Apple's UI department going insane?
Apple has long been known for devising and popularising good solid computer user interfaces. However there has been an increasing, and worrying trend for Apple to throw conventional UI wisdom out the window to apparently either meet the whims of Steve Jobs or the marketing department. The spread of the brushed metal look like a plague across every flagship Mac application is one example of this. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, for a long time seen as the bible of user interface design, kept contorting and twisting trying to add new reasons as to why brushed metal should be used rather than the standard aqua look. First it was anything that interacted with a digital lifestyle device (in other words excusing all iLife apps), then it was anything with a 'source list', excusing the Finder. At this point it's basically a free-for-all, visual consistency be damned.
That's not to say brushed metal doesn't have its place in the world, iTunes, the DVD player, calculator and other simple applications that are seeking to mimic something from the real world make sense in looking a bit different because they are trying to build on people's familiarity with those devices. But this doesn't excuse applications like the Finder, which has been sorely lacking visually ever since OS X was released. The source list shortcut bar is useful, but is it really any different to what you could do in OS X 10.2 by dragging icons into the toolbar to act as shortcuts? Nope. It's just a Windows XP inspired add-on, and unlike its Windows counterpart it's arguably less useful because it's not context sensitive. Wouldn't it be cool if it displayed some photo editing features (like rotate, crop etc). when you were in your Picture folder? How about the ability to quickly edit an MP3s ID3 tags when you click on a music file in the Finder? This could easily be done through AppleScript and would allow for a whole new class of application development using the Finder as the backbone. But instead we just have a list of shortcut icons that just sit there hoping they might come in handy. Just like those in the dock, and on the Finder toolbar and any shortcuts you might have on your desktop. Sure choice is a good thing, but at what point does it get in the way of adding some useful features for the rest of us?
Anyway my issues with brushed metal aside, OS X 10.4 Tiger is continuing this downward spiral of user interface design. Looking at the new interface in Mail (go check it out), where Apple has done away with the old drawer and introduced a more Outlook-style sidebar, or source list as we now call them. Of course it doesn't look like any other source list in OS X, but at this point we should be used to each Apple application going its own way. The departure of the drawer, and the ability to place it on which ever side of the window one desired, or to hide it completely will no doubt be sorely missed by some. But drawers in and of themselves always looked a bit weird anyway so I'm not entirely sure if I'll mourn them falling from favour in Mail, which I think is probably one of the only Apple applications to actually use one aside from iCal. I decided to drop the drawer in NewsMac Pro as the source list makes it unnecessary now by the way.
One glance at the toolbar and you immediately notice something odd, aside from the new 'unified toolbar look', the icons are now grouped together in graphite aqua blobs (which as you can see by the colour of the window's open/minimise/zoom widgets, is ignoring the user's preferences). If you ask me it looks butt ugly, compared with the current crop of elegant and colour themed icons in Mail. The other oddity is the great big chunk of blank space to the left of the delete icon, hopefully icons will move in to fill this as you add more to the toolbar, but still it looks damn weird. It seems since the introduction of the iMac G5 Apple has developed a desire to show off great big useless empty spaces.
Come on Apple, at this rate Windows users might actually be pointing and laughing at us for how bad our UI looks by the time Longhorn ships sometime this decade.
posted by Rory Prior @ 2:13 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
I'm with you on the toolbar icons in Mail 10.4. They look like tabs! (Which brings up the question, why does Apple.com still use pre-10.3 style tabs at the top?) I like the addition of smart folders, and I won't morn the loss of the drawer that much, but there's a lot of things Apple needs to do to make the OS more consistent. For example, how do I get Finder to remember a window placement? Even better, how do I get Finder to ignore window placement?
As to your suggestion about an XP style toolbar, I must make a humble objection. There's a place for stuff like picture rotators to go, and that's in the preview panel of column view. To be honest, I'd like to see the preview panel exploited better. For example, why do we still have File -> Open dialogue boxes? Why not just have the preview panel list have a selector that let's you choose which App to open a document with. Throw in a check box for "Always use this App" and you're set. Icons should also be changeable through the preview panel, not just the Get Info panel.
To be honest, I sort of like the functionality of source list in Finder (and I definitely use it all the time) but there needs to be an easier way to move up a level when the source list is visible. (I know, Cmd-up, but how intuitive is that to new users?) Besides, the source list would be better if it had shelf functionality, letting you move files and folders with it.
Grr.
Anyhow, the Mac is still better than the competition, but it still has a long way to go…
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The problem with putting tools in the preview column rather than the source list (which I too use extensively) is that the preview column is only visible in column view. If I'm browsing a folder of images I like to use icon view with the icon preview turned on and size cranked up to 128x128 (beats using iPhoto!). I also tend to have the preview column turned off because the Finder locks up for ages when ever I click on a movie file QT can't handle while in column view.
I think they should probably split the source list in two, the top half could have your conventional shortcut list and below that could be context sensitive option that varies depending on the folder you're in.
XP's implementation uses little boxes that move around depending on where you are, it's a bit frustrating because you never quite know what it's going to come up with. I'm sure Apple could take the idea and make it heaps better.
I hadn't though of the fact that the new Mail icons look like the new OS X tabs (changing the way tabs look was more UI madness from Apple and they never gave a rational reason as to why they changed them).
I was look at Keynote 2 and Pages last night and it's strange, these applications are beautiful Aqua citizens, a shining example of how to do a big OS X app right - it just seems to be the OS (and maybe iLife) teams that are loonies.
I think Apple is just not putting the resources and energy into doing it right, and at this point is just shooting at the hip. :(
Tiger is not looking good in this department at all, and Mail actually seems to be better than some of the rest we've seen...
drunkenbatman
I will agree, the UI is not as consistent and usable as it has been in the past. One of the biggest things about the Mac has been the UI consistency ... and that is what I feel is lacking the most. Not so much the 'brushed metal' look ... but the fact it is a different look. I can see it for some small widgets, like calculator, but I never really understood the 'real world devices' idea. And since it has been overused it is just confusing. That being said ... I like the brushed metal interface. I like the fact I don't need to be on the title bar to move the window. I like the unified look. It works really well in many of the apps it is being used for and there are several more I think would look better if it went that way. I just wish things were more consistent.
As for the source list in the Finder under 10.3, this was to solve a complaints with the Finder. Having items in the Finders' toolbar was nice but suffered a major flaw. The icon often was not descriptive enough, same problem we see in the Dock. So, I believe since I don't "know", that it was adjusted to help solve that problem as well as separate the mental models. The toolbar is now for tools, it can still be customized and thus gets used for applications, scripts, etc. The folders are now held elsewhere. In the end, I think it was a good decision.
And as for Mail in 10.4, well, I am not sure what is going on with the toolbars. Going back to the consistency complaint, are all toolbars going this way? I don't mind the groupings, a good idea, but I am concerned with their appearance compared to tabs. However, I would argue that they are not ignoring the users preferences, as you state, since if the groups were coloured it would distract from the icons, possibly conflict. Is the toolbar still customizable? If so then the empty space you mentioned is just the users preference. I also like the drawer. I liked being able to hide it since it is not my main focus or used constantly. I will reserve judgment for now since I have not used the application as of yet.
As a developer, I use the drawer as a document/window specific, non-modal, dialog box, and not as a source list. It is used to present the user with options that do not require immediate action, though should be available at any time without interrupting the main workflow. I am hoping it does not go away, I have yet to play with 10.4 and I am sure that more discussion will result at that time :)
CSB
The point about using brushed metal for things like DVD player and calculator is that it reinforces the metaphor of those applications mimicking their real life counterparts and plays on a user’s familiarity with those devices button layouts etc.
This is in contrast to say iPhoto being brushed metal - that does nothing to reinforce the metaphor of a shoebox stuffed with photos. This is where I think it becomes all about marketing and product differentiation rather than anything useful from the user’s perspective.
I agree drawers definitely have their uses, they are perhaps a bit neater than having utility palettes floating all over the place which is what they were originally designed to replace. However they are not as flexible as free-floating windows/dashboards etc. so there use is more limited.
The source list in the Finder is useful, I use it all the time. But when I have five Finder windows open, does it help me to have five different sets of the same short cuts wasting screen space? Nope. I think making at least part of that source list space available for context sensitive items would be far handier and potentially could do a lot for a person's productivity.
I've not used the version of Mail 2 that's in Apple's video, so like you I don't know exactly how it will behave. But I think it's safe to say it's going to be inconsistent with an awful lot of other apps that are out there right now.
Very long-time Mac developer here, too.
It's funny, but when I saw Mail.app in the latest build of Tiger, I thought it was one of the most beautiful, elegant-looking apps I'd seen in a very long time.
Agreed that there's not the consistency in UI that there was before, but I've always believed that "intuitiveness" was relative to the assumed savvy of the user-base. Meaning that in the beginning, Apple had to provide animations to show you how to use a mouse, but these days, who doesn't know how to use a mouse?
When a company moves as fast as Apple has been doing with an OS release, I'd expect that the ivory-tower UE discussions have fallen by the wayside.
I've viewed the visual inconsistencies as a sort of field-test for different UI motifs.
For example, I wrote the Ofoto Express for Mac uploader for ofoto.com, and we ended up going with the brushed metal look because it provided a better distinction between media content and the app itself.
I suspect that's why iPhoto is brushed metal; I suspect that's why Safari is brushed metal.
I don't necessarily care for brushed metal, but it does provide more of a distinction to the user content than Aqua, and sometimes it just plain works better.
That said, I'm totally loving the neutral-gray texture of Mail.app in Tiger, and that may be a perfect alternative to brushed metal in many cases.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Mail 2 looking visually appealing :) The main issue though isn't whether one theme looks better than another in a given situation, it's whether there should be lots of different themes to begin with. Each application using completely different visual styles just makes the OS look messy regardless of whether you prefer metal or aqua, or the new soft gradient look.
If developers only had the choice of one interface style they would simply have to work around that to provide the desired effect. It might be that an application had a brushed metal background, but otherwise looked like a regular aqua application (normal buttons, toolbar and so on).
Scattershot replies to some points made in the article and comments but here goes.
1) There's not actually any reason that the preview panel couldn't be available in any Finder view instead of restricted to column view, is there?
2) I am of the opinion that there's probably nothing that a drawer can do that can't be done better with a toolbar, palette, inset frame or sheet depending on which one is best suited to the purpose the drawer was foolishly considered for.
3) I too find the source-list in OS X's file-browser useful, but only because unfortunately it has no Finder and because said list is the closest thing we've got so far to a disk-dock.
4) Enough with adding useless universal docks Apple! It's bad enough that 'the Dock' has remained an underpowered launcher since the NeXT days, but then on top of that a single toolbar for every single so-called-Finder window [and no shelf functionality for the Dock or the Toolbar, what the?], and a piece of the menubar just for menulets preferably just for Apple's, the hardwired System-menu masquerading as an Apple menu, the Action menu for the items Apple puts in contextual menus but not for everything that you'd get by opening the CM, Dashboard just for widgets and widgets just for dashboard…What next?
-M
M you've given me an interesting idea, wouldn't it be neat if the dock was scraped and instead we had a universal source list down the side of the screen? As so many apps use source lists it would save each one having to have their own. The list could contain a few items common to all applications and the rest could be set dynamically based on the selected application. I doubt it will happen, but it would be damned cool if done right. You could combine Spotlight too and you'd almost be able to do away with the Finder for most file tasks.
You're absolutely right. This is the second biggest reasones we still use OS 9 (right behind our desire to not have to spend thousands on OSX versions of all our software, most of which don't work as well as the older ones).
We don't need "traffic lights" in our windows, or any of the other eye candy. And (at least partially) because of a consistent interface, we can all sit down at our computers and be WORKING five minutes after starting them up.
C. Goff
Riley communications
Old Saybrook, CT
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