Comments on: Leopard UI vs Usability

By: chris hildreth

chris hildreth — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:21:07 +0000

The stacks and grid view would not bother me as much if I could adjust the settings (font size, transparency, etc.)

By: Andy Melton

Andy Melton — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:21:50 +0000

Without reading any of the wonderful comments from the wonderful people above I have to say that I feel as though Apple is simply trying to appeal to the “Gimme Shiny Shiny Objects” fan base.

There is one thing that does bug me and I was going to blog about it but it doesn’t deserve an entire blog entry. That topic is the stupid thing with the network share icon for a Windows PC. I haven’t read much into it. It’s retarded to get annoyed by it but I in a way feel as though Apple is becoming too smug and one of these days it’s seriously going to come back to haunt them. As a person who is tri-platform (Windows, Mac and Linux) it makes me wonder how Apple looks to people who are looking at interoperability. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful demonstration? Pull up a Windows share and it shows a BSOD as the icon. An operating system shouldn’t judge people, it should do it’s job. Leave judgment and criticism to the advertising folks. Maybe if they had used an LCD display with a BSOD I wouldn’t be so bitchy

Anyways. My comment is retarded, mostly, twice but I really needed to get that out of me. Still love Macs. Plan on buying a new one ASAP (as usual). Call me a retarded idiot if you must. Anyways. Whatever. Byes.

By: Rory

Rory — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:45:48 +0000

The issue, as I see it, is the difference between whether something works well or badly. You can make something that works well or that works badly look pretty, and yes people will buy something solely because it looks pretty because there is an expectation that pretty things are better made. However in the end you just end up damaging your reputation when you ship pretty software that doesn’t work well. It might be a good short term strategy but ultimately I think people will wise up. There is no reason other than perhaps bad management or greed that Apple would be shipping software which isn’t both functional and beautiful. iLife and iWork have fantastic user interfaces, the problems seem to almost exclusively reside in the software bundled with the OS.

This whole shock doctrine of UI design is painfully short sighted, how is Apple going to top of the 3D dock in terms or visual pizzaz? Either it steps backward to something more utilitarian and minimal or it goes further overboard. Does the Mac come out better at the end of that strategy or not?

By: Scott Stevenson

Scott Stevenson — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:50 +0000

I admire having the guts to post a mockup. For the purposes of Apple’s goals, I think it’s too small of a change. It has good elements, but it feels more like a Tiger rev than something new.

The difference in philosophy here, I think, is that Rory is looking more for functional changes than visual flourishes. I think that’s backed up by his commentary about Delicious Library and such. He has a particular set of beliefs about it, and I completely respect that.

> I would just like Apple to do better

I’m sure the HI folks would always like to do better, as well. Who doesn’t like making people happy? The thing is that it’s not always obvious what that is. It’s easy to make something better in the eyes of one sort of person, but we’re talking in the millions.

I don’t disagree that the changes Rory suggests would make Rory happier. The question is would the Mac come out ahead after all is said and done if the UI took a more conversative route? I don’t think it’s clear.

So far, the Mac and iLife UI haven’t backed down from their bold UI moves, and it seems to be working in those cases. It also seems to work pretty well for Delicious Library and Pixelmator. In that light, I think it at least leaves the possibility open that there’s more to this than it seems.

By: Steve Harris

Steve Harris — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 07:33:52 +0000

Scott, I'm sure you're right in that many users would neither notice nor care about many of the things we rant on about, I would just like Apple to do better. Since you mentioned mockups, there was Rory Prior's Dock.

By: Scott Stevenson

Scott Stevenson — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:04:22 +0000

The point I was getting at is that for a majority of the target audience (mainstream users), the overall feeling of satisfaction may be improved, even given the things you list as drawbacks. I don’t think the average person considers these issues a big deal at all, and are more than compensated for by the sensation of just doing something new and (subjectively) pleasant to look at.

I’m not necessarily saying I agree with all the changes, I just think the dedicated developer community closely scrutinizes things that the average user doesn’t notice or care about. Completely ancedotally, I let my mom play around Leopard and she was thrilled. I specfically asked her about the menu bar and she made no comment about legibility. It’s an isolated case, I realize, but far less biased than most of us. Certainly, only a minority of users will ever notice the fact that all the window looks are unified now.

An alternative where everyone is pleased would be great, of course, but I haven’t seen any examples of anyone offering up their own mockups.