Re: Tracking files the right way -- NeXT apps are less intuitive with worse HI?
Re: Tracking files the right way -- NeXT apps are less intuitive with worse HI?
- Subject: Re: Tracking files the right way -- NeXT apps are less intuitive with worse HI?
- From: James DiPalma <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 16:34:52 -0700
I agree with Ondra and have similar experience. Everyone I knew
including many Apple fans preferred using NeXT based applications over
anything else. There is no substitute for clean, consistent, and clear
user experience.
Why is this relevant to cocoa-dev? If we as a community constantly gripe
about how NeXT's influence on Mac OS X is dismissing years of better UI,
we won't see innovations like: an applications menu, a find pasteboard,
file bundles, user directories, and many more. I don't think these
innovations are without influence from Apple tradition and many talented
Apple employees, but they are breaks from a MacOS tradition that is
strong enough to prevent innovations from happening.
I had hopes that Mac OS X would go further, but we'll probably never see
innovations that break from industry conventions (we are teaching our
children to use computers how we like to use computers and not how user
interface studies show a computer should be used); scrollbars will never
be on a view's left.
Also, it shows how important consistency in our development is; I know
that Cmd-n in Finder is a pain to many, but consistency within all of
Mac OS X and its apps is more important than tradition. I hope we don't
see Mac OS's inconsistencies become a part of Mac OS X.
Here are some examples of why I think NeXT OSes had a better UI than any
Mac OS including OS X:
Clean
One window style
NeXT OSes had one look for all windows, including menus, which where in
a window. A window's contents communicated meaning by adhering to
conventions (e.g. menus look like menus and alert panels have an app's
icon on their left side). Mac OS 9 has many window styles; modal alerts,
system alerts, windows, utility windows, and a few others including
calculator's rounded windows; all have different window borders. OS X
has 3: window, utility window (which looks similar, but shrunken), and
brushed steel that kinda means a one window app.
File bundles
NeXT OSes used app bundles and file bundles to simplify a user's
interaction with their files.
Home directories and path conventions
NeXT OSes used home directories and paths like ~/Library/Preferences to
separate user's data from application and system files. These
conventions cleaned up interacting with applications
Consistent
Sliders and scrollbars
Sliders and scrollbars look similar and have some reflection of real
word widgets. On NeXT OSes user interaction with these controls is
consistent. In Mac OS, sliders click to focus and scrollbars page jump
(having never used a computer, would you guess that scrollbars would
page jump?).
Consistent shortcuts
NeXT OSes and Mac OS both have some consistency with shortcuts, but NeXT
applications always showed more consistency. My opinion here is based on
memories of developing IB's menu palette; we looked at too many Mac OS
applications that had no consistency in menu organization, nor in
shortcut conventions.
Applications menu
NeXT OS applications all have application menus (as do OS X apps) that
define a location convention for menus like: Help, Preferences, and Info
(About in OS X). About menu items under a system menu are consistent,
but not clear: "About MyApp" is no more a system menu than "Services" is
an application menu.
Clear
Scrollbars
NeXT OSes used dynamic scrolling with proportional sized thumbs in their
scrollbars and used click-to-focus behavior. These simple innovation
allowed users to see how big a document was and more easily interact
with any application that showed data. NeXT OS had these innovations
before its first public release in 1989, how many years before Mac OS
added dynamic scrolling and proportional sized thumbs?
Edited windows
NeXT OSes altered a window's close button to show a broken "X" when a
window was edited. Without this simple innovation, I felt a small level
of uncertainty every time I edited any document in Mac OS; pressing
Cmd-S to save and not seeing any visual change in a document's window
made me even more nervous.
Ellipses
NeXT OSes used a simple convention for "..." in menu items: if a window
was brought front. This convention hints to users what was about to
happen, Apple uses "..." to hint to a user what type of action a menu
will perform (an action that requires user interaction; or an action
that can be cancelled; or an action that shows an application settings
window, but not a document settings window, nor any action that opens a
window that is typically open during an application's use). Is that
clear?
"Special"
Without looking, what is in a "Special" menu? You would not know without
being a traditional Mac OS user. No one can argue that grouping
functionality under a "Special" menu is providing a more intuitive and
better human interface, but it has been part of Mac OS for decades.
Functional
Scrollbars on data's left
As simple as this is, so few understand. English and other Romantic
languages have influenced how we display information; information is
concentrated on a view's left. At least textual data will very often be
heavily left shifted because structural elements of text are left
justified. If a view is partially obstructed on Mac OS, a user must
choose between obstructing data or its scrollbar. Interestingly, this
one innovation affects usage patterns like window placement and dock
placement; without it, I find myself unnecessarily moving windows back
and forth, placing my dock on screen left where it can do no harm, and
daily feeling like Mac OS is stuck getting in my way.
Find pasteboard
For a developer, a must. A simple intuitive innovation that is cleanly
incorporated into every application.
I argue that NeXT OSes ease of use is founded on clear, consistent, well
implemented user experience and that Mac OS ease of use is founded on
tradition.
-jim
On Friday, August 30, 2002, at 10:15 AM, Ondra Cada wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2002, at 03:22 , Mike Shields wrote:
I really feel that MacOS apps have in general been more intuitive and
had better HI that apps coming over from NeXT.... This is something
that people seem to ignore...
Mainly since the exact opposite is true.
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