6 ms·

Whilst maybe not strictly accurate, I've always strongly associated Fitt's Law with two things that OSX gets tragically wrong. I really cannot fathom why these

Whilst maybe not strictly accurate, I've always strongly associated Fitt's Law with two things that OSX gets tragically wrong. I really cannot fathom why these bugs (they are, undoubtedly bugs, unless anyone can argue otherwise) persist. 1. Menu items. Pull down the main menu on OSX, and find a menu with a separator - a line between groups of related actions. The separator itself isn't a target - it doesn't lead anywhere - but clicking it dismisses the menu. So, miss your intended target by a few pixels, and frustration ensues. 2. Window edges. This one is a side-effect of OSX's poor support for full-screen windows. Even if you 'maximise' a window, moving your pointer to an extreme edge does, for example, allow you to move the scrollbar, but persists in offering the 'size window' action. So you need to go all the way to one edge, then move ever so slightly back again, which reduces the target area from infinite to very small. Full-screen addresses this, whilst introducing other 'flaws' (like your global menubar no longer being visible).

kisstheblade 11y ago
Also the corners at the bottom do nothing. I never understood why the dock just floats stupidly in the middle, rendering stuff to the left and right of it unusable for anything, especialy the corners of the screen. Form over function, I guess.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  Yes, the dock is terrible - I autohide it to avoid problems. Newer versions (I'm still on 10.9) use a more two-dimensional dock which would be well suited to 'framing' the main window area, at full-width, much as the global menubar does. Then I'd be able to have my ideal setup - dock permanently visible (but probably quite short), and ability to have windows fully maximised, in-between the global menubar and the dock.
- prawn 11y ago
  The corners can be used as hotspots however. For example, bottom right to lock the screen. Not brilliant but not without function. The dock is terrible. I edited a config file to have mine as small as possible and then auto-hide it. Also never use Mission Control or whatever the launcher grid screen is called. Spotlight set only to show apps and client directories does everything I need.
- makecheck 11y ago
  Since there seem to be an increasing number of “menu bar extras” (that are increasingly greedy about taking up space), it seems overdue to turn the Dock into another option for status bars. Those useless Dock corners could be really nice for displaying square widgets that might otherwise want a chunk of the menu bar.
ricardolopes 11y ago
Agree. OTOH there are elements on OSX that play better with Fitt's Law than on other OSs, like the menu bar on top or the customisable hot corners (which I don't think are as common on Windows). So I guess it's difficult to come up with the perfect UI.
- mavhc 11y ago
  My problem with the argument that menu bars should be at the top is when you have to return the pointer to where you are. Thus I prefer only using context type menus for everything, 0 movement of the mouse is infinitely better anyway. And you save screen space.
  - collyw 11y ago
    True, but there are some minimal Linux desktops like that (everything is launched from a right click context menu), and they never feel right. They are certainly the least intuitive to use when you first try them. There is nothing to left click.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Sure but hierarchal text menus are widely regarded as absolutely terrible for usability, if your user is forced to use them often enough to actually justify giving them an infinite target* then you've basically failed in UI design (granted that's not always avoidable there's a reason we still have menus despite their awfulness). *of course due to the wide screen nature of monitors they aren't actually infinite because you'll almost always have significant horizontal velocity by the time your pointer gets there causing you to have to stop and carefully move your mouse just as much as if you had window-attached menus and often further if you've rammed into the corner furthest from your desired menu. The RiscOS/NeXT approach of putting the menus in the context menu is arguably best for acquisition speed although probably worse for discoverability because you have to take an action before you can see even the top-level of the hierarchy.
djaychela 11y ago
I thought it was just me - most (no, All) Mac Users I've mentioned issues like this to have just looked at me like I'm crazy. I've always wanted to like OSX (I'm not deeply technical, but did a lot of playing around with Linux when it wasn't straightforward to install), but always found the UI frustrated me, and whenever I've tried discussing it (particularly as I work in Music Tech) I've just been shut down by Mac-philes. I think that Windows 10 is similar - there are window-edge issues which don't (to me) appear to be present in W7 that make it more frustrating when resizing, etc.
- therein 11y ago
  I agree with you, window management in OSX is really poor UX with insane defaults. BetterSnapTool and alike help, though.
ec109685 11y ago
I don't think the window edges violate fitt's law. To use the scroll bar, you slam your courser to the edge of your screen and then move a known amount over, which are two things that don't involve fine grain hunting. I haven't noticed the menu divider issue. You already have to wait until your menu item is highlighted before clicking, so that is what you focus on. It is an odd choice though.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  There's definitely a connection; see this article [1] by legendary Apple UI designer Bruce Tognazzini. You'll have to scroll down just below halfway (or ctrl-f) to the section titled "Fitts’s law". Looks like Tog hasn't quite understood the UI implications of adding the ID attribute to headings ;-) [1] http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/
matt4077 11y ago
I don't understand No 2? If the right side of a window extends to the edge of the screen, I can slam the cursor right and start dragging up/down for scrolling. It does show the resize left/right cursor, but the scrolling works.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  I'd never realised this before but, somehow, that behaviour appears to be application-specific. Finder scrolls, Sublime Text does nothing, Chrome moves the window. This does not make me any happier.
  - gr3yh47 11y ago
    This issue is rampant in OS X and not just with mouse behavior - many keyboard shortcuts are different depending on what type of app it is... i.e. in some cases the go to the beginning of the line action is bound to 'fn + left arrow' and in some cases is instead bound to 'ctrl + a' Mac OS is about easy entry-level accessibility whereas windows/linux are more suited to power users for this reason. Much, much easier to be a pure/power kb user in windows/linux.
    - js2 11y ago
      This is due to hysterical raisins and has to do with OS X's mixed carbon/cocoa legacy. You can make ctrl-a, e, etc work in almost all proper Cocoa-based apps. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/cocoa-text.html http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/cocoa-text.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/EventOverview/TextDefaultsBindings/TextDefaultsBindings.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/...
- Razengan 11y ago
  Who still scrolls by actually grabbing the scrollbars, and why? They are hidden by default in OS X, and you can just use swipe gestures on trackpad/Magic Mouse or the mouse wheel on other mice to scroll, while the cursor is anywhere over the window..

kisstheblade 11y ago

Also the corners at the bottom do nothing. I never understood why the dock just floats stupidly in the middle, rendering stuff to the left and right of it unusable for anything, especialy the corners of the screen. Form over function, I guess.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
Yes, the dock is terrible - I autohide it to avoid problems. Newer versions (I'm still on 10.9) use a more two-dimensional dock which would be well suited to 'framing' the main window area, at full-width, much as the global menubar does. Then I'd be able to have my ideal setup - dock permanently visible (but probably quite short), and ability to have windows fully maximised, in-between the global menubar and the dock.
prawn 11y ago
The corners can be used as hotspots however. For example, bottom right to lock the screen. Not brilliant but not without function. The dock is terrible. I edited a config file to have mine as small as possible and then auto-hide it. Also never use Mission Control or whatever the launcher grid screen is called. Spotlight set only to show apps and client directories does everything I need.
makecheck 11y ago
Since there seem to be an increasing number of “menu bar extras” (that are increasingly greedy about taking up space), it seems overdue to turn the Dock into another option for status bars. Those useless Dock corners could be really nice for displaying square widgets that might otherwise want a chunk of the menu bar.

ricardolopes 11y ago

Agree. OTOH there are elements on OSX that play better with Fitt's Law than on other OSs, like the menu bar on top or the customisable hot corners (which I don't think are as common on Windows). So I guess it's difficult to come up with the perfect UI.

mavhc 11y ago
My problem with the argument that menu bars should be at the top is when you have to return the pointer to where you are. Thus I prefer only using context type menus for everything, 0 movement of the mouse is infinitely better anyway. And you save screen space.
- collyw 11y ago
  True, but there are some minimal Linux desktops like that (everything is launched from a right click context menu), and they never feel right. They are certainly the least intuitive to use when you first try them. There is nothing to left click.
Avshalom 11y ago
Sure but hierarchal text menus are widely regarded as absolutely terrible for usability, if your user is forced to use them often enough to actually justify giving them an infinite target* then you've basically failed in UI design (granted that's not always avoidable there's a reason we still have menus despite their awfulness). *of course due to the wide screen nature of monitors they aren't actually infinite because you'll almost always have significant horizontal velocity by the time your pointer gets there causing you to have to stop and carefully move your mouse just as much as if you had window-attached menus and often further if you've rammed into the corner furthest from your desired menu. The RiscOS/NeXT approach of putting the menus in the context menu is arguably best for acquisition speed although probably worse for discoverability because you have to take an action before you can see even the top-level of the hierarchy.

djaychela 11y ago

I thought it was just me - most (no, All) Mac Users I've mentioned issues like this to have just looked at me like I'm crazy. I've always wanted to like OSX (I'm not deeply technical, but did a lot of playing around with Linux when it wasn't straightforward to install), but always found the UI frustrated me, and whenever I've tried discussing it (particularly as I work in Music Tech) I've just been shut down by Mac-philes. I think that Windows 10 is similar - there are window-edge issues which don't (to me) appear to be present in W7 that make it more frustrating when resizing, etc.

therein 11y ago
I agree with you, window management in OSX is really poor UX with insane defaults. BetterSnapTool and alike help, though.

ec109685 11y ago

I don't think the window edges violate fitt's law. To use the scroll bar, you slam your courser to the edge of your screen and then move a known amount over, which are two things that don't involve fine grain hunting. I haven't noticed the menu divider issue. You already have to wait until your menu item is highlighted before clicking, so that is what you focus on. It is an odd choice though.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
There's definitely a connection; see this article [1] by legendary Apple UI designer Bruce Tognazzini. You'll have to scroll down just below halfway (or ctrl-f) to the section titled "Fitts’s law". Looks like Tog hasn't quite understood the UI implications of adding the ID attribute to headings ;-) [1] http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/

matt4077 11y ago

I don't understand No 2? If the right side of a window extends to the edge of the screen, I can slam the cursor right and start dragging up/down for scrolling. It does show the resize left/right cursor, but the scrolling works.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
I'd never realised this before but, somehow, that behaviour appears to be application-specific. Finder scrolls, Sublime Text does nothing, Chrome moves the window. This does not make me any happier.
- gr3yh47 11y ago
  This issue is rampant in OS X and not just with mouse behavior - many keyboard shortcuts are different depending on what type of app it is... i.e. in some cases the go to the beginning of the line action is bound to 'fn + left arrow' and in some cases is instead bound to 'ctrl + a' Mac OS is about easy entry-level accessibility whereas windows/linux are more suited to power users for this reason. Much, much easier to be a pure/power kb user in windows/linux.
  - js2 11y ago
    This is due to hysterical raisins and has to do with OS X's mixed carbon/cocoa legacy. You can make ctrl-a, e, etc work in almost all proper Cocoa-based apps. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/cocoa-text.html http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/cocoa-text.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/EventOverview/TextDefaultsBindings/TextDefaultsBindings.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/...
Razengan 11y ago
Who still scrolls by actually grabbing the scrollbars, and why? They are hidden by default in OS X, and you can just use swipe gestures on trackpad/Magic Mouse or the mouse wheel on other mice to scroll, while the cursor is anywhere over the window..