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> By which I mean to say, using a Mac or an iPhone is at least 50% about using a Mac or an iPhone, and maybe 50% about doing whatever it is you are trying to do

> By which I mean to say, using a Mac or an iPhone is at least 50% about using a Mac or an iPhone, and maybe 50% about doing whatever it is you are trying to do. Could you elaborate on this? I don't feel that way at all when using any modern OS/device, but maybe I just haven't thought about it in the same way.

jdietrich 11y ago
Apple's focus on minimalist aesthetics have come at the cost of discoverability. Interactions are concealed by gestural input and incomprehensible icons without text labels. This issue is getting worse rather than better, e.g. force touch on the new Macbooks. Using Apple devices requires a great deal of memorisation. For power users this is a relatively minor burden, but it is a serious issue for inexperienced users, or those with problems in cognition or memory. http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-desi...
- Retric 11y ago
  Apple is just using another approach to having power users and novices using the same UI. How many people started by using a mouse for Edit (copy) before using, [Alt] [E]dit (copy), then Ctrl-C all in one step. Yes, you need to memorize Ctrl-C, but that's not a long term issue. The same is true of touch interfaces, you can use them knowing few shortcuts and slowly add more over time. People spend hours a day interacting with a computer in one form or another, they will memorize things. PS: Remember getting annoyed when Microsoft when gaga over the 'ribbon' concept? I bet you don't think about that one much anymore.
  - XorNot 11y ago
    I think about that one constantly, in the v sense that it motivated me to ditch Office as much as possible (I mostly use LibreOffice these days)
    - Retric 11y ago
      Sure, if you avoid a product then you’re going to get stuck in the 'novice user' trap. IMO, the problem with a lot of these designs is they were created by and for frequent users. I remember Photoshop at being incredibly opaque to start, but you can also get used to it surprisingly quickly while regularly learning new things.
      - XorNot 11y ago
        Not sure what you're getting at? The ribbon breaks office for frequent users. Around office 2003 I could have files, fonts, formatting and review all on the same amount of screen real estate as the ribbon. This was invaluable when working on complex documents. Post ribbon all that's forcibly broken up across multiple tabs. Instead I get giant buttons for functions I don't use permanently taking up space, rather the. An efficient array of those I do.
        Retric 11y ago
        You can still create custom ribbons. Screen real estate should be at slightly less premium now, so even if it's slightly worse I don't see that as a big deal. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Customize-the-ribbon-3c610b47-6f0f-4179-83d3-68a254a80ea6 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Customize-the-ribbo...
  - jdietrich 11y ago
    Keyboard shortcuts have good discoverability in most applications, because they're listed alongside the drop-down menu options. If you use Edit->Copy a lot, you can see in the menu that there's a keyboard shortcut. Many of Apple's UI interactions can only be discovered through guesswork or reading the docs. If you open Launchpad often, nothing alerts you to the fact that there's a touchpad gesture for that. Unlabeled icons are rife in iOS and there is no discovery mechanism equivalent to a tooltip.
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      The lack of discoverability extends to OSX's keyboard shortcuts as well. I completely changed how I work after I discovered 'Command Tab' and 'Command ~'
      - christoph 11y ago
        It's amazing how buried some of these are. Nothing tops print screen for me - Cmd + shift + 3 for the whole screen or Cmd + shift + 4 for the selection option...
        fallenhitokiri 11y ago
        My absolute favorite is cmd + shift + 3 - release - space to take a shot of a single window. Maybe it's the release part between 3 buttons and pressing space, but that shortcut is always wired to use for me.
        Kexoth 11y ago
        I didn't knew this one, it's awesome, but it's with 4 instead of 3 :)
      - dingo_bat 11y ago
        To this day, I have not figured out how to switch to another desktop on my Macbook Air using a keyboard shortcut. To be fair, I use it very rarely.
  - johnzabroski 11y ago
    Alan Kay's criticisms are much more damning.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  I think this design handles those criticisms well. The application menu looks great for discoverability, and the context radial includes clear labels.
- taneq 11y ago
  It drives me mad when people talk about touch interfaces as being "intuitive". Once you get past "touch icon to activate" and "touch and drag to scroll", gestures aren't intuitive, they're a secret handshake.
  - qubex 11y ago
    I agre with you and I constantly get hammered for having this same opinion: gestures are inscrutable, difficult to discover, hard to memorise, and just generally an off-putting deviation from the ”touch/click items/icons/runes to do things” metaphor.
- Razengan 11y ago
  The OS X UX has demonstrably more discoverability than any other contemporary OS, and certainly much less "mystery meat" than Windows. The shortcuts are consistent across all Mac apps, are discoverable (and completely modifiable) from System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts, or from Help -> Search in any app. Trackpad and mouse gestures are shown, with videos in fact, in System -> Trackpad and System -> Mouse.
wang_li 11y ago
IMO... When I look at Apple's UI design, a lot of it seems to be about interacting with the device and not interacting with my task. Partly this is due, I think, to the amount and types of integration of apps into the environment (via Cocoa.) And partly, it's the fact that Apple's UIs/APIs aren't as generalized and engineered as Microsoft's -- which is to say, as an end user, you can do what you need to do, but there's generally fewer ways to do it and when you do it's much more defined.

jdietrich 11y ago

Apple's focus on minimalist aesthetics have come at the cost of discoverability. Interactions are concealed by gestural input and incomprehensible icons without text labels. This issue is getting worse rather than better, e.g. force touch on the new Macbooks. Using Apple devices requires a great deal of memorisation. For power users this is a relatively minor burden, but it is a serious issue for inexperienced users, or those with problems in cognition or memory. http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-desi...

Retric 11y ago
Apple is just using another approach to having power users and novices using the same UI. How many people started by using a mouse for Edit (copy) before using, [Alt] [E]dit (copy), then Ctrl-C all in one step. Yes, you need to memorize Ctrl-C, but that's not a long term issue. The same is true of touch interfaces, you can use them knowing few shortcuts and slowly add more over time. People spend hours a day interacting with a computer in one form or another, they will memorize things. PS: Remember getting annoyed when Microsoft when gaga over the 'ribbon' concept? I bet you don't think about that one much anymore.
- XorNot 11y ago
  I think about that one constantly, in the v sense that it motivated me to ditch Office as much as possible (I mostly use LibreOffice these days)
  - Retric 11y ago
    Sure, if you avoid a product then you’re going to get stuck in the 'novice user' trap. IMO, the problem with a lot of these designs is they were created by and for frequent users. I remember Photoshop at being incredibly opaque to start, but you can also get used to it surprisingly quickly while regularly learning new things.
    - XorNot 11y ago
      Not sure what you're getting at? The ribbon breaks office for frequent users. Around office 2003 I could have files, fonts, formatting and review all on the same amount of screen real estate as the ribbon. This was invaluable when working on complex documents. Post ribbon all that's forcibly broken up across multiple tabs. Instead I get giant buttons for functions I don't use permanently taking up space, rather the. An efficient array of those I do.
      - Retric 11y ago
        You can still create custom ribbons. Screen real estate should be at slightly less premium now, so even if it's slightly worse I don't see that as a big deal. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Customize-the-ribbon-3c610b47-6f0f-4179-83d3-68a254a80ea6 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Customize-the-ribbo...
- jdietrich 11y ago
  Keyboard shortcuts have good discoverability in most applications, because they're listed alongside the drop-down menu options. If you use Edit->Copy a lot, you can see in the menu that there's a keyboard shortcut. Many of Apple's UI interactions can only be discovered through guesswork or reading the docs. If you open Launchpad often, nothing alerts you to the fact that there's a touchpad gesture for that. Unlabeled icons are rife in iOS and there is no discovery mechanism equivalent to a tooltip.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    The lack of discoverability extends to OSX's keyboard shortcuts as well. I completely changed how I work after I discovered 'Command Tab' and 'Command ~'
    - christoph 11y ago
      It's amazing how buried some of these are. Nothing tops print screen for me - Cmd + shift + 3 for the whole screen or Cmd + shift + 4 for the selection option...
      - fallenhitokiri 11y ago
        My absolute favorite is cmd + shift + 3 - release - space to take a shot of a single window. Maybe it's the release part between 3 buttons and pressing space, but that shortcut is always wired to use for me.
        Kexoth 11y ago
        I didn't knew this one, it's awesome, but it's with 4 instead of 3 :)
    - dingo_bat 11y ago
      To this day, I have not figured out how to switch to another desktop on my Macbook Air using a keyboard shortcut. To be fair, I use it very rarely.
- johnzabroski 11y ago
  Alan Kay's criticisms are much more damning.
jon-wood 11y ago
I think this design handles those criticisms well. The application menu looks great for discoverability, and the context radial includes clear labels.
taneq 11y ago
It drives me mad when people talk about touch interfaces as being "intuitive". Once you get past "touch icon to activate" and "touch and drag to scroll", gestures aren't intuitive, they're a secret handshake.
- qubex 11y ago
  I agre with you and I constantly get hammered for having this same opinion: gestures are inscrutable, difficult to discover, hard to memorise, and just generally an off-putting deviation from the ”touch/click items/icons/runes to do things” metaphor.
Razengan 11y ago
The OS X UX has demonstrably more discoverability than any other contemporary OS, and certainly much less "mystery meat" than Windows. The shortcuts are consistent across all Mac apps, are discoverable (and completely modifiable) from System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts, or from Help -> Search in any app. Trackpad and mouse gestures are shown, with videos in fact, in System -> Trackpad and System -> Mouse.

wang_li 11y ago

IMO... When I look at Apple's UI design, a lot of it seems to be about interacting with the device and not interacting with my task. Partly this is due, I think, to the amount and types of integration of apps into the environment (via Cocoa.) And partly, it's the fact that Apple's UIs/APIs aren't as generalized and engineered as Microsoft's -- which is to say, as an end user, you can do what you need to do, but there's generally fewer ways to do it and when you do it's much more defined.