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What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

developer.apple.com

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Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#81

Post by PostThisTooFast »

dimmke wrote: post #65
mxcrossb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that and the fact that tech website users basically complain about every UI change. Hacker News is full of people who think XFCE is the height of desktop experience. This is fundamentally different than apple’s core fan base who seem to like any change just for the sake of change.

I agree, any change will be frowned upon. It just annoys me that I feel like they're drawing the completely wrong conclusions. Apple was the company that dropped the headphone jack from their phone, shipped a laptop with only USB-C ports etc... they don't shy away from making big controversial decisions if they feel like it's good for them. If Apple was going to do this to MacOS, they'd have already done it. They wou…

I don't see it as a sign of "doom," but rather more regression. It took YEARS for Apple to admit that their keyboards were shit, and they still haven't admitted that the emoji bar on their so-called "pro" computers is an embarrassing and failed gimmick. In fact, they've doubled down on it and now don't offer ANY proper laptop keyboard.

But that's off-topic to some extent; I scanned through this page looking for some good news for developers. Topping my list is support for SVG assets. NOPE. WTF? Android has had this how long? Apple's "@2x", "@3X" bitmaps were amateur-hour to begin with, but a decade later? No vector support?

Come on.

And still no user-definable color schemes. Windows (and Unix GUIs, for that matter) had them for decades, while Apple forced its late-'80s inverse scheme on every user that whole time. The hard-coded "dark" theme is a half-baked, belated admission that staring into a glaring light bulb with black text on its surface all day may not be the best way to work.

This would also have been a great time to abandon the single menu bar, but nope; that poor decision continues to plague Mac users. Really, this should have been canned in the transition to OS X, but now there's even less of an excuse.

I'm sure there will be some good changes, but from this list I'm not encouraged. Getting rid of the distinction between toolbar and app content... WHY? The "flat UI" experiment was a failure. Let's continue to take tasteful steps back toward GUIs that communicate in universal visual terms whenever possible.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#82

Post by dlivingston »

derefr wrote: post #77
jacurtis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. The only real gripe I feel is that excessive padding. It is sort of like scrolling through Dribbble app mockups. The layouts look amazing as a mockup, but when you actually go to make or use the app it isn't as practical as you want. On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. The extra padding jus…

> On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. You do, but not everyone does. Consider the accessibility needs of people with motor-degenerative diseases like Parkinson's or Huntington's. Won't they be better-served by larger click-targets?

That is why Apple provides an accessibility panel in system settings.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#83

Post by mkozlows »

jayd16 wrote: post #66
dimmke wrote: post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

>I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. Why not? I think its a distinct possibility.

I think the "you can run iOS apps on your Mac now" announcement basically guaranteed touchscreen Macs. It might be possible to use many iOS apps with a trackpad, but it's not going to be a pleasant experience.

Put together a touch-friendly new OS UI with the ability to run a zillion apps designed-for-touch in a context where all your competition has touch-enabled devices and it's hard to believe they'd hold out any longer.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#84

Post by derefr »

monadic2 wrote: post #74
1_player wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd pay for a well engineered macOS 11 theme for GNOME. Perhaps when GTK4 is out end of this year with support for blurred transparency shaders. Though I got to say Adwaita improved a lot recently.

I’d pay for a decent macOS keybinding theme for gnome, any price. Who gives a damn about the look, app marketers?

Heck, figure out how to let me use macOS keybindings on Windows and I'll give you a medal. The need to use (non-idiomatic, clumsy) Windows shortcuts on my MBP's keyboard is the reason I don't use Boot Camp.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#85

Post by EamonnMR »

dimmke wrote: post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

I don't care what they do with the UI (unless they fixed it somehow.[1]) The reason I'm always disappointed to see a new version is the breakage that every MacOS update brings, both to developer tools and apps. I have to choose between keeping my various environments functioning and getting the latest MacOS so I can run Jira Desktop.

1) Delete spotlight, Siri and 'look up,' make alt-tab handle multiple windows of the same app, fix searching within folders and also separately fix whole-filesystem search.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#86

Post by rahkiin »

the_other wrote: post #80
rahkiin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am mostly upset about the low contrast. I hope that gets improved before release. And sad about the change in sheets and alerts... I’ll probably get over that.

The contrast changes seem varied. For some features they've increased contrast: "windows" are now white with black-ish icons. You can't get a higher contrast ratio. Other features have received the translucency treatment, and seem to have lower contrast. I'm excited to try it all out, but also unsure how comfortable I'm gonna find it. The large white expanses seem glaringly over-bright to me, at first glance.

The toolbar used to be grey and is now white like the content. And the contrast of text on the translucent items... But overall the style is very consistent.

If it is bright in light mode, it might be nice and dark on dark mode. We’ll find out once people start running the preview

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#87

Post by spideymans »

loughnane wrote: post #24
dimmke wrote: post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

>Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large percentage of people who buy their computers are software engineers.

At the last WWDC, Apple mentioned that of all of the so called "creative professionals" on the Mac, software developers were the largest group. I don't know how large the percentage is exactly, but its clearly significant.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#88

Post by gsich »

derefr wrote: post #77
jacurtis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. The only real gripe I feel is that excessive padding. It is sort of like scrolling through Dribbble app mockups. The layouts look amazing as a mockup, but when you actually go to make or use the app it isn't as practical as you want. On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. The extra padding jus…

> On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. You do, but not everyone does. Consider the accessibility needs of people with motor-degenerative diseases like Parkinson's or Huntington's. Won't they be better-served by larger click-targets?

Just make it customizable. There is no one size fits all.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#89

Post by RivieraKid »

dimmke wrote: post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

Yep, I agree. Hacker News is a very conservative place (in terms of technology and UI changes). I think in general Apple does a phenomenal job at UI design.

That said, the user experience of Mac OS still has plenty of low hanging fruit:

- Window management and app switching could be much better. The "app switching system" I liked the most was in Gnome 2 / MATE - I could just quickly move the cursor to the bottom task bar and scroll. It was so effortless, fast and easy.

- When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. WTF?

- The file manager could be made much better. Again, MATE had (probably still has) the best file manager I've ever used in terms of UX.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#90

Post by spideymans »

rzzzt wrote: post #53
dimmke wrote: post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

It's interesting that this comment makes the same sentiment as the top comment on the CPU announcement thread - contrary to the (perceived) public opinion, things are good, it's going to be great. Can you both be really against the crowd if so many people agree with you? (To be clear, I'm not insinuating anything, just interested in the dynamic.)

People that disagree are usually the loudest when it comes to any issue. Those that agree probably just upvote and move on.
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