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It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

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Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#301

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

emacdona wrote: post #249
nkrisc wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The audacity to critique Apple's use of icons (which is objectively justified critique, IMO) while having animated snowflakes falling over the text and images on the site is something on an entirely different level. Thank goodness for Firefox reader mode. That animation is so incredibly distracting.

Yeah. I immediately went to the snowflake icon at the top of the page thinking it would turn the animation off. Instead, it changed the background color :-( I can't stand animations while I'm trying to read something, and this one is particularly egregious.

It change the background color AND turns off the animation.

(TBF, it slowly fades the animation out, probably for aesthetic reasons, to avoid a jarring sudden stop. I do agree, though, that a sudden stop would probably be more appropriate in this context)

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#302

Post by necovek »

llm_nerd wrote: post #136
rcarmo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The detail on the animations is, as usual, top notch, including the way snow doesn't just immediately turn off but stops falling slowly. I love it.

Can people actually read it with the snowflakes? The motion draws my eyes and makes it extremely unpleasant trying to read the underlying text. Very poorly thought out decoration. And yes, I did think "this is terrible, there must be a way to change it", clicking the snowflake icon. The colour changed to a new colour but otherwise it didn't seem to change, so I just clicked back. Because, as you noted, the snowflakes…

I did notice it, but had no trouble reading windowed on a large screen (43" 4K screen).

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#303

Post by bradgessler »

bauerd wrote: post #272
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #247

It's hard to justify Liquid Glass in general. The wastefulness of flat design (in terms of space) married with the visual excess of skeuomorphism, but without even providing any affordances (does the sidebar being raised give you any new information on how to use a sidebar? No). If you're a designer at a top 10 S&P 500 company making 6 figures, you owe it to yourself to have some love for your craft. If a PM tells yo…

It’s not how you get promoted though. Plus implementing complex UIs is challenging which engineers like. The incentives are off.

Yeah, software orgs ship their promotion structures.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#304

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

qn9n wrote: post #239
nicoburns wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's UI design started going downhill with the iOS 7 "flat design" release which was very shortly after Steve's death, and seemed to correspond to Ive being given a little too much free rein in the leadership vacuum that followed. Jobs had his own flaws, but he was definitely a huge part of why Apple's UI design (and product design in general) has historically been as good as it has.

Pretty sure iOS 7 was regarded as awful on launch and then a little while later people decided it was amazing and lovely to look at once the kinks were ironed out. People just don't like new things that change what they are used to.

Apple spent the next several years walking lots of the changes back, in particular the thin text and overdone translucency

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#305

Post by chuckadams »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #247

It's hard to justify Liquid Glass in general. The wastefulness of flat design (in terms of space) married with the visual excess of skeuomorphism, but without even providing any affordances (does the sidebar being raised give you any new information on how to use a sidebar? No). If you're a designer at a top 10 S&P 500 company making 6 figures, you owe it to yourself to have some love for your craft. If a PM tells yo…

I rather like the skeuomorphism ... on the buttons anyway. The distortion effect on the glass is simply annoying, and the overall effect on an already-cramped UI like Safari on a phone is just ... ugh. There's now basically three blobs of mystery meat at the bottom of the screen. So if Liquid Glass was made for mobile first, it's an even bigger failure. It's actually more tolerable on desktop, though the double-border effect on things like the control panel stick out pretty badly.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#306

Post by jollyllama »

paulcole wrote: post #91
vehemenz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author addresses this. Humans are the same in 2026 as 1992. Besides, that interface designers or even the average computer user understands more than in 1992 is highly implausible on its face.

Why is it highly implausible on its face other than the fact it makes arguing against him harder?

Why would UX be getting worse across the board if there is greater understanding now?

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#307

Post by JamesSwift »

botanrice wrote: post #300

As a fan of pictograms in general and very much a visual learner, I don't mind Tahoe icons or menu icons in general. By default I look to those first and then the text, it works for me. That said, Apple's Liquid Glass is really poor UI. It works okay on my Macbook but feel like it's basically broken a couple features of my second gen iPhone SE, which is kind of untenable imo. Apple also clearly seems to design for la…

Im also starting to slowly suffer as a fellow iPhone SE enjoyer. Every month another app or website has some UI update that doesnt take the SE screen size into account and is either awkward to use or sometimes impossible because they dont allow scrolling.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#308

Post by layer8 »

duggan wrote: post #45

I thought I was going to disagree with this; on the surface I think the icons are something of an improvement, but the rest of the post is persuasive. This is a bad sign for design at Apple. It suggests a fundamental lack of attention to detail that would have been harder to imagine a few years ago. What's driving it?

Leadership doesn’t understand and/or care anymore.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#310

Post by Surac »

I think all the icon „bloat“ is from the designers that needed to stay relevant. They learned to use pictures instead of text from some professors and wanted to show how much they are worth. The picture for text pattern is valid if you want to replace one or two words in a commercial but not if you have about 200 icons on your page. Also the trend to a flat black and white design makes the icons just to blend together
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