Re: top <rant-rant-rant-rant-rant> [you were warned;p]
Re: top <rant-rant-rant-rant-rant> [you were warned;p]
- Subject: Re: top <rant-rant-rant-rant-rant> [you were warned;p]
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 12:42:40 +0100
Chris Page wrote:
>
> Oh, and don't even get me started on the OS X help, with its
>
> STUPID ANNOYING SLOW logos at the top of the page.
>
>
Something that many people do not realize is that you do not have
>
to wait for the animation to finish before you can click on a link
>
or enter search text. It is not in your way.
No offence intended; however being an old hand at this sort of game, I
_had_ actually guessed this.
But the phrase "many people do not realize" is an obvious red flag. If
people don't realise a thing, then the design is failing already. But aside
from its bad communication (i.e. lack of much-vaunted "intuitive-ness"),
there's further problems:
1. We're all conditioned to wait for things to stop whizzing around before
trying to use them: you don't try to use an application before it's
finished opening, for example, or select window items while its expanding
from minimised form. Proceeding yourself while other things are still going
on can be a dangerous course of action (e.g. typing a search string into
Sherlock before it's quite finished opening; the stupid thing often drops
early keystrokes).
2. Also, movement automatically attracts the eye: you can't help looking
towards it instead of reading the text and links below. (This is why it's
hard to ignore a television set playing in the corner of the room. All that
movement, visual cuts, etc. are used for a reason.) As if the Aqua
interface wasn't visually noisy enough already, even when it's _not_ moving.
Thus it takes a conscious effort to proceed before the interface has
settled down; you're going against both your conditioned and natural
instincts to do so.
3. The other side-effect of all this nonsense is that OS X's perceived
slowness problem is actually _worse_ than its actual performance issues:
all those groovy swishing and shooshing movements might be great eyecandy,
but they keep the user waiting even longer than they already need to.
The first MacOS ran on a seriously underpowered machine, yet part of its
goal was to make user interaction at least _seem_ fast. Thus mouse clicks
were answered immediately (even if it meant holding down other more
"deserving" processes) because it made the system _feel_ more responsive,
giving the user a real impression that the machine was actually *paying
attention to them*. So what the heck's changed?
...
Aqua, as they say, is an interesting and entertaining place to visit, but I
wouldn't really want to live there. Its real problem has never been that
it's lacked neato widgets X, Y and Z, but that its fundamental attitude to
the user is all wrong. It's all about marketing-driven design, not
user-centric design. It feels exactly like watching a TV commercial,
again... and again... and again.
The great irony is that they could have invested all this energy in putting
together the greatest first-run firework show ever created: dazzle
everybody, newbie and geek alike, with a fantastic interactive display and
demonstration of their brilliant new no-nonsense interface, not to mention
all the gratuitous eye candy they could possibly ladle on. Instead of
_forcing_ everybody to digest this constant dribble of drivel. Even my TV
set [before I threw it out in disgust] had the good grace to supply an OFF
button for when I got too sick of its inane ramblings.
And I can't wait to see what the AppleMarketdroids have planned for X+1...
compulsory commercial breaks running every fifteen minutes, anyone?
"Why, you ungrateful Quarkers; at last you have QXP for X and all you can
do is complain *even more*?! Don't you know you're using the 'Greatest OS
In The World, Ever!!! (TM)'. But put aside that critical-deadline
production job for just one moment, while we listen to a word from our
alternate, alternate sponsors..."
...
So anyway, *now* d'you see why you should *always* listen when I say "And
don't even get me started..."? ;)
has
[Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to find me the location of
those bl**dy horizontal stripey backround tiffs, so I can dive in and
TOTALLY NUKE the b*gg*rs...]
--
http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -- The Little Page of AppleScripts
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