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Have there been any usability tests (or even just a logical argument) that show the OS X-style dock to be a good UI mechanism? Seems to me that turning off mag

Have there been any usability tests (or even just a logical argument) that show the OS X-style dock to be a good UI mechanism? Seems to me that turning off magnification and flushing it to a corner (so that everytime it grows it doesn't move around the existing icons) would have been a better default solution. Apple usually thinks these things through though so maybe I'm missing something?

eridius 15y ago
The hit space for the icons is static, and matches the area of the un-zoomed icon. It achieves this by growing and shrinking (and sliding) the zoomed icon as you mouse across it, so you come to the end of the icon at the same place you would have if the icon didn't zoom in at all. This allows it to look neat while still having good usability, because your spatial memory is left intact (the only thing that changes that is adding/removing icons).
- statictype 15y ago
  You're talking about horizontal space? Or does it apply to vertical space as well. Because I had a lot of trouble acquiring the resizing corner of a window when it was near the dock. I would miss that tiny target and mouse-over a dock icon and then have to drag the mouse a lot further up to make the icon go back down. I have since switched to having the dock on the left side of the screen instead of the bottom and that seems to be noticeably easier to use.
  - eridius 15y ago
    I was talking strictly about the horizontal space. If you don't like the icons moving up to cover more vertical space, maybe you should just turn off zooming?
pohl 15y ago
Considering that it is merely a refinement of the NeXT dock that was conceived in the late 80s I'd say it hasn't aged too badly. I suspect it will gradually die as the iOS-like springboard app launcher that appeared in Lion matures.
- lazerwalker 15y ago
  If it ever does die completely, it won't be because of iOS. Right now, the dock basically serves two UI purposes: "here's a list of apps you want to be able to access quickly, viewable at the edge of your screen", and "here's a list of apps you're currently running, also at the edge of your screen". On OS X, these are currently combined into the same UI widget. On iOS, they both exist, but as two separate entities: the docked app icons at the bottom of each springboard page serve the first purpose, and the list of recently-used apps in the double-tap multitask bar the latter. The interface has changed slightly due to the fundamental difference in the multitasking paradigms between the two OSes, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the iOS UI has something that is clearly related to the OS X dock, both in form and in function.
  - pohl 15y ago
    When I wrote "the iOS-like springboard app launcher that appeared in Lion", I was referring to Launchpad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launchpad_%28Mac_OS_X%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launchpad_%28Mac_OS_X%29
city41 15y ago
I hide and never use my dock. I don't miss it at all. It is one of the most disappointing UI features Apple has ever done. It's much more about sizzle than being useful. I feel even the Windows task bar (both before and after Win7) is better than the dock.

eridius 15y ago

The hit space for the icons is static, and matches the area of the un-zoomed icon. It achieves this by growing and shrinking (and sliding) the zoomed icon as you mouse across it, so you come to the end of the icon at the same place you would have if the icon didn't zoom in at all. This allows it to look neat while still having good usability, because your spatial memory is left intact (the only thing that changes that is adding/removing icons).

statictype 15y ago
You're talking about horizontal space? Or does it apply to vertical space as well. Because I had a lot of trouble acquiring the resizing corner of a window when it was near the dock. I would miss that tiny target and mouse-over a dock icon and then have to drag the mouse a lot further up to make the icon go back down. I have since switched to having the dock on the left side of the screen instead of the bottom and that seems to be noticeably easier to use.
- eridius 15y ago
  I was talking strictly about the horizontal space. If you don't like the icons moving up to cover more vertical space, maybe you should just turn off zooming?

pohl 15y ago

Considering that it is merely a refinement of the NeXT dock that was conceived in the late 80s I'd say it hasn't aged too badly. I suspect it will gradually die as the iOS-like springboard app launcher that appeared in Lion matures.

lazerwalker 15y ago
If it ever does die completely, it won't be because of iOS. Right now, the dock basically serves two UI purposes: "here's a list of apps you want to be able to access quickly, viewable at the edge of your screen", and "here's a list of apps you're currently running, also at the edge of your screen". On OS X, these are currently combined into the same UI widget. On iOS, they both exist, but as two separate entities: the docked app icons at the bottom of each springboard page serve the first purpose, and the list of recently-used apps in the double-tap multitask bar the latter. The interface has changed slightly due to the fundamental difference in the multitasking paradigms between the two OSes, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the iOS UI has something that is clearly related to the OS X dock, both in form and in function.
- pohl 15y ago
  When I wrote "the iOS-like springboard app launcher that appeared in Lion", I was referring to Launchpad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launchpad_%28Mac_OS_X%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launchpad_%28Mac_OS_X%29

city41 15y ago

I hide and never use my dock. I don't miss it at all. It is one of the most disappointing UI features Apple has ever done. It's much more about sizzle than being useful. I feel even the Windows task bar (both before and after Win7) is better than the dock.