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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

#151

Post by dane-pgp »

henriquez wrote: post #37
breakfastduck wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I think the new UI looks great. People are taking the UI / ARM change as apple taking away more control, but macOS is THE development platform of the entire apple ecosystem. So yeah, the ecosystem may be tighter knitted, but they sure as hell will not lock down macOS like they do iOS, they have so many mac users who are developers and apple are absolutely aware of that. People complain about features in cata…

Apple locks down MacOS more and more with each major release. Some of it seems well justified but the totality of it is concerning to me. Being able to defeat some of it in the console doesn’t change what is an increasingly abusive relationship. I feel like we’re rapidly approaching a point where Apple enforces the same strict control over MacOS that they do over the iOS App Store and they’re softening people up towa…

Cory Doctorow talked about these worries quite eloquently back in his 2011 keynote to the Chaos Computer Congress, titled "The Coming War on General Purpose Computation".

https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-...

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

#152

Post by filleduchaos »

RivieraKid wrote: post #89
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…

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

So download (or provide for download) a .pkg instead of a, you know, Apple Disk Image file

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

#153

Post by mixmastamyk »

type0 wrote: post #99
hactually wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks so much like Gnome that I was honestly surprised. The new header bars and merged controls are almost exact matches... I wonder if they'll contribute anything back upstream

> I wonder if they'll contribute anything back upstream we could only wish that

What would they contribute from that?

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

#154

Post by gowld »

> Throughout macOS 11, windows adopt visual touches that recall iOS interfaces.

Is this an OS or a wine-tasting?

> use an increased corner radius

What was wrong with lower radius? Were Apple designers too ignorant to try larger radious in the past?

> Within an alert, most content is center aligned.

center-aligned paragraph text? It's 90s HTML throwback!

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

#155

Post by AlexandrB »

derefr wrote: post #127
userbinator wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't hinder anyone else Complete BS --- it absolutely slows down those who don't need elephantine UI elements to use a computer.

In this particular case, the new design is just trading element-internal padding for inter-element margin or element-group margin. The total space that each element-group takes up is the same. The only change is that more of the previously "dead space" around each element is now clickable, because it's now considered an internal part of the element. It's a bit like making the UI into a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V…

I don't understand what you're inferring this from. To me it looks like the opposite is happening and dead space around elements is increasing (e.g. see the comparison of finder between 10.16 and 11.0).

Edit: It's also quite clear from the comparisons that the number of elements visible on-screen is decreasing because each element is getting larger and the padding between elements is increasing.

Edit2: Also, the idea that this UI is more accessible is contradicted by the removal of various visual elements that help separate and differentiate UI elements and the loss of contrast in the UI in general. Visual impairments are much more common than Parkinson's and none of these decisions help with that.

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

#156

Post by chipotle_coyote »

SllX wrote: post #138
masswerk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So discoverability is finally replaced by the "Ahhh" paradigm?

That's been the trend for a while, but in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. You had to actively explore the way the UI worked to figure it out, but I can't say I'm a fan of the change either.

> in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users.

That's a good point I hadn't thought of -- I love the proxy icon. I'm glad it's still there, but this kind of feels like Apple is implicitly saying, "Look, for the ten of you who knew what this was, you still do it, but we're just hiding it from everyone else, sorry."

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

#157

Post by dionian »

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…

ive been using Mac OS X since 10.0 betas, I like every time they refine it. And this feels a step in the right direction. Simpler. I suspect everyone will get used to it and cringe at going back to the old one, just like always

as a UI geek these kinds of updates in Mac OS updates are some of my favorite - they impact everything you do in a small but substantial way

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

#159

Post by RivieraKid »

filleduchaos wrote: post #152
RivieraKid wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. WTF? So download (or provide for download) a .pkg instead of a, you know, Apple Disk Image file

If I download a popular app and it shows up as a disk image, it's not really my fault. This is a UX fail. Apple has the power to fix this.

Normal people don't know and don't want to know what are apple disk images and what's the difference between .pkg and .dmg.

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

#160

Post by kop316 »

Insanity wrote: post #78
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 feel exposed :D. I really enjoy using XFCE and run it on all my machines.

I agree. I can run XFCE on a modest set up, and it does what I want.
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