3 ms·

It would be interesting to have some insight into how much UX / UI goes into macOS and Windows releases, especially if things are tested with representative, no

It would be interesting to have some insight into how much UX / UI goes into macOS and Windows releases, especially if things are tested with representative, non-technical users and then sent back for changes. My cynical take aligns with yours, for every clever small touch there seems to be a half-dozen awkward design choices to work around.

SllX 5y ago
Not enough if the Dock is any measure. It’s been bad for over 20 years and in some ways still a downgrade from the NeXTSTEP Dock (and to be fair, in some ways an upgrade since it has a few tricks now the NeXTSTEP Dock didn’t). Same for the Finder. There’s been ample opportunity to revisit the original compromises made, fix some of the behavioral and consistency issues and just not touch it ever again. That, hasn’t happened. To be fair, Spotlight and Quick Look are major feature upgrades over the initial Mac OS X Finder, but pretty much all of the criticisms from 20 years ago, well documented by John Siracusa at one point, stand. Also nobody wants .DS_Store files on their servers and it’s probably worth revisiting that decision.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Ugh yeah those DS_Store files... But Windows has a similar equivalent now. You can turn it off by the way with a defaults command. And yeah I miss the in depth reviews from John Siracusa every year.
  - SllX 5y ago
    Problem is turning them off kills your window positioning and view options which are pretty important to me. So I want them, but I don’t want them, but rather an alternative to what they do for me that doesn’t scatter files to every single disk or server I look at in the Finder.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
"if things are tested with representative, non-technical users and then sent back for changes" No. People assume that Apple runs products through some rigorous UI-testing regimen and has arrived at their "standards" through some kind of metrics. THEY DON'T.

SllX 5y ago

Not enough if the Dock is any measure. It’s been bad for over 20 years and in some ways still a downgrade from the NeXTSTEP Dock (and to be fair, in some ways an upgrade since it has a few tricks now the NeXTSTEP Dock didn’t). Same for the Finder. There’s been ample opportunity to revisit the original compromises made, fix some of the behavioral and consistency issues and just not touch it ever again. That, hasn’t happened. To be fair, Spotlight and Quick Look are major feature upgrades over the initial Mac OS X Finder, but pretty much all of the criticisms from 20 years ago, well documented by John Siracusa at one point, stand. Also nobody wants .DS_Store files on their servers and it’s probably worth revisiting that decision.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Ugh yeah those DS_Store files... But Windows has a similar equivalent now. You can turn it off by the way with a defaults command. And yeah I miss the in depth reviews from John Siracusa every year.
- SllX 5y ago
  Problem is turning them off kills your window positioning and view options which are pretty important to me. So I want them, but I don’t want them, but rather an alternative to what they do for me that doesn’t scatter files to every single disk or server I look at in the Finder.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

"if things are tested with representative, non-technical users and then sent back for changes" No. People assume that Apple runs products through some rigorous UI-testing regimen and has arrived at their "standards" through some kind of metrics. THEY DON'T.