5 ms·

I like it better actually. Cleaner, less cluttered, everything related to an option is clearly grouped and visually associated.

cosmotic 4y ago
It was all clearly grouped before, but also had visual anchors. The new groups don't satisfy the WCAG contrast ratio guidelines. The new view is definitely 'cleaner', but in this case, that's worse. This isn't an artistic effort, this is a human interface. Did the 40 years of HCI research just turn up the wrong answers before? And the all-along more obvious approach is now the supposedly better approach? Unlikely.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  > but also had visual anchors. I only see one visual anchor in the old one, the horizontal rule at the bottom separating Menu Bar. Everything else is just jumbled together. The new one at least attempts visual anchors with gradient background boxes and by right-justifying all the controls. I grant you the contrast ratio is worse and Apple should read Contrast Rebellion. And I personally don't care whether they use a checkbox or a switch, as long as its placement is convenient and aesthetic. I use Linux with Gnome 4 on my workstations, which uses switches for settings, and a MacBook laptop with checkboxes, and iPad with switches, and none of that makes any difference to me. But otherwise I prefer the layout arrangement of the new one. Vertical and horizontal spacing are more orderly, left-justification of text and right-justification of controls improves UI consistency, and grouping within gradient boxes is more aesthetically calmer to my eye. Just my $0.02, to each their own. https://contrastrebellion.com/ https://contrastrebellion.com/
  - cosmotic 4y ago
    One of us misunderstands what visual anchors are. I consider the staggered drop downs visual anchors. I don't disagree with a single point you made about the anesthetics, and still passionately believe the ux is worse now. The new one would look better in a luxury furniture catalog but humans using it would take longer to complete tasks and produce more mistakes.
  - astrange 4y ago
    New UIs are less contrasty because old UIs were designed for low-quality TN LCD screens. Modern LCDs and OLEDs have better black points, so the UI gets grayer to make up for it. There's a lot of accessibility options like "increase contrast" and "differentiate without shapes" if you don't like it though.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > There's a lot of accessibility options like "increase contrast" and "differentiate without shapes" if you don't like it though. No. Just no. You make these things readable and accessible by default. You don't bury it in a setting somewhere. I have 20/20 vision and I felt compelled to turn high contrast and button shapes on because the OS is so goddam unreadable.
      - positus 4y ago
        Are you referring to macOS generally or Ventura specifically? On calibrated monitors I haven't had an issue, but I could see it being a problem if the contrast is too high on a display. I've been using macOS since Snow Leopard but I have not tried Ventura yet.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        If your general purpose OS requires a calibrated monitor for this to not be an issue, it means the OS design is a failure.
      - astrange 4y ago
        Sure, but what kind of display do you have?
        dmitriid 4y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687516
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > left-justification of text and right-justification of controls improves UI consistency True, but it also makes it harder to see which text corresponds to which switch, by separating them all with different distances. Before, there was no ambiguity about what each box did. Now, you have to scan the left column to find the item you want; and then either scan right to see the switch (which is error prone because there are no lines to follow) or scan the right column from the top and hope you counted correctly. It is more pleasing aesthetically, but less useable. I guess the way to have both controls and labels to line up without separating them would be to put the labels after the controls. But it is not great to have the explanation of what a button does after the button. And there would still be issues with drop downs with different widths.
smoldesu 4y ago
Not sure how I feel about detaching controls from their label like that. I thought we learned our lesson with this when we switched to HiDPI displays, but oh well...
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  Yeah I can see the argument for keeping the checkboxes on the left and their explainer text immediately adjacent on the right. But the problem is that the choose-boxes and radio buttons at the top can't be treated the same way, and create an inconsistent layout when combined with the check boxes. Moving all the text to the left, and all the controls to the right, and boxing each choice together with its text using gradient background boxes, feels overall cleaner, more consistent, and better organized.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > and create an inconsistent layout when combined with the check boxes. This is not a Wes Anderson movie where everything has to be symmetric. You're free to mix controls. To put them in grids. To put them in multiple columns. Just go and look at your System Preferences now. Or https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1534261202167152649 https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1534261202167152649
mafalda 4y ago
This makes sense if you came from touch ui. Mouse and keyboard UI favours the old design because the way you hit things with the mouse is different. It is also bad to compare the two screenshots because the sizes are not in the same scale. The new grouping is not a clear cut, like why is the position of the docked grouped with window behaviour? The older makes it trivial to discover that the dock moves unlike the newer one. My view is that the design is much less refined and have a lot of space to improve. It isn't bad, the potential is there if you consider a touch + mouse ui. So let's wait I guess.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  > The new grouping is not a clear cut, like why is the position of the docked grouped with window behaviour? Both seem faulty in that regard. Both cram Dock and Window behavior into the same section, when each should be a separate section similar to the Menu Bar section at the bottom. But that's not a fault of the design language here, and can be fixed without changing it.

cosmotic 4y ago

It was all clearly grouped before, but also had visual anchors. The new groups don't satisfy the WCAG contrast ratio guidelines. The new view is definitely 'cleaner', but in this case, that's worse. This isn't an artistic effort, this is a human interface. Did the 40 years of HCI research just turn up the wrong answers before? And the all-along more obvious approach is now the supposedly better approach? Unlikely.

SkyMarshal 4y ago
> but also had visual anchors. I only see one visual anchor in the old one, the horizontal rule at the bottom separating Menu Bar. Everything else is just jumbled together. The new one at least attempts visual anchors with gradient background boxes and by right-justifying all the controls. I grant you the contrast ratio is worse and Apple should read Contrast Rebellion. And I personally don't care whether they use a checkbox or a switch, as long as its placement is convenient and aesthetic. I use Linux with Gnome 4 on my workstations, which uses switches for settings, and a MacBook laptop with checkboxes, and iPad with switches, and none of that makes any difference to me. But otherwise I prefer the layout arrangement of the new one. Vertical and horizontal spacing are more orderly, left-justification of text and right-justification of controls improves UI consistency, and grouping within gradient boxes is more aesthetically calmer to my eye. Just my $0.02, to each their own. https://contrastrebellion.com/ https://contrastrebellion.com/
- cosmotic 4y ago
  One of us misunderstands what visual anchors are. I consider the staggered drop downs visual anchors. I don't disagree with a single point you made about the anesthetics, and still passionately believe the ux is worse now. The new one would look better in a luxury furniture catalog but humans using it would take longer to complete tasks and produce more mistakes.
- astrange 4y ago
  New UIs are less contrasty because old UIs were designed for low-quality TN LCD screens. Modern LCDs and OLEDs have better black points, so the UI gets grayer to make up for it. There's a lot of accessibility options like "increase contrast" and "differentiate without shapes" if you don't like it though.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > There's a lot of accessibility options like "increase contrast" and "differentiate without shapes" if you don't like it though. No. Just no. You make these things readable and accessible by default. You don't bury it in a setting somewhere. I have 20/20 vision and I felt compelled to turn high contrast and button shapes on because the OS is so goddam unreadable.
    - positus 4y ago
      Are you referring to macOS generally or Ventura specifically? On calibrated monitors I haven't had an issue, but I could see it being a problem if the contrast is too high on a display. I've been using macOS since Snow Leopard but I have not tried Ventura yet.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        If your general purpose OS requires a calibrated monitor for this to not be an issue, it means the OS design is a failure.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Sure, but what kind of display do you have?
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687516
- kergonath 4y ago
  > left-justification of text and right-justification of controls improves UI consistency True, but it also makes it harder to see which text corresponds to which switch, by separating them all with different distances. Before, there was no ambiguity about what each box did. Now, you have to scan the left column to find the item you want; and then either scan right to see the switch (which is error prone because there are no lines to follow) or scan the right column from the top and hope you counted correctly. It is more pleasing aesthetically, but less useable. I guess the way to have both controls and labels to line up without separating them would be to put the labels after the controls. But it is not great to have the explanation of what a button does after the button. And there would still be issues with drop downs with different widths.

smoldesu 4y ago

Not sure how I feel about detaching controls from their label like that. I thought we learned our lesson with this when we switched to HiDPI displays, but oh well...

SkyMarshal 4y ago
Yeah I can see the argument for keeping the checkboxes on the left and their explainer text immediately adjacent on the right. But the problem is that the choose-boxes and radio buttons at the top can't be treated the same way, and create an inconsistent layout when combined with the check boxes. Moving all the text to the left, and all the controls to the right, and boxing each choice together with its text using gradient background boxes, feels overall cleaner, more consistent, and better organized.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > and create an inconsistent layout when combined with the check boxes. This is not a Wes Anderson movie where everything has to be symmetric. You're free to mix controls. To put them in grids. To put them in multiple columns. Just go and look at your System Preferences now. Or https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1534261202167152649 https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1534261202167152649

mafalda 4y ago

This makes sense if you came from touch ui. Mouse and keyboard UI favours the old design because the way you hit things with the mouse is different. It is also bad to compare the two screenshots because the sizes are not in the same scale. The new grouping is not a clear cut, like why is the position of the docked grouped with window behaviour? The older makes it trivial to discover that the dock moves unlike the newer one. My view is that the design is much less refined and have a lot of space to improve. It isn't bad, the potential is there if you consider a touch + mouse ui. So let's wait I guess.

SkyMarshal 4y ago
> The new grouping is not a clear cut, like why is the position of the docked grouped with window behaviour? Both seem faulty in that regard. Both cram Dock and Window behavior into the same section, when each should be a separate section similar to the Menu Bar section at the bottom. But that's not a fault of the design language here, and can be fixed without changing it.