21 ms·

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

408 points by tomduncalf 6y ago

zeristor 6y ago
Wait macOS 11, not 10.16. I assume this is a breaking change then?
- ihuman 6y ago
  I think it's because Big Sur is the first version that supports ARM.
- samename 6y ago
  Technically yes, but Rosetta 2 is supposed to allow most apps to continue working fine until their developers upgrade them.
- paulirwin 6y ago
  macOS in its history has not really followed semantic versioning. 10.6 dropped support for running on PowerPC CPUs, and 10.7 dropped support for running PowerPC apps with Rosetta. 10.15 dropped support for 32-bit apps. Those were pretty significant breaking changes.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  This is macOS. Every major and some minor versions are breaking, especially from an enterprise point of view :)
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Apple's version numbers are decided by marketing, not any technical API versioning reasons.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- croddin 6y ago
  It could be they are moving to the major version number being the one that is now incremented in each major release, in line with iPadOS and all the apple OSs. Eg. it will be iPadOS 14, not 10.14.
- kristofferR 6y ago
  Pretty fitting, since Steve Jobs said OS X would last 20 years, which is exactly this year.
  - peterkos 6y ago
    I was re-watching that old keynote and its great when things like this line up. I like that this time they lined up design changes + hardware -- and that this time hardware was the reason to bump the version. Like, we saw Intel transition in 10.3-ish, no more Rosetta in 10.7, entirely new design + Swift in 10.10, Catalyst and SwiftUI (brand new frameworks) in 10.15, but new design + ARM was the push for 11. I like this trend of hardware being the "major" version bump but now I'm curious what kinda space-age paradigm macOS 12 will be breaking. "real" 3D touch? Brain-computer interfaces? I can dream, okay?!
    - DragoCubed 6y ago
      >"real" 3D touch? anyone else remember tactus technology?
- deathanatos 6y ago
  They're giving up TenVer[1]… wow. Must have become too mainstream. [1]: http://tenver.drone-ver.org/ http://tenver.drone-ver.org/
- Phrodo_00 6y ago
  Good job spotting this. I guess this is why they officially moved away from the OSX name.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Going from Intel to ARM is potentially a breaking change, so if you're going to rev the 'major' version number there's probably no better time.
- snazz 6y ago
  It still says 10.16 in Software Update if you download the beta today.
- SllX 6y ago
  Less breaking than going from 10.14 to 10.15, but they did drop support for my laptop (although I think the usual pattern is another year or two of security updates, so I guess I'll see when I'm replacing it).
  - athriren 6y ago
    The transition from PowerPC to Intel occurred at 10.4.4. Think this is probably an homage to Jobs (who famously said that OS X would last two decades).
bjelkeman-again 6y ago
More transparent, low contrast menus, and not much colour to help you navigate. I must be getting old. What accessibility features do one use to make the UI clearer without becoming butt-ugly to look at?
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  I’m sure the usual reduce transparency and increase contrast options will still be there.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    Yes, but color is such a helpful distinguishing feature that contrast can never make up for it disappearing. I can squint until I can’t distinguish any of the symbols and still tell which is which when they are colored.
    - avree 6y ago
      Which menus generally have color as an element in Mac OS today that don't in the new Mac OS? Serious question—I can't find one.
      - justwalt 6y ago
        Looks like the mail preferences window is one such example, as seen in the before/after in the middle of the page.
      - wpm 6y ago
        https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... Command/Ctrl + F for: "align different subsets of toolbar items" The pictures above the paragraph that phrase appears in exemplify the problem perfectly. One certainly looks nicer, being all uniform and monochrome, but the other provides visual feedback that is far quicker to parse than text or hieroglyphics. I have to explain to my 70 year old aunt why I won't be updating her Macbook to Big Sur, because she'll never be able to cope with this change. Yeah, she's 70 and not that great at all this, but that's exactly who this interface should be for. We can bitch and moan but we'll deal, because we have to. At 70 years old you just want your fucking email to work and you want to know what buttons to click on. Apple decided to add depth to the glyphs on the Dock, but no where else apparently. I'm so fucking tired of this flat monochrome bullshit.
dang 6y ago
The previous, and still ongoing, thread about this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852. I'm not sure whether to merge the threads or let this one start fresh (another comment about this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260).
- tomduncalf 6y ago
  I think they are slightly different as this one is focussed purely on the UI/UX differences whereas the other is a more general “what’s new” in terms of features etc. Happy for you to do what you think best of course!
bitL 6y ago
It looks like iPadOS, so instead of adding more functions to iDevices, it seems like we'll be seeing more "dumbization" for macDevices :-(
- type0 6y ago
  But now you have custom emojis, be happy!
- samcat116 6y ago
  Genuine question: Have they removed any features that make it less functional? There seems to be this belief that if it looks closer to iOS or iPadOS, then its “dumber” since in the past those product lines have been less capable than the Mac.
  - cpcallen 6y ago
    Every time I get an update (iTunes, iMovie, and now macOS and Finder) they make the minimum size of icons / thumbnails / UI elements larger, making it impossible to see as many on the screen at a time. Would you accept your code editor doubling the font size, making it possible to see only half as many lines of code? Being able to see content is a feature. Every new update brings more uniform, less visually distinctive buttons. When we went from black and white silhouettes of the original Macintosh System to colourful, pictographic icons of the Mac OS 9 era it was obviously an improvement in usability. Now we're back to monochrome silhouettes again. Being able to find UI elements quickly is a feature.
  - gshdg 6y ago
    They removed a bunch of power user functionality (ex: displaying recipient email addresses instead of names) from the Mail app in Catalina when they unified its codebases. Yes, this is going to be an issue.
0xDEEPFAC 6y ago
It seems like these new Macs might as well be phone with a keyboard in the way they treat their software and "pro" consumers taking away options when screen real-estate exists to empower the mouse user. Wake me up when they use less glue to hold their computers together : (
- qu1mby 6y ago
  I think you’re right - by leveraging everyone who has now learned to create apps for iPhone and suddenly empowering them to create for Mac, too, we’re going to see a flood of underwhelming iPhone apps on desktop. But that’s exactly the catalyst you need to motivate the more capable of that bunch to cut through the noise with powerful applications specifically tailored to desktop — and a very healthy App Store for desktop begins to emerge (just like the one we have for iPhone now). But faster, because now there are so many people who suddenly know how to create for Mac.
  - rahkiin 6y ago
    One must not forget that AppKit is pretty awful compared to UIKit. It is much easier to accomplish things with UIKit. SwiftUI helps though and will end up being the way of making cross platform apps
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      > AppKit is pretty awful compared to UIKit Well…
yssrn 6y ago
Virtually all of these changes reduce contrast and differentiation between controls while simultaneously decreasing information density. All bad news for people who work on their computers for a living.
- thewisenerd 6y ago
  i've had "increase contrast" (and implicitly "reduce transparency") enabled since whenever I started using macOS. I really hope those accessibility options work well to reduce whatever changes they're trying to bring about. on the same note; the"decreasing information density" I don't think would be a problem if you're switching between the "terminal/IDE/browser/excel". the "table views" still seem fairly "compact" so..? /shrug
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dijit 6y ago
  I like borders on my buttons to know what is a button and what isn't, this feels.. backwards... So much has to be inferred from the way things used to be, makes it harder to argue that it's the "simpler" operating system designed for Humans with a keen eye on UX design.. FWIW I also think the flat UI on iPhone (which has been prevelant for >6y now) is a horror show. Steve Jobs famously once said (while working at NeXt): "There are two kinds of people at Apple: Those that want to push computing forward, and those that want to be the Sony of computers.. and the Sony guys are winning"
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    How on earth is moving to a the ARM architecture not pushing computing forward? macOS moving to ARM is the biggest leap for developers in recent years - Amazon are also developing their own ARM chips and cloud services running linux ARM is the future. Having a mac with a unix-like terminal environment & support to run linux arm natively when devloping for those services is a huge deal.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
welearnednothng 6y ago
The title is misleading as it implies everything new in macOS, when the linked page is limited to human interface guidelines. Perhaps this should be retitled something like "What's new in MacOS Big Sur (UX|HIG|Human Interace Guidelines)"?
- dang 6y ago
  Good point. We've narrowed the scope in the title above. Thanks!
dimmke 6y ago
I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional changes in the OS aside from reworking the notification center UI a little- and I like this new version more. It's already been confirmed that they aren't locking down apps to the app store or anything like that. It seems like people think that because they're taking design cues from iOS they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're transferring that fear into dislike of the new UI itself. Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers and if they ever do fully lock their computers down in that way they'd be ceding that marketshare entirely, along with catching quite a bit of heat for it in the press. Maybe eventually that calculus is worth it to them but I don't think that's what this is a step towards. I think they just want users who are fully plugged into their ecosystem to feel like it's a cohesive experience across platforms and this achieves that.
- loughnane 6y ago
  >Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large percentage of people who buy their computers are software engineers.
  - hyperpape 6y ago
    Looks like they've been selling around 18 million macs a year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma...). If you ignore individuals having multiple computers, and assume the average lifetime of a machine is 5 years, you get 90 million people with a Mac. I don't know how many developers there are, but saw 20-25 million in some estimates.
    - 6y ago
Macha 6y ago
The integration of tall title bars with toolbars is really reminding me of Gnome 3 here.
- Phrodo_00 6y ago
  Yep, getting real gnome 3 vibes from it. Compare their mailing app image to geary[1]. Even though they're browner I kind of prefer gnome's toolbar because they're more obviously interactive. I guess it's not such a big problem is you use iOS maybe, but I don't. https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary
  - snuxoll 6y ago
    For all the flak that the GtkHeaderBar control got - at least a button looks like a button in the standard Adwaita theme.
- hactually 6y ago
  It looks so much like Gnome that I was honestly surprised. The new header bars and merged controls are almost exact matches... I wonder if they'll contribute anything back upstream
  - type0 6y ago
    > I wonder if they'll contribute anything back upstream we could only wish that
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      What would they contribute from that?
- 1_player 6y ago
  I'd pay for a well engineered macOS 11 theme for GNOME. Perhaps when GTK4 is out end of this year with support for blurred transparency shaders. Though I got to say Adwaita improved a lot recently.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
config_yml 6y ago
Loss of affordance, density and contrast. Why do designers hate these 3 things? It's pretty, yes.
- masswerk 6y ago
  You just shouldn't abuse your interface by using it. ;-) (Interfaces are to be printed out and to be discussed while looking at them mounted onto presentation boards. This is their primary purpose nowadays. – API's have still a way to go in order to catch up. E.g., we're still using calls like "Performance.measure()", where it really should be low contrast "Pink.mint()", which is also much prettier in a printed list of calls.)
- gowld 6y ago
  Apple's original human interface designer says that Apple has "razor-sharp focus on a user many of us often fail to even consider: The potential user, the buyer", ignoring the needs of people who already paid their money. https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/ https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/
  - m463 6y ago
    Sometimes you date an attractive person and you are spellbound. It's only later that you realize.
  - krolley 6y ago
    Eh, at my company we also sometimes build "pre-sales features" like chart animations that look pretty during a client demo, but don't add much in the way of usability.
  - fnordsensei 6y ago
    It seems short-sighted to ignore the person who has used a product or service, loved it and keeps loving it, and will persistently recommend it to others during its lifetime. It's hard to think of a better marketing channel when it works at scale. If that's the way they are thinking about "the potential user," all they're saying is "we'd prefer to do our marketing ourselves, please; don't go around recommending our products."
IMTDb 6y ago
> But what should we call it ? Well, if you're a student of MacOS, you know this question can only be answered by Apple crack marketing team. Their drug fueled minibus driven quests have yielded some great names. [...] We can’t responsibly continue to inadvertently lead our competition to copy these methods when they clearly can’t handle the trip Was that guy actually on acid when he introduced the name ? This was so out of place compared to the usual Apple tone. At least I had a good laugh
- Frajedo 6y ago
  He's been doing similar jokes about MacOS names since a couple of years :)
- jefftk 6y ago
  That text seems not to be there now?
  - sapsan 6y ago
    I think the quote is from the keynote itself. Here's the timestamp: https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4250 https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4250.
    - laser 6y ago
      For some reason the CC is out of sync, it's couple minutes earlier https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4122 https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4122
- ryanjm33 6y ago
  Go back and watch previous intros. :) Fun bit of Apple history.
sergiotapia 6y ago
Are we going back to skeuomorphic, please god yes! I've been so saturated of flatness, it's boring!
627467 6y ago
For a second i thought I was looking at a Windows 10 mail app screenshot... https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/images/windows-views_2x.png https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
monadic2 6y ago
Lmk when they enforce these guidelines for their own apps
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
For what it’s worth... My 2013 MacBook Pro Retina Finally bucked the kicket, so I’m waiting for the new ARM based range with the new OS before I make any decision.
masswerk 6y ago
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 place. The title is already editable, making it dragable as well might be too much. Is this the beginning of the end of the drag-and-drop paradigm? (Notably, it doesn't suit touch interfaces well. Many aspects of these changes seem to prepare "touchability".)
- bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
  Apple made a pretty big to-do about adding drag and drop to iPadOS. I don’t see drag and drop going anywhere.
- SllX 6y ago
  The proxy icon is still there, it seems you have to hover or click to show it though.
  - masswerk 6y ago
    So discoverability is finally replaced by the "Ahhh" paradigm?
    - SllX 6y ago
      That's been the trend for a while, but in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. You had to actively explore the way the UI worked to figure it out, but I can't say I'm a fan of the change either.
      - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
        > in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. That's a good point I hadn't thought of -- I love the proxy icon. I'm glad it's still there, but this kind of feels like Apple is implicitly saying, "Look, for the ten of you who knew what this was, you still do it, but we're just hiding it from everyone else, sorry."
SirLotsaLocks 6y ago
It's beautiful, I love the blur effect and the colors and the rounding it's all gorgeous.
- josteink 6y ago
  Windows 7 really nailed this about 10 years ago now. But design is all fads, so sadly it wasn’t allowed to last.
angel_j 6y ago
Holy shit, it only took almost 40 years of personal computing for "human interface guidelines" to stick. I have begun believing boomers who tell me how much Microsoft fucked their business, by forcing them to use shitty software.
arexxbifs 6y ago
Well, if it isn't my old favorites: low contrast, no affordances, junk in the title bars and so little difference between active and inactive windows it's nigh impossible to spot. I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't that every sucker and his dog will take this as definitive proof that all the bad UI fads of late are actually good.
qppo 6y ago
I can't read the faded items in the drop down menu as displayed with that background image.
dividedbyzero 6y ago
For the last few versions of iOS, MacOS has felt somewhat old-fashioned, lacking things I've grown to really appreciate on my phone and iPad like the Control Center. I'm glad that is now coming to MacOS. This feels like a much-needed facelift. I'm glad is isn't a polished XFCE, there are a lot of options for people who like this sort of thing already, just run Linux. In its current state, Linux on the desktop is definitely not for me, but then, I like the touchbar (as a software engineer, even), I like their new keyboard better than the pre-USB-C one (the butterfly one was terrible though), I'm fine with four TB3/USB-C ports, I don't miss MagSafe much. I like not having to bother with a myriad settings, because the defaults are usually just fine and most things can't be fine-tuned anyway. Big Sur seems to be a really interesting spin on a desktop iOS that embraces and extends the security and UX concepts from iOS, but for keyboard/mouse and without being so locked-down and constrained. From what they've shown so far, I like it. Now please have iPadOS become more like MacOS – that would be terriffic.
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  I expect that MacOS 11.2 will be iPadOS.
  - _fzslm 6y ago
    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.
    - ziftface 6y ago
      There's also the fact that macOS's UI isn't touch-based, which is a distinction that apple follows religiously. As long as they keep that distinction, there will always be a need for both UIs.
      - 6y ago
MintelIE 6y ago
Oh my gosh I wish they'd have stopped with Rhapsody, to tell you the truth. Constantly redoing the UI while leaving basic functionality at a very bare level is really not doing it for me any more. Apple has moved against power users several times in the past in more aggressive terms but always having a fresh look in the UI is just a pointless exercise. Consistency is much more important especially when reaching the phone- and tablet-raised crop of people who don't really know how a computer works nor do they care. Same with many people, they simply need a computer for their various duties. A more tech-oriented person will never have problems adapting to even radically different UI paradigms and degrees of chrome but less techy people will. Add more functionality to the OS, fix the ancient packages, do SOMETHING for the more advanced users, Apple. Please?
gowld 6y ago
> Throughout macOS 11, windows adopt visual touches that recall iOS interfaces. Is this an OS or a wine-tasting? > use an increased corner radius What was wrong with lower radius? Were Apple designers too ignorant to try larger radious in the past? > Within an alert, most content is center aligned. center-aligned paragraph text? It's 90s HTML throwback!
ggregoire 6y ago
This is such a great UI guidelines document. This should be taken as a reference by every design and frontend teams.
tomc1985 6y ago
Why such fascination with rounded corners?
- peterkos 6y ago
  I think it reflects the hardware design language from the iPad and iPhone (and Mac honestly) across the whole software stack now. Although that doesn't stop me from not liking it :p
- cxr 6y ago
  https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...
abolishme 6y ago
Didn't see anyone mention this, but one of the main reasons for making macOS look more like iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS is because at some point we will be able to run apps written for the other systems natively in macOS. Seems like an obvious move, why is everyone so surprised? It just means less duplicated interface code for multiplatform products.
- gshdg 6y ago
  Which isn’t necessarily a good thing. They totally butchered the Mac Mail.app by shifting it to iOS UI paradigms. It used to be great; now it’s barely usable. Now they’re just making it easier to do the same and dumb down all the other apps out there for desktop users by replacing them with dumbed down iOS versions.
satya71 6y ago
I guess Microsoft is doing design better than Apple now? I mean similar HIG was introduced in Windows 10 in what 2015?
GiorgioG 6y ago
Can't wait for the 'tech support' calls from my older parents / relatives because of all the changes...
kgin 6y ago
The full length top-to-bottom sidebar is a big improvement on MacOS and IPadOS. The full with titlebar was never optimal for wide screens.
ghettoimp 6y ago
I really wish there were consistent title-bars. Windows 95 nailed this. It's really nice to immediately know where to click to move something out of your way.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  There is so much that Windows 95 got right that the snoots coming out of design college with funny haircuts have been trying their darnedest to get wrong.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    Much of it was built on the foundation that was CUA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access#Descrip...
harshil91 6y ago
My 2015 mbp can finally stop notifying me of software updates.
29athrowaway 6y ago
I guess this will piss off a lot of people.
kmckiern 6y ago
<3
noway421 6y ago
Skeuomorphism here we go again
rado 6y ago
It seemed one of my favorite features – the draggable document icon next to the window title – was removed, but it appears on hover. Phew.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
golemiprague 6y ago
I don't care, I only got some apps opened and i switch between the screens, what do i care how an icon looks like or other OS stuff, I don't even see it or know how it looks
phs318u 6y ago
Too late, don't care. I no longer trust Apple with my work. Ask me how many times I've re-installed macOS Catalina on my mid-2013 MBA since it came out? Ask me how many times I've had to restore my MBA to an earlier TimeMachine snapshot (local thank god) because the Apple Mail app shat itself unrecoverably while copying several thousand emails from one mailbox to another. Ask me how many more stories like that I've got. And to think, I'm an IT professional with 35 years in the industry and been an Apple user since 2004, having had a deep knowledge of many an operating system (including flirting with Linux in between Windows 2K and iMac (I'm aware one's an OS and the other's HW). The marriage is over Apple. We're headed for divorce and no promises you make now will convince me to stay. I'm leaving. In reality, it's been over for awhile, but of course, having invested so many years in this relationship, it's been hard to make the mental leap needed to let go. Well - now I'm there. While I'm sure your new hardware will indeed be magical with industry leading battery life and performance, that performance is only as good as the OS that runs on it. Who cares if you get an extra 6 hours battery life, when I have to restore from TM yet again and walk away overnight while 200+GB of storage gets re-installed? I loved you, and will think of you fondly from a distance. All the best.
shp0ngle 6y ago
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.
- otherlandlabs 6y ago
  I, for a change, would pay money for MacOS _native_ Slack app.
  - TacticalTable 6y ago
    Perhaps the Ipad Slack app running as native? I think we're going to see Catalyst improve the MacOS experience greatly.
    - shp0ngle 6y ago
      Have you tried the JIRA native app, ported from iOS? It's horrible. It's fast, unlike the web app, but otherwise horrible
vletal 6y ago
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-macos-big-sur-with-a-beautiful-new-design/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-introduces-maco... [2] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/#app-accent-colors https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Those look fairly consistent to me, especially if you consider how window toolbars used to work pre-Big Sur.
blunte 6y ago
Larger rounded corners, taller toolbars, and more padding within sections all further reduce the amount of actual content you can display. If you look at most of the before/after screenshots, there's clearly less information delivered within the same amount of screen space. That's nice for a touch interface perhaps, but it's counterproductive for a computer. And making toolbar buttons all monochrome outlines does make toolbars have a more consistent appearance, but that actually makes finding the button you need more difficult. The differences are what we notice, and later what our brains automatically key on when we need to actually use the interface. Less than half of these changes are arguably worth having. The rest seem like marketing saying, "We need to be fresher, guys!" Using a new interface can be fun because of the change, but that fun quickly wears off. Then we're left with the realities of the interface. That Finder window is going to be much less useful in the real world with real file/folder names that are longer than 12 characters wide. This is a UI for casual users. It might be good for grandma, but it's less good for people who need to get work done.
cpcallen 6y ago
I think the reduction in usable space for content is so egregious that I am quite sure I will not be upgrading—ever. Too bad: I was looking forward to ARM.
jwr 6y ago
It's a pity that most of this is about the visual, rather than the functional. The first Mac OS guidelines were as much about form as about function, with the latter being more important. Modern-day Apple is focused on form, neglecting function.
gshdg 6y ago
The HIG used to be all about how each guideline contributed to usability. I don’t see even the slightest nod to usability in this document. That’s telling.
raj_khare 6y ago
Design consistency is great. But imo, it’s too friendly and too many colors

408 points by tomduncalf 6y ago

zeristor 6y ago

Wait macOS 11, not 10.16. I assume this is a breaking change then?

ihuman 6y ago
I think it's because Big Sur is the first version that supports ARM.
samename 6y ago
Technically yes, but Rosetta 2 is supposed to allow most apps to continue working fine until their developers upgrade them.
paulirwin 6y ago
macOS in its history has not really followed semantic versioning. 10.6 dropped support for running on PowerPC CPUs, and 10.7 dropped support for running PowerPC apps with Rosetta. 10.15 dropped support for 32-bit apps. Those were pretty significant breaking changes.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
This is macOS. Every major and some minor versions are breaking, especially from an enterprise point of view :)
saagarjha 6y ago
Apple's version numbers are decided by marketing, not any technical API versioning reasons.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
croddin 6y ago
It could be they are moving to the major version number being the one that is now incremented in each major release, in line with iPadOS and all the apple OSs. Eg. it will be iPadOS 14, not 10.14.
kristofferR 6y ago
Pretty fitting, since Steve Jobs said OS X would last 20 years, which is exactly this year.
- peterkos 6y ago
  I was re-watching that old keynote and its great when things like this line up. I like that this time they lined up design changes + hardware -- and that this time hardware was the reason to bump the version. Like, we saw Intel transition in 10.3-ish, no more Rosetta in 10.7, entirely new design + Swift in 10.10, Catalyst and SwiftUI (brand new frameworks) in 10.15, but new design + ARM was the push for 11. I like this trend of hardware being the "major" version bump but now I'm curious what kinda space-age paradigm macOS 12 will be breaking. "real" 3D touch? Brain-computer interfaces? I can dream, okay?!
  - DragoCubed 6y ago
    >"real" 3D touch? anyone else remember tactus technology?
deathanatos 6y ago
They're giving up TenVer[1]… wow. Must have become too mainstream. [1]: http://tenver.drone-ver.org/ http://tenver.drone-ver.org/
Phrodo_00 6y ago
Good job spotting this. I guess this is why they officially moved away from the OSX name.
throw0101a 6y ago
Going from Intel to ARM is potentially a breaking change, so if you're going to rev the 'major' version number there's probably no better time.
snazz 6y ago
It still says 10.16 in Software Update if you download the beta today.
SllX 6y ago
Less breaking than going from 10.14 to 10.15, but they did drop support for my laptop (although I think the usual pattern is another year or two of security updates, so I guess I'll see when I'm replacing it).
- athriren 6y ago
  The transition from PowerPC to Intel occurred at 10.4.4. Think this is probably an homage to Jobs (who famously said that OS X would last two decades).

bjelkeman-again 6y ago

More transparent, low contrast menus, and not much colour to help you navigate. I must be getting old. What accessibility features do one use to make the UI clearer without becoming butt-ugly to look at?

Synaesthesia 6y ago
I’m sure the usual reduce transparency and increase contrast options will still be there.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Yes, but color is such a helpful distinguishing feature that contrast can never make up for it disappearing. I can squint until I can’t distinguish any of the symbols and still tell which is which when they are colored.
  - avree 6y ago
    Which menus generally have color as an element in Mac OS today that don't in the new Mac OS? Serious question—I can't find one.
    - justwalt 6y ago
      Looks like the mail preferences window is one such example, as seen in the before/after in the middle of the page.
    - wpm 6y ago
      https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... Command/Ctrl + F for: "align different subsets of toolbar items" The pictures above the paragraph that phrase appears in exemplify the problem perfectly. One certainly looks nicer, being all uniform and monochrome, but the other provides visual feedback that is far quicker to parse than text or hieroglyphics. I have to explain to my 70 year old aunt why I won't be updating her Macbook to Big Sur, because she'll never be able to cope with this change. Yeah, she's 70 and not that great at all this, but that's exactly who this interface should be for. We can bitch and moan but we'll deal, because we have to. At 70 years old you just want your fucking email to work and you want to know what buttons to click on. Apple decided to add depth to the glyphs on the Dock, but no where else apparently. I'm so fucking tired of this flat monochrome bullshit.

dang 6y ago

The previous, and still ongoing, thread about this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852. I'm not sure whether to merge the threads or let this one start fresh (another comment about this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260).

tomduncalf 6y ago
I think they are slightly different as this one is focussed purely on the UI/UX differences whereas the other is a more general “what’s new” in terms of features etc. Happy for you to do what you think best of course!

bitL 6y ago

It looks like iPadOS, so instead of adding more functions to iDevices, it seems like we'll be seeing more "dumbization" for macDevices :-(

type0 6y ago
But now you have custom emojis, be happy!
samcat116 6y ago
Genuine question: Have they removed any features that make it less functional? There seems to be this belief that if it looks closer to iOS or iPadOS, then its “dumber” since in the past those product lines have been less capable than the Mac.
- cpcallen 6y ago
  Every time I get an update (iTunes, iMovie, and now macOS and Finder) they make the minimum size of icons / thumbnails / UI elements larger, making it impossible to see as many on the screen at a time. Would you accept your code editor doubling the font size, making it possible to see only half as many lines of code? Being able to see content is a feature. Every new update brings more uniform, less visually distinctive buttons. When we went from black and white silhouettes of the original Macintosh System to colourful, pictographic icons of the Mac OS 9 era it was obviously an improvement in usability. Now we're back to monochrome silhouettes again. Being able to find UI elements quickly is a feature.
- gshdg 6y ago
  They removed a bunch of power user functionality (ex: displaying recipient email addresses instead of names) from the Mail app in Catalina when they unified its codebases. Yes, this is going to be an issue.

0xDEEPFAC 6y ago

It seems like these new Macs might as well be phone with a keyboard in the way they treat their software and "pro" consumers taking away options when screen real-estate exists to empower the mouse user. Wake me up when they use less glue to hold their computers together : (

qu1mby 6y ago
I think you’re right - by leveraging everyone who has now learned to create apps for iPhone and suddenly empowering them to create for Mac, too, we’re going to see a flood of underwhelming iPhone apps on desktop. But that’s exactly the catalyst you need to motivate the more capable of that bunch to cut through the noise with powerful applications specifically tailored to desktop — and a very healthy App Store for desktop begins to emerge (just like the one we have for iPhone now). But faster, because now there are so many people who suddenly know how to create for Mac.
- rahkiin 6y ago
  One must not forget that AppKit is pretty awful compared to UIKit. It is much easier to accomplish things with UIKit. SwiftUI helps though and will end up being the way of making cross platform apps
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > AppKit is pretty awful compared to UIKit Well…

yssrn 6y ago

Virtually all of these changes reduce contrast and differentiation between controls while simultaneously decreasing information density. All bad news for people who work on their computers for a living.

thewisenerd 6y ago
i've had "increase contrast" (and implicitly "reduce transparency") enabled since whenever I started using macOS. I really hope those accessibility options work well to reduce whatever changes they're trying to bring about. on the same note; the"decreasing information density" I don't think would be a problem if you're switching between the "terminal/IDE/browser/excel". the "table views" still seem fairly "compact" so..? /shrug
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dijit 6y ago
I like borders on my buttons to know what is a button and what isn't, this feels.. backwards... So much has to be inferred from the way things used to be, makes it harder to argue that it's the "simpler" operating system designed for Humans with a keen eye on UX design.. FWIW I also think the flat UI on iPhone (which has been prevelant for >6y now) is a horror show. Steve Jobs famously once said (while working at NeXt): "There are two kinds of people at Apple: Those that want to push computing forward, and those that want to be the Sony of computers.. and the Sony guys are winning"
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  How on earth is moving to a the ARM architecture not pushing computing forward? macOS moving to ARM is the biggest leap for developers in recent years - Amazon are also developing their own ARM chips and cloud services running linux ARM is the future. Having a mac with a unix-like terminal environment & support to run linux arm natively when devloping for those services is a huge deal.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

welearnednothng 6y ago

The title is misleading as it implies everything new in macOS, when the linked page is limited to human interface guidelines. Perhaps this should be retitled something like "What's new in MacOS Big Sur (UX|HIG|Human Interace Guidelines)"?

dang 6y ago
Good point. We've narrowed the scope in the title above. Thanks!

dimmke 6y ago

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional changes in the OS aside from reworking the notification center UI a little- and I like this new version more. It's already been confirmed that they aren't locking down apps to the app store or anything like that. It seems like people think that because they're taking design cues from iOS they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're transferring that fear into dislike of the new UI itself. Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers and if they ever do fully lock their computers down in that way they'd be ceding that marketshare entirely, along with catching quite a bit of heat for it in the press. Maybe eventually that calculus is worth it to them but I don't think that's what this is a step towards. I think they just want users who are fully plugged into their ecosystem to feel like it's a cohesive experience across platforms and this achieves that.

loughnane 6y ago
>Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large percentage of people who buy their computers are software engineers.
- hyperpape 6y ago
  Looks like they've been selling around 18 million macs a year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma...). If you ignore individuals having multiple computers, and assume the average lifetime of a machine is 5 years, you get 90 million people with a Mac. I don't know how many developers there are, but saw 20-25 million in some estimates.
  - 6y ago

Macha 6y ago

The integration of tall title bars with toolbars is really reminding me of Gnome 3 here.

Phrodo_00 6y ago
Yep, getting real gnome 3 vibes from it. Compare their mailing app image to geary[1]. Even though they're browner I kind of prefer gnome's toolbar because they're more obviously interactive. I guess it's not such a big problem is you use iOS maybe, but I don't. https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary
- snuxoll 6y ago
  For all the flak that the GtkHeaderBar control got - at least a button looks like a button in the standard Adwaita theme.
hactually 6y ago
It looks so much like Gnome that I was honestly surprised. The new header bars and merged controls are almost exact matches... I wonder if they'll contribute anything back upstream
- type0 6y ago
  > I wonder if they'll contribute anything back upstream we could only wish that
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    What would they contribute from that?
1_player 6y ago
I'd pay for a well engineered macOS 11 theme for GNOME. Perhaps when GTK4 is out end of this year with support for blurred transparency shaders. Though I got to say Adwaita improved a lot recently.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

config_yml 6y ago

Loss of affordance, density and contrast. Why do designers hate these 3 things? It's pretty, yes.

masswerk 6y ago
You just shouldn't abuse your interface by using it. ;-) (Interfaces are to be printed out and to be discussed while looking at them mounted onto presentation boards. This is their primary purpose nowadays. – API's have still a way to go in order to catch up. E.g., we're still using calls like "Performance.measure()", where it really should be low contrast "Pink.mint()", which is also much prettier in a printed list of calls.)
gowld 6y ago
Apple's original human interface designer says that Apple has "razor-sharp focus on a user many of us often fail to even consider: The potential user, the buyer", ignoring the needs of people who already paid their money. https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/ https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/
- m463 6y ago
  Sometimes you date an attractive person and you are spellbound. It's only later that you realize.
- krolley 6y ago
  Eh, at my company we also sometimes build "pre-sales features" like chart animations that look pretty during a client demo, but don't add much in the way of usability.
- fnordsensei 6y ago
  It seems short-sighted to ignore the person who has used a product or service, loved it and keeps loving it, and will persistently recommend it to others during its lifetime. It's hard to think of a better marketing channel when it works at scale. If that's the way they are thinking about "the potential user," all they're saying is "we'd prefer to do our marketing ourselves, please; don't go around recommending our products."

IMTDb 6y ago

> But what should we call it ? Well, if you're a student of MacOS, you know this question can only be answered by Apple crack marketing team. Their drug fueled minibus driven quests have yielded some great names. [...] We can’t responsibly continue to inadvertently lead our competition to copy these methods when they clearly can’t handle the trip Was that guy actually on acid when he introduced the name ? This was so out of place compared to the usual Apple tone. At least I had a good laugh

Frajedo 6y ago
He's been doing similar jokes about MacOS names since a couple of years :)
jefftk 6y ago
That text seems not to be there now?
- sapsan 6y ago
  I think the quote is from the keynote itself. Here's the timestamp: https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4250 https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4250.
  - laser 6y ago
    For some reason the CC is out of sync, it's couple minutes earlier https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4122 https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4122
ryanjm33 6y ago
Go back and watch previous intros. :) Fun bit of Apple history.

sergiotapia 6y ago

Are we going back to skeuomorphic, please god yes! I've been so saturated of flatness, it's boring!

627467 6y ago

For a second i thought I was looking at a Windows 10 mail app screenshot... https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/images/windows-views_2x.png https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

monadic2 6y ago

Lmk when they enforce these guidelines for their own apps

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

For what it’s worth... My 2013 MacBook Pro Retina Finally bucked the kicket, so I’m waiting for the new ARM based range with the new OS before I make any decision.

masswerk 6y ago

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 place. The title is already editable, making it dragable as well might be too much. Is this the beginning of the end of the drag-and-drop paradigm? (Notably, it doesn't suit touch interfaces well. Many aspects of these changes seem to prepare "touchability".)

bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
Apple made a pretty big to-do about adding drag and drop to iPadOS. I don’t see drag and drop going anywhere.
SllX 6y ago
The proxy icon is still there, it seems you have to hover or click to show it though.
- masswerk 6y ago
  So discoverability is finally replaced by the "Ahhh" paradigm?
  - SllX 6y ago
    That's been the trend for a while, but in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. You had to actively explore the way the UI worked to figure it out, but I can't say I'm a fan of the change either.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      > in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. That's a good point I hadn't thought of -- I love the proxy icon. I'm glad it's still there, but this kind of feels like Apple is implicitly saying, "Look, for the ten of you who knew what this was, you still do it, but we're just hiding it from everyone else, sorry."

SirLotsaLocks 6y ago

It's beautiful, I love the blur effect and the colors and the rounding it's all gorgeous.

josteink 6y ago
Windows 7 really nailed this about 10 years ago now. But design is all fads, so sadly it wasn’t allowed to last.

angel_j 6y ago

Holy shit, it only took almost 40 years of personal computing for "human interface guidelines" to stick. I have begun believing boomers who tell me how much Microsoft fucked their business, by forcing them to use shitty software.

arexxbifs 6y ago

Well, if it isn't my old favorites: low contrast, no affordances, junk in the title bars and so little difference between active and inactive windows it's nigh impossible to spot. I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't that every sucker and his dog will take this as definitive proof that all the bad UI fads of late are actually good.

qppo 6y ago

I can't read the faded items in the drop down menu as displayed with that background image.

dividedbyzero 6y ago

For the last few versions of iOS, MacOS has felt somewhat old-fashioned, lacking things I've grown to really appreciate on my phone and iPad like the Control Center. I'm glad that is now coming to MacOS. This feels like a much-needed facelift. I'm glad is isn't a polished XFCE, there are a lot of options for people who like this sort of thing already, just run Linux. In its current state, Linux on the desktop is definitely not for me, but then, I like the touchbar (as a software engineer, even), I like their new keyboard better than the pre-USB-C one (the butterfly one was terrible though), I'm fine with four TB3/USB-C ports, I don't miss MagSafe much. I like not having to bother with a myriad settings, because the defaults are usually just fine and most things can't be fine-tuned anyway. Big Sur seems to be a really interesting spin on a desktop iOS that embraces and extends the security and UX concepts from iOS, but for keyboard/mouse and without being so locked-down and constrained. From what they've shown so far, I like it. Now please have iPadOS become more like MacOS – that would be terriffic.

AlexandrB 6y ago
I expect that MacOS 11.2 will be iPadOS.
- _fzslm 6y ago
  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.
  - ziftface 6y ago
    There's also the fact that macOS's UI isn't touch-based, which is a distinction that apple follows religiously. As long as they keep that distinction, there will always be a need for both UIs.
    - 6y ago

MintelIE 6y ago

Oh my gosh I wish they'd have stopped with Rhapsody, to tell you the truth. Constantly redoing the UI while leaving basic functionality at a very bare level is really not doing it for me any more. Apple has moved against power users several times in the past in more aggressive terms but always having a fresh look in the UI is just a pointless exercise. Consistency is much more important especially when reaching the phone- and tablet-raised crop of people who don't really know how a computer works nor do they care. Same with many people, they simply need a computer for their various duties. A more tech-oriented person will never have problems adapting to even radically different UI paradigms and degrees of chrome but less techy people will. Add more functionality to the OS, fix the ancient packages, do SOMETHING for the more advanced users, Apple. Please?

gowld 6y ago

> Throughout macOS 11, windows adopt visual touches that recall iOS interfaces. Is this an OS or a wine-tasting? > use an increased corner radius What was wrong with lower radius? Were Apple designers too ignorant to try larger radious in the past? > Within an alert, most content is center aligned. center-aligned paragraph text? It's 90s HTML throwback!

ggregoire 6y ago

This is such a great UI guidelines document. This should be taken as a reference by every design and frontend teams.

tomc1985 6y ago

Why such fascination with rounded corners?

peterkos 6y ago
I think it reflects the hardware design language from the iPad and iPhone (and Mac honestly) across the whole software stack now. Although that doesn't stop me from not liking it :p
cxr 6y ago
https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...

abolishme 6y ago

Didn't see anyone mention this, but one of the main reasons for making macOS look more like iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS is because at some point we will be able to run apps written for the other systems natively in macOS. Seems like an obvious move, why is everyone so surprised? It just means less duplicated interface code for multiplatform products.

gshdg 6y ago
Which isn’t necessarily a good thing. They totally butchered the Mac Mail.app by shifting it to iOS UI paradigms. It used to be great; now it’s barely usable. Now they’re just making it easier to do the same and dumb down all the other apps out there for desktop users by replacing them with dumbed down iOS versions.

satya71 6y ago

I guess Microsoft is doing design better than Apple now? I mean similar HIG was introduced in Windows 10 in what 2015?

GiorgioG 6y ago

Can't wait for the 'tech support' calls from my older parents / relatives because of all the changes...

kgin 6y ago

The full length top-to-bottom sidebar is a big improvement on MacOS and IPadOS. The full with titlebar was never optimal for wide screens.

ghettoimp 6y ago

I really wish there were consistent title-bars. Windows 95 nailed this. It's really nice to immediately know where to click to move something out of your way.

microcolonel 6y ago
There is so much that Windows 95 got right that the snoots coming out of design college with funny haircuts have been trying their darnedest to get wrong.
- int_19h 6y ago
  Much of it was built on the foundation that was CUA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access#Descrip...

harshil91 6y ago

My 2015 mbp can finally stop notifying me of software updates.

29athrowaway 6y ago

I guess this will piss off a lot of people.

kmckiern 6y ago

noway421 6y ago

Skeuomorphism here we go again

rado 6y ago

It seemed one of my favorite features – the draggable document icon next to the window title – was removed, but it appears on hover. Phew.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

golemiprague 6y ago

I don't care, I only got some apps opened and i switch between the screens, what do i care how an icon looks like or other OS stuff, I don't even see it or know how it looks

phs318u 6y ago

Too late, don't care. I no longer trust Apple with my work. Ask me how many times I've re-installed macOS Catalina on my mid-2013 MBA since it came out? Ask me how many times I've had to restore my MBA to an earlier TimeMachine snapshot (local thank god) because the Apple Mail app shat itself unrecoverably while copying several thousand emails from one mailbox to another. Ask me how many more stories like that I've got. And to think, I'm an IT professional with 35 years in the industry and been an Apple user since 2004, having had a deep knowledge of many an operating system (including flirting with Linux in between Windows 2K and iMac (I'm aware one's an OS and the other's HW). The marriage is over Apple. We're headed for divorce and no promises you make now will convince me to stay. I'm leaving. In reality, it's been over for awhile, but of course, having invested so many years in this relationship, it's been hard to make the mental leap needed to let go. Well - now I'm there. While I'm sure your new hardware will indeed be magical with industry leading battery life and performance, that performance is only as good as the OS that runs on it. Who cares if you get an extra 6 hours battery life, when I have to restore from TM yet again and walk away overnight while 200+GB of storage gets re-installed? I loved you, and will think of you fondly from a distance. All the best.

shp0ngle 6y ago

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.

otherlandlabs 6y ago
I, for a change, would pay money for MacOS _native_ Slack app.
- TacticalTable 6y ago
  Perhaps the Ipad Slack app running as native? I think we're going to see Catalyst improve the MacOS experience greatly.
  - shp0ngle 6y ago
    Have you tried the JIRA native app, ported from iOS? It's horrible. It's fast, unlike the web app, but otherwise horrible

vletal 6y ago

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-macos-big-sur-with-a-beautiful-new-design/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-introduces-maco... [2] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/#app-accent-colors https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

saagarjha 6y ago
Those look fairly consistent to me, especially if you consider how window toolbars used to work pre-Big Sur.

blunte 6y ago

Larger rounded corners, taller toolbars, and more padding within sections all further reduce the amount of actual content you can display. If you look at most of the before/after screenshots, there's clearly less information delivered within the same amount of screen space. That's nice for a touch interface perhaps, but it's counterproductive for a computer. And making toolbar buttons all monochrome outlines does make toolbars have a more consistent appearance, but that actually makes finding the button you need more difficult. The differences are what we notice, and later what our brains automatically key on when we need to actually use the interface. Less than half of these changes are arguably worth having. The rest seem like marketing saying, "We need to be fresher, guys!" Using a new interface can be fun because of the change, but that fun quickly wears off. Then we're left with the realities of the interface. That Finder window is going to be much less useful in the real world with real file/folder names that are longer than 12 characters wide. This is a UI for casual users. It might be good for grandma, but it's less good for people who need to get work done.

cpcallen 6y ago

I think the reduction in usable space for content is so egregious that I am quite sure I will not be upgrading—ever. Too bad: I was looking forward to ARM.

jwr 6y ago

It's a pity that most of this is about the visual, rather than the functional. The first Mac OS guidelines were as much about form as about function, with the latter being more important. Modern-day Apple is focused on form, neglecting function.

gshdg 6y ago

The HIG used to be all about how each guideline contributed to usability. I don’t see even the slightest nod to usability in this document. That’s telling.

raj_khare 6y ago

Design consistency is great. But imo, it’s too friendly and too many colors