usability
- Thread starter designer
- Start date
bbloke
Registered
I was really referring to other ideas that I have seen for modifying the Dock to "make it more usable," but OK. You can indeed tell which window is which in the Dock by hovering the cursor over the minmized window to get its title. Maybe grouping of minimized windows by their application (eg all Finder windows) would not be a bad idea, as long as you could switch off this behavior (yes, as you can do with XP). However, as I said, my approach is actually not to minimize windows but to hide the application. You can get the contextual menu for the application in the Dock, listing all the open windows. I therefore find hiding applications much more convienent in terms of reducing clutter, easily switching to the correct window, and so on.
Da_iMac_Daddy
Not-so-Neo-DumbA$$
Well you could just hide the application, but this means you have to hide all of the windows. When you hide an app you can click and hold or control-click to see a list of windows. I think if Apple made it so that the minimize window button just minimized it into it's parent application's icon in the dock it would solve this problem.
Well I use both XP and Mac OS X and my experience with Mac OS X so far has been ok but very far from good enough to replace Windows for me.
There's a speed and responsiveness issue with XP that you don't have with X. XP responds to all commands very quickly. If you want to open up a program, it comes up right after you click on it. With X, you have to wait through a few bounces no matter how fast your G4 is and how much RAM you have it. It's annoying. Also, with XP you know you can use all of your old programs unless they're unreasonably old. With X, Classic mode will probably work but it's incredibly slow.
I like X because it's great when you want to organize programs or get rid of them (dragging the icons will actually move the program to a new location whereas with Windows, good luck). However, I find Windows a lot easier to use. I know I'll get insulted for this but whatever, that's my opinion.
There's a speed and responsiveness issue with XP that you don't have with X. XP responds to all commands very quickly. If you want to open up a program, it comes up right after you click on it. With X, you have to wait through a few bounces no matter how fast your G4 is and how much RAM you have it. It's annoying. Also, with XP you know you can use all of your old programs unless they're unreasonably old. With X, Classic mode will probably work but it's incredibly slow.
I like X because it's great when you want to organize programs or get rid of them (dragging the icons will actually move the program to a new location whereas with Windows, good luck). However, I find Windows a lot easier to use. I know I'll get insulted for this but whatever, that's my opinion.
boi
official breaker of macs.
everything opens pretty much instantly for me. for those things that don't (chimera, ichat) i just leave them open.
that said, i'd like to make the point that X is the greatest multitasking environment there is. i never imagined i could do the stuff i do, all at the same time. i've never gotten a buffer underrun. i know a lot of pc users who wished they could claim the same. i don't really have to worry about it at all. i just hit 'burn' and then i watch my DVD or download my stuff or upload my stuff or do it all at the same time. it doesn't matter.
re: the dock. the dock, to me, is like the taskbar, only better. it basically does everything the task bar does and more-- i don't see how people can prefer the taskbar in that sense. we can make as many dang start buttons as we please, we have the ability to hide applications in one fell swoop. and as for the "hide a billion zillion finder windows and then pick out which one you want"... you right click on the finder icon and pick your window. voila. minimize a billion My Computer / Windows Explorer windows and you've got a lot of little bitty slivers of an icon stuck in your taskbar.
no one mentioned Apple's GUI standards yet. this makes sure that not only X is intuitive, but every program made for X thereafter is just as intuitive (barring many pro apps).
okay, that's all from me. buhbye.
Quite frankly, too, that is an opinion. I've used a black NeXT-Station that worked quite well. On a 68030 processor at 33 MHz, we had quite a good UNIX at that time. So count me in with Gil Amelio, and of course don't forget every software engineer I've ever met, also don't forget Steve Jobs and his crew.
Opinions are nice, but looking at the base of Mac OS X objectively (pun not, or yes, pun intended) will show you that it's actually worth all the money you pay for. Or what Gil/Apple paid for.
The things wrong with XP are the same things that have always been wrong with Windoze. As an operating system it has way too much control and reminds you way too often that you are merely a user of a Microsoft product. The wizards and reminders drive me absolutely crazy. One of the problems that Windoze users have with the Mac OS is that it lets you decide way too much on your own without trying to dictate or "help" you put everything exactly where it thinks you should. That freedom seems to confuse a lot of PC users. It has been and remains my favorite part of the Mac OS. I don't feel like I'm constantly being told how to do things or how the OS thinks I should be doing something. PC users on the other hand are way too used to being guided every inch of the way down the Microsoft path. Windoze, I don't care what version, is never going to give the freedom to the end user that the Mac OS does. It really isn't the contest that a lot of people make it out to be.
MDA
MDA
I must say, MacLuv, you're quite heavy on this thread. I don't know why exactly, but everything you do is bashing the Mac and NeXT here.
As if you wouldn't understand what sets the Mac apart from other computers. But then, why would you choose MacLuv as a nickname, why would you choose macosx.com as a forum to be on?
But back on track. Your O'Reilly reference is a well written piece of history-article. Of course it's also opinion-based, but most importantly, it a) doesn't counter what I've said (as I was not talking about NeXT hardware specifically) and b) even tells you the same again I've told you: That the OS and its frameworks were (and are) great. That NeXT blew it is true. No argueing here, right? The reasons for it? That's very much opinion based. There's several reasons, isn't there. First, NeXT tried from scratch. (Like Be.) They took good technology, they were thinking forward, but they also tried to enter a market that was already divided in two: Windows and Macintosh. Now, even though the NeXT operating system and developing environment was superior to both Windows and Macintosh, you couldn't get your hands on cheap NeXT hardware. But that wasn't NeXT's goal. They wanted to get into higher education, banking and the like. And they did that, too. There's a reason why the Web was basically developed on a NeXT machine. It did much for the reorganisation of information. Services were great, too, btw. Then, Steve Jobs (this is an anecdote) threw out Bill Gates of his office, saying something like "We don't need your software support." Guess if NeXT *had* Microsoft's support and MS Office on NeXT, this would have been a great advantage for both companies. Maybe today we would be using something like MS NeXT OS on Dell hardware... Well, Steve Jobs _didn't_ yell at Bill Gates again, when Bill invested into Apple and promised to develop Office for the Mac for five years.
But back to the User Interface discussion, right? Okay. It's always difficult to actually write those things down that I know feel much better on a Mac than on a Windows machine. Just some things that spring to mind.
1. Text Selection
Select the )lol( part with your mouse in the following sentence (copy it to TextEdit, please): (Alright)lol(Try_again) ... You can try by starting, moving, stopping, by double-clicking, whatever. Mac OS X has a history of knowing stuff about graphics, fonts, text. In Windows you'll sometimes get the strangest selections, while on the Mac, you can select the right objects.
2. System Graphics Palettes
While every operating system nowadays can handle more than 16bit colour, the system and its GUI usually use a basic set of 256 chosen colours. Apple has simply chosen the better ones, like, since forever. Windows chose, for example, the full green, red and blue tones that you can get from RGB to be used in the system, plus shaded versions of them. You also had that full cyan and full magenta colours. Remember them? Well, even if you choose blue Aqua in Mac OS X, the widgets, the menu bar, the window titlebars, they don't hit your eyes too hard, compared to BLUE and GREEN in Windows XP for Christ's (replace 'Christ' with your current religious figure) sake.
3. Visual Feedback
The possibility alone that I can double click IE in the QuickLaunch bar in Windows and get _two_ instances of the application is bad interface. Not that it only needs one click, but that I get two instances. Users that tend to get nervous if nothing happens for some time, tend to re-hit those icons. Which slows down the computer, because it tries to open many, many instances of the same application. I often saw my boss double click IE while his system was still starting, then doubleclicking it AGAIN and finally go get some coffee, and when he got back he had FIVE IE windows open (one was on autostart, anyway), Outlook Express open and a message about why the process Explorer failed and must be killed. On the Mac, you see that you've clicked Explorer in the Dock. You can even doubleclick it, just to make sure. Either the jumping icon or the blinking triangle will instantly give you the satisfaction of knowing that all is well in the world of your computer.
4. Copy & Paste
I can go to Terminal (I know, I know) and connect to some arcane service. Get the information I want and copy it by selecting with the mouse. Can't do that in Windows' 'Terminal Window', the DOS-window or the Telnet window. Copy/Paste doesn't work, which is a pity, as long and strange commands tend to get mixed up if you try and keep them in mind between applications. Well, my point is: Copy and Paste should work system wide, not on an application basis. And the Mac does that right.
5. The Menu Bar
There's a User Interface law about this, but I don't remember its name right now. Basically, you're bound to fail to hit the 'File' menu in Windows, because it's never at the top of the screen. It's somewhere, some 25 pixels below the top. On the Mac, you don't have that problem (unless your multimonitor setup is second screen on top of main screen), as the menu bar is always at the top of your main screen.
Well, I'll provide more if you want. But first think about them. Don't answer fleeing my post, answer answering it. Maybe you can even AGREE on some points. But you're not the agreeing type, are you.
As if you wouldn't understand what sets the Mac apart from other computers. But then, why would you choose MacLuv as a nickname, why would you choose macosx.com as a forum to be on?
But back on track. Your O'Reilly reference is a well written piece of history-article. Of course it's also opinion-based, but most importantly, it a) doesn't counter what I've said (as I was not talking about NeXT hardware specifically) and b) even tells you the same again I've told you: That the OS and its frameworks were (and are) great. That NeXT blew it is true. No argueing here, right? The reasons for it? That's very much opinion based. There's several reasons, isn't there. First, NeXT tried from scratch. (Like Be.) They took good technology, they were thinking forward, but they also tried to enter a market that was already divided in two: Windows and Macintosh. Now, even though the NeXT operating system and developing environment was superior to both Windows and Macintosh, you couldn't get your hands on cheap NeXT hardware. But that wasn't NeXT's goal. They wanted to get into higher education, banking and the like. And they did that, too. There's a reason why the Web was basically developed on a NeXT machine. It did much for the reorganisation of information. Services were great, too, btw. Then, Steve Jobs (this is an anecdote) threw out Bill Gates of his office, saying something like "We don't need your software support." Guess if NeXT *had* Microsoft's support and MS Office on NeXT, this would have been a great advantage for both companies. Maybe today we would be using something like MS NeXT OS on Dell hardware... Well, Steve Jobs _didn't_ yell at Bill Gates again, when Bill invested into Apple and promised to develop Office for the Mac for five years.
But back to the User Interface discussion, right? Okay. It's always difficult to actually write those things down that I know feel much better on a Mac than on a Windows machine. Just some things that spring to mind.
1. Text Selection
Select the )lol( part with your mouse in the following sentence (copy it to TextEdit, please): (Alright)lol(Try_again) ... You can try by starting, moving, stopping, by double-clicking, whatever. Mac OS X has a history of knowing stuff about graphics, fonts, text. In Windows you'll sometimes get the strangest selections, while on the Mac, you can select the right objects.
2. System Graphics Palettes
While every operating system nowadays can handle more than 16bit colour, the system and its GUI usually use a basic set of 256 chosen colours. Apple has simply chosen the better ones, like, since forever. Windows chose, for example, the full green, red and blue tones that you can get from RGB to be used in the system, plus shaded versions of them. You also had that full cyan and full magenta colours. Remember them? Well, even if you choose blue Aqua in Mac OS X, the widgets, the menu bar, the window titlebars, they don't hit your eyes too hard, compared to BLUE and GREEN in Windows XP for Christ's (replace 'Christ' with your current religious figure) sake.
3. Visual Feedback
The possibility alone that I can double click IE in the QuickLaunch bar in Windows and get _two_ instances of the application is bad interface. Not that it only needs one click, but that I get two instances. Users that tend to get nervous if nothing happens for some time, tend to re-hit those icons. Which slows down the computer, because it tries to open many, many instances of the same application. I often saw my boss double click IE while his system was still starting, then doubleclicking it AGAIN and finally go get some coffee, and when he got back he had FIVE IE windows open (one was on autostart, anyway), Outlook Express open and a message about why the process Explorer failed and must be killed. On the Mac, you see that you've clicked Explorer in the Dock. You can even doubleclick it, just to make sure. Either the jumping icon or the blinking triangle will instantly give you the satisfaction of knowing that all is well in the world of your computer.
4. Copy & Paste
I can go to Terminal (I know, I know) and connect to some arcane service. Get the information I want and copy it by selecting with the mouse. Can't do that in Windows' 'Terminal Window', the DOS-window or the Telnet window. Copy/Paste doesn't work, which is a pity, as long and strange commands tend to get mixed up if you try and keep them in mind between applications. Well, my point is: Copy and Paste should work system wide, not on an application basis. And the Mac does that right.
5. The Menu Bar
There's a User Interface law about this, but I don't remember its name right now. Basically, you're bound to fail to hit the 'File' menu in Windows, because it's never at the top of the screen. It's somewhere, some 25 pixels below the top. On the Mac, you don't have that problem (unless your multimonitor setup is second screen on top of main screen), as the menu bar is always at the top of your main screen.
Well, I'll provide more if you want. But first think about them. Don't answer fleeing my post, answer answering it. Maybe you can even AGREE on some points. But you're not the agreeing type, are you.
Very well put. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned how much they like having a separate toolbar at the top of every bloody window within an application.
This is one of the things about Windows, among many, that I have always hated. As you point out it is also thought badly of by real user interface designers.
MDA