Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2020/02/28/tipbits-google-drive-sorting-can-hide-new-documents/
If you rely on Google Drive for collaborative work, bear in mind that a hidden sort setting can cause new documents to fall to the bottom of the list of files in a folder where you might not think to look for them. Adam Engst suffered from this for a week before he discovered the solution.
You might not have even realized Last Modified was a menu since the downward arrow indicating that doesnât appear until your pointer moves over it (one demerit for poor discoverability, Google).
Itâs even less discoverable on a touchscreen device with no pointer to move over the menu. You just have to guess to touch it.
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What is it with interface designers these days. This type of thing just infuriates users for absolutely no reason.
It feels these days like thereâs a lot more stuff thatâs hidden from first glance. I suspect for one itâs because our software is just more complex and is increasingly expected to contain yet more features/functionality/fluff, but also because a lot more of it is designed either for touch (making it under-dense on ârealâ computers), or not keeping touch in mind (alt tags with mouse over come to mind) making it user unfriendly on iOS.
Those are the good reasons for hiding things. I also think thereâs a trend toward lazy UI work, particularly on small screens, because of âsocial discoveryââa friend will tell you about it. The pull-down-to-search convention in iOS is like thatâwho in their right mind would think to pull down at the top of a screen to see more? Once you know about it, however, youâre fine (until you forget).
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Thatâs interesting, Adam. I never thought about that âsocial discoveryâ being intentional. But now that you put it that way, I can imagine how Schiller and his folks would be drooling over it during meetings. Every tweet about such a discovery, another victory. 
Is there any answer to how users can keep abreast of such things though? Without constantly tapping and toying around every app.
Iâd guess not, though there is this book series called âTake Control OfâŚâ that Iâve heard good things about. Oh waitâŚ
Alas, no, since companies are constantly fiddling with the user interfaces of their apps, and with Web and mobile apps, you donât get much of a choice about updating. They might call out major changes, but my experience is that small things get moved around all the time with no notice.
If I was President of the World, release notes would be better. 
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UI/UX/Ix designers come from a broad range of backgrounds. In fact, itâs probably one of the disciplines thatâs most welcoming to people who donât have a formal User Experience Design education. Thatâs a gift, but also a curse.
Because you can make more money if you âdoâ UX than graphics design, a lot of designers who have no clue about interaction design â the part that is focused on how humans communicate with technical artifacts â work in the field of UX, and donât even realize the damage theyâre doing.
That said, the backgrounds of the people I worked with, range from graphics design via cognitive science to web coder, and lots of other skillsets mixed in. And all(!) of them really grok UX, and their work and their focus on making stuff user-friendly is proof of that.
Unfortunately, few people who are hiring designers have rock-solid understanding what makes good user interfaces, so they lack the insights to differentiate between applicants who get it, and those who should focus on âbeautifyingâ graphics, instead.
Add to that a massive lack of true talent as well as the constant perceived(!) urge to keep working on user interfaces, even theyâre just fine as-is, and you get into a situation where user interfaces are âfixedâ even though theyâre not broken at all.
What youâre describing nicely sums up why itâs key to usability to optimize user interfaces for the intended client environment.
If you donât have a pointing device, hovering over a control is likely impossible, so hiding things makes discovering those features a lot more difficult than if youâre working on a laptop or desktop machine.
Conversely, there is a lot more room on the typical computer than on a mobile device, so there is actually no need to hide as many controls.
A competent designer knows exactly how to optimize a UI for the constraints of a particular target device. But not every designer has an equally competent product management peer who cares as much about usability as the designer does. Or who at least trusts the designer to do the right thing instead of interfering with the designerâs decisions.
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Ha, never heard that term before, Adam.
I feel thatâs a great concept for nifty, easter-egg-like power user features. Just today I found one of those in Sketch.app (the arrow keyboard shortcuts for nudging and resizing symbols/layers also work for the selection when cropping an image, which makes me irrationally happy⌠
).
That approach should never be used for core functionality that is meaningful to the majority of users, however!
E.g., itâs neat that I can delete list items in most iOS apps by swiping them to the left. As long as that is offered in addition to an easily discoverable Edit mode, thatâs a nice short-cut. But if thatâs the only method for deleting list items, the design has failed, because itâs nearly impossible to discover this interaction.
Undo via shaking the phone or three-finger swipe, anyone? 
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Ya mean youâre not?!?! Adam for Prez.l,l,l
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