered working in this field and haven't yet found an elegant solution.

Totally. The google map desktop is hard to use, because it's copying features from mobile.

"Mobile-first design" often produces really bad results. I could name a lot of sites that do it and their websites are often terrible on a laptop, which is how I use the Internet.

No, bad design produced by committee and other bureaucratic bs produces bad results. You're doing it wrong if you're stripping features only on small view ports.

> You're doing it wrong if you're stripping features only on small view ports.

I'm not sure how that statement addresses the point made by GP, who said, "...their websites are often terrible on a laptop, which is how I use the Internet."

If not the de facto guidance of mobile-first design, the de jure guidance steers designers toward reduced functionality. The overwhelmingly common outcome of a mobile-first redesign of an application is dramatic reduction of functionality, often spun as a simplification. I would prefer if mobile-first redesigns retained existing functionality but I acknowledge functionality may be reached in new ways that better fit the capability of the device.

The problem is not that mobile-first design strips features only on small view ports; the problem is that mobile-first design strips features full-stop.

Unfortunately, I agree that it certainly is a tendency to do that. But, again, I'd say that's just bad design. A good design with a mobile first strategy should not end with such an outcome. I'd also like to clarify that my tone was directed towards the people who mess it up, not the parent. If you start with a semi truck trailer full of stuff from your suburban mcmansion and try to cram it into a studio apartment, you're going to have a bad time. But you have to. What you don't have to do is say "We have all these widgets and need them on mobile so let's figure that out". Those aren't features. The feature is being able to get the information you need or do your task on any device. If you can't design an interface that accomplishes what you need in a small viewport, that doesn't mean cut it, it means maybe think a bit more. It's not a situation of fitting every god damn thing on the same screen and then giving up on anything that doesn't fit. When you have more screen real estate use it if you can effectively.

Again, your feature is what you can accomplish with whatever it is you're designing. If it's a database of information with tons of categories then it's an IA problem from the tightest box first and then using more space as it becomes available. If a user can't get to the same information on any device then the design ain't working. If its a piece of accounting software you'll have a bunch of crud operations happening and need to focus on designing great forms. I think most large companies basically decide to cram their mega menu into a side are menu, then expose the search bar and put their app in read only mode. Very much like slapping agile on your team to solve your efficiency problems, it won't work.

> If a user can't get to the same information on any device then the design ain't working.

Another explanation: sometimes the device really is too small for the information. Mobile devices are terrible for a lot of things. People with laptop or desktop computers shouldn't pay a price for that. "Mobile first" is okay in some cases as long as it isn't "mobile on every device".

I'll certainly concede that there may be different challenges associated with design for things like watches. Maybe. Haven't used or designed for them though.

Oh man the capital one redesign infuriates me so much. The "Account Summary" page which you land on after logging in has barely any info or links on it. You actually can't manage your account from that landing page, you have to click on the View More link inside the Recent Transactions box to get to a page that has any account services. You also need to click on their back buttons on the webpage to navigate backwards instead of using the browsers back button.

I did switch banks due to their redesign. I settled on Radius, primarily for their interest rates since their UX isn't totally there either. All the functionality I need is there (unlike the redesigned Capital One), just not intuitive to find.

If companies are consistently punished by consumers for these unfriendly changes, maybe they'll stop doing them. At least I can hope, right?

Tangerine did the same a few weeks back. Hate it.