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

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

#321

Post by the_other »

masswerk wrote: post #124
SllX wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proxy icon is still there, it seems you have to hover or click to show it though.

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

But most macOS users don't know about the proxy icon either. It was never "discoverable", in the way you suggest, to begin with. The Mac has had "ahhh" paradigm features for YEARS. You could even say that the "wow" of the genie effect and the "ooh" of Aqua were cousins to the "ahhh" paradigm.

I love the proxy icon, too, by the way. But it's always been a badly documented, surprising, quirky feature. I found it by accident, by slipping and dragging a folder onto the menubar. That's not even useful; I didn't understand what I'd done. Eventually, after reading blogs and manuals, I use the proxy icon (and the brilliant Findersave dialog tricks) all the time.

I don't think we gain much by framing the argument around "discoverability" any more. I think it's much more useful to talk in terms of the overall interface paradigm. The proxy icon kind fitted into the "desktop" paradigm - i.e. a scatter of media and tools strewn across a desk. But Apple are moving away from that, and into a new paradigm of "surfaces for interaction". The i-devices have been in that space for years. The "mac" devices are now going there. Both are gonna change again, bit by bit, in the future as humans develop new ways to interact with this weird networked functional data thing they've created, and Apple try to provide novel tooling for novel technology. They do seem to be going faster, and breaking more things, than they did in the 80s and early 90s when they lead the desktop paradigm. They're possibly experimenting with ideas on the wider user base, rather than doing closed door research. A big part of that is due to the wider user base being MUCH more comfortable with computing than before. People with very little "computing" training are contributing daily to the development of digital culture.

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

#322

Post by saagarjha »

vletal wrote: post #277

It's not enough that the windows are getting bulky. The thickness of the frames is _inconsistent_. Look at the screenshots - Some of the windows look like they look now (Safari, Maps, ...) [1] - Settings are skinnier [2] - Finder is bulkier [2] I might be a bit autistic in this hurts my eyes. [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-introduces-maco... [2] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-gui…

Those look fairly consistent to me, especially if you consider how window toolbars used to work pre-Big Sur.

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

#323

Post by otherlandlabs »

shp0ngle wrote: post #276

I don't particularly care about the GUI... most of my time on my Mac is browser (Chrome), terminal, and Electron apps. Even my IDE is just Electron. The new Finder and menus look ugly, but frankly, in the age of Electron everything, the OS UX doesn't matter that much, as every app has its own one, reimplemented in JavaScript and React. Slack still looks like Slack in Big Sur, in Catalina, in Windows 10.

I, for a change, would pay money for MacOS _native_ Slack app.

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

#324

Post by dividedbyzero »

turndown wrote: post #220
_fzslm wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

strong disagree. MacOS and iPadOS will take cues from each other, but they will remain fundamentally different. MacOS for the old-timey folks who want root access and to be able to browse the file system, iPadOS for people who like having all for that abstracted away from them a-la iOS. neither is right or wrong, just caters to different kinds of people who prefer different ways of working.

IMO you vastly overestimate the care Apple has for "old-timey folks who want root access." They will remove your usecase in due time, when they decide to merge the two(MacOS and iPadOS).

Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Right now they don't appear to be moving into that direction – what better opportunity to further lock down things than a big architecture change, when you have to rebuild lots and lots of things anyway, when you're transplanting a whole bunch of iOS features (and even whole iOS apps, it seems) to MacOS?

But instead they explicitly mentioned virtualization support for Linux. There seem to be no additional measures like Gatekeeper and Notarization. The security measures introduced in Catalina have carefully-placed gaps to not break terminal workflows, and unless I'm mistaken they can be disabled. Notarization is a bit of a mixed bag; I get the security benefits, but it does give them quite a lot of control.

I may be totally naive and utterly wrong, but the vibes I get from all of this isn't that Apple is currently pursuing a strategy of forcing MacOS into the iOS mold and turning it into a two-apps-side-by-side, fully locked down, anti-productivity, content consumption and light Excel, iPad-with-permanently-attached-keyboard device.

Rather, they seem so be trying to build a nice and coherent user experience across phone, tablet, laptop/desktop on the UX front that works for a wide audience with little customization, and to find a security compromise between hundreds of millions of (potential) users and organizations who need an ecosystem that keeps them as safe as possible vs. developers, researchers etc. who want their systems to be very open and unrestricted and safeguards to be very lax. I imagine it is kinda hard to build a product that serves both of these well while remaining coherent and fun to use.

With that in mind, I think they did a decent job at this with Catalina and the lastest iOS. Big Sur seems to be a continuation of that; it remains to be seen what it'll actually be like in the beta, but right now, I'm optimistic.

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

#325

Post by bouke »

masswerk wrote: post #93

Two observations regarding the former title bar: * Putting the title (folder name) before the controls introduces a fundamental instability, much like OS X did with the menu bar by placing the named app menu before any other menus. Also, the amount of available space for displaying a longer title/file name seems limited. * It seems, the proxy icon is gone. I can't see which element could bear the functionality in pla…

It was featured in some article on HN before that we used to have "safe areas". Areas where you could grab a window and drag it around, without having to carefully place the cursor or accidentally pressing a button. This is not new in Big Sur, but has been happening for some releases now. Take the Notes.app, it doesn't even have a title bar, just a tool bar. When resizing it to (what I think is) a comfortable size, the toolbar buttons are side-to-side leaving just a few pixels of margin by which you can drag the window. I'm not a fan of this trend, but it seems the way forward for all macOS apps. With this release it is brought to most first-party apps.

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

#326

Post by michaelmrose »

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?

Are we to believe that the UI is designed for people with disabilities or just hoping that this one aspect will make things slightly easier as an unintentional byproduct in between the time they roll it out and some future time when they change it?

Although 930k individuals in the US suffer from Parkinsons given the economic cost including medication, lose of income etc which averages about 24k per individual it seems likely that few of them are enjoying mac laptops even compared to the general population that is 10 times more likely to run windows.

https://www.michaeljfox.org/sites/default/files/media/docume...

Indeed this recent article is replete with references to cheap and budget not retina and style

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2020/jan/23/w...

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

#327

Post by sumedh »

neuronic wrote: post #283
fnord123 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2019 MacBook keyboards are ok. The ones before were worthless. The ones in 2005 had jitter resulting pro keyboards in double key presses rendering them also total garbage.

I am typing on a 2017 MBP keyboard that never broke. While I generally share the criticism it is neither garbage nor worthless. These unnecessary juvenile hyperbolisms are so boring. The keyboards had a higher fault rate and many other issues and Apple has corrected its mistake, albeit 1-2 years too late from a consumer perspective. That's all there is to the story and the only semi-relevant competition to MBPs was S…

> These unnecessary juvenile hyperbolisms are so boring.

If you used the 2016 keyboard, you wont say that.

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

#328

Post by fnord123 »

mft_ wrote: post #292
fnord123 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I eventually threw away my apple keyboards from 2005 so they are literally garbage. Regarding the 2017 keyboards, I'm not even talking about the fault rate. They had no escape key and the key travel was too small so it was like typing on a touch screen.

> and the key travel was too small so it was like typing on a touch screen No, no it's not really. It's all about preference and tolerance. I bought my Mum an 'old' Apple USB keyboard (i.e. similar to the pre-2017 laptop keys) when her PC's existing KB broke, as I liked mine very much. Being a life-long touch-typer, she just couldn't get on with it, because the travel was too little for her. She's now very happy with…

>No, no it's not really.

Then maybe I only used broken ones with no perceptible key travel whatsoever.

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

#329

Post by perryizgr8 »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #229
perryizgr8 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do you want to create new directories at the root level? Why not? It's his system, he should be able to do whatever he likes. On most Linux I can rm -rf / all day long and nobody cares. What's the problem with creating root level directories?

I didn't say there was a problem with it; I just asked what the reason for wanting it was. > On most Linux I can rm -rf / all day long and nobody cares. So let me turn this around: Why do you think a system that doesn't make it difficult to completely destroy it with one command is a bad idea? "It's my system, I should be able to do whatever I like" is an answer, to be sure. (N.B.: in fact, "rm -rf /" won't work with…

Well I make all my directories in C:/ or / just because the paths are shorter to type. That's one reason.

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

#330

Post by bzzzt »

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…

Since you're using the 'abusive relationship' analogy I'd like to point out there are more actors to this beside Apple and you. Most app developers are honest, but there still are lots of 'bad apples' trying to infect your system.

Would you buy a house without any locks since it's convenient? As long as you have the key it's paranoid not to buy Apple because of some restrictions since any PC also has a lot of these (secure boot, DRM etc).

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