Ask HN: What do you think about app native vs. portable look-and-feel?

I'm curious how people feel these days about applications that use the platform's native UI toolkit, versus applications that use something platform-neutral like browser tech. I'm not really asking about the developer side of things, since that is its own discussion, but more on the user side.

My own views on this have evolved in the last 10 or so years. I used to vastly prefer applications using the platform's native UI controls, but at some point recently I realized I no longer really care all that much, and I don't think it factors in to my purchase or usage decisions anymore. I was actually surprised when I realized this.

Curious of others' opinions or perspectives.

6 points | by ttd 9 hours ago

5 comments

  • pellenys 6 hours ago
    I think usability almost always suffers when the native UI isn’t used. It’s not that platform-neutral UIs aren’t usable, or good looking. However when native UIs were prevalent, there were standards built up over years of hard-earned experience: for a Windows app, you wanted to get your tab order right, and you knew the convention of getting the Cancel button mapped to the escape key etc etc. See also the Mac and the HIG, encouraging apps to look and work roughly the same.

    There were always outliers and ugly UIs, but it always felt like there was a uniformity that made it easier to get around in an unfamiliar app. Whereas now, electron apps look and work very differently (comparing slack to Spotify to VSCode and so on).

    That said, I think very few people care as much as I do about it, and cross-platform UIs save a ton of development work.

    [-]
    • skydhash 6 hours ago
      Not only usability, but also raw capabilities. Most native toolkits handle UI and basic ux well and has good interoperability with system components. With most cross platform frameworks, the developer is often reimplementing these or trying to resolve platform incompatibilities (always badly). And the project quicly balloons in complexity.

      They’re great to get started, and when what you need is already available. But they’re a pain for everything else.

    • ttd 5 hours ago
      Part of my curiosity was sparked by the article on HN the other day discussing the hamburger menu icon: it used to be confusing, but now is pretty widely recognized as long as some guidelines are followed. So while I used to agree with you re: usability, these days I'm not so sure anymore.

      One idle thought I had: when computer interfaces were still new, using physical analogies like file cabinets was good practice for teaching new users. Maybe GUIs are now commonplace enough that people are able to speak the different "languages" without as much trouble.

      [-]
      • pellenys 3 hours ago
        I totally get where you’re coming from but for me it’s the predictability that’s key. Hamburger menus are familiar but they’re also not always there. On a traditional native UI you’d always have a menu bar, you’d always have a File and Edit menu. These days you may have a hamburger menu but it also may just be a wrapper for a menu bar. It’s just all a bit……vague I suppose.

        Tbh it doesn’t matter really. As I implied in the previous comment, I can’t imagine many people bemoan the fact they can’t press Alt-f to get an illustrative menu drop-down, even if I do.

  • muzani 2 hours ago
    I don't like the janky, laggy feel of multiplatform apps. I don't like it when I press back and the app quits instead of going to the previous screen. I don't like it when I go several pages deep into a SPA, like a comment, then press back a few times and find that I have not liked the comment until I refresh.

    A good enough team can handle all of this with any platform but I think the issue is that people who respect the experience use native, and those who want to cut costs don't.

  • not_your_vase 8 hours ago
    Personally I'm obsessed with efficiency and performance - and platform specific native toolkits are rarely beaten at that. I really don't like seeing wasting many megabytes of (V)RAM and long seconds of CPU time just to display a marquee...
  • saluki 7 hours ago
    They look and feel similar to the user, I still think native is better but React Native looks and feels pro so I'm cool with it.
  • brudgers 7 hours ago
    If the app is useful, nobody cares.

    If it isn’t useful, it doesn’t matter.

    Sure some developers have strong opinions about this…and if you are selling to developers those opinions matter (most commonly, a job interview ).

    But apps are gonna be shit for other reasons and the attraction of native-or-not is that fixing those reasons are much harder. Even when you choose to use theory to make GUI choice to add to complexity of development).

    Or to put it another way, the simplest thing that might work means you stay working instead of thinking (thinking != working). Good luck.