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A had a bit of a chuckle watching this video mentioned elsewhere in the comments: https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=25053106-2187-4cde

• mistersquid 7y ago
  > So around 5:10 he starts to explain why the soft keys they thought to use were such a bad idea, because they would relabel with changing contexts but the user never would read the label again. > That's basically one of the major problems with the TouchBar. The soft keys Atkinson describes are quite a bit different than the UI of the Touch Bar. For many softwares, Touch Bar elements change shape, size, and color as well as text. For example, in QuickTime Player opening a video shows a play button, a timeline/scrubber, and panel for brightness, volume, and Siri. Tapping the brightness button hides all the other elements and expands the brightness button into a slider with a dismissal "x". Tapping the "x" restores the controls to their original state. There is little (no) possibility of touching a button whose text label has changed in this case. Other apps, like Mail, which do have changing text labels are dynamic enough that most (?) users would not be likely to tap a button by mistake due to a changing label. In summary, Touch Bar elements are much more varied than what Atkinson describes with the Lisa prototype. The two don't present comparable usability models, so criticizing the Touch Bar based on how soft keys worked on the Lisa prototype doesn't really make sense.
  • dep_b 7y ago
    The problem with putting keys on the keyboard that radically change depending on context is that you cannot use them from memory just like the other keys. Of course CMD+C doesn't copy when you didn't select anything nor will CMD+W close a tab in a tabless application but when I want to lower the volume on a TouchBarless Mac it's always the same key in the same place while it might exist or not exist depending on the application I'm in. Perhaps in Final Cut Pro I'm not able to lower the volume anymore because there's a video scrubber in the place of that key instead. So I cannot depend on that key anymore.
    • mistersquid 7y ago
      > The problem with putting keys on the keyboard that radically change depending on context is that you cannot use them from memory just like the other keys. Yes, this is one of the tradeoffs the Touch Bar makes in order to have a dynamically changing touch interface. I wouldn't really call it a "problem", though many do in light of the Touch Bar taking the space of function keys. I do miss the function keys, but I also sort of like the Touch Bar in certain circumstances. Anecdotally, I was pretty fed up with my 2017 MacBook Pro (butterfly keyboard) and so made the change to the 16-inch. Apparently, I've gotten so used to the soft "Esc" key that I frequently rest my finger on the 16-inch's physical "Esc" key for a few monents before realizing I actually have to push down to activate it.
      • dep_b 7y ago
        The touchbar should been an extension at bottom of the screen where you would always be able to see it’s state, not of the keyboard.