On 10 Sep 2010, at 22:17, John Stalberg wrote: > > > On 11 sep 2010, at 01:53, LuKreme <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 10-Sep-2010, at 10:26, Cesar Alsina wrote: >>> >>> On Sep 6, 2010, at 5:31 PM, Mark Smith wrote: >>> >>>> traffic lights >>> >>> Taking about traffic lights, notice that now the >>> close/minimize/get-mini-controller buttons now run vertically? I think is >>> the only occurrence in the entire UI. >> >> They have always been vertical in the iTunes mini browser. >> >> Well… for certain values of always. > > iTunes is often the first application to get a new look that later becomes > one of a few types used as a system wide solution. I have sometimes wondered, > or gotten irritated, over Apples constantly difficulties to be consistent gui > wise. My idea is that bigger changes to the gui shouldn't be introduced as > some kind of prototype that is tested on one application and later gets > spread and replaces what was targeted to be replaced by it. This makes OS X a > bit messy with more or less a constant porototype stage mixed in with the > other more established looks other applications use. The introduction of new > gui designs could be set on hold until a certain point in time were a > syncronized system wide introduction takes place. Typically every major cat > version would be perfect for this but it could also be done sometimes in > between the ref version changes. I bet the new iTunes looks is soo spread to > all/most of the other windows that now looks like iTunes 9 did. Why do Apple > not do this right away and keep the gui more consistent without this kind of > prototype testing in the customers products is beyond me. Or rather I > understand the advantages of tests done like this, I just dislikes it since > these tests should be done outside the production version alteady sold to and > in use by the customers! But it seem to be heating up the hype surrounding > Apple products.
Sorry John, not really singling you out or picking on you. People need to stop confusing visual design with interaction design. Yes, Apple regularly exercises and exceeds the boundaries of it application visual design. While visual design is certainly an element of interaction design, it is most decidedly not the whole of interaction design; this recognition is what sets Apple and a very large portion of its developer base apart from just about every other software shop out there (yes, I'm looking at you Linux, Windows and Google). Interaction design and user experience, despite the visual design changes that often accompany new releases of especially iTunes, are still consistent with what came before, menus still behave like menus, keyboard equivalents are the same, the mouse still behaves as always so what did change mostly the aesthetics of the visual interface. The question to ask is has the visual change improved, degraded or had no real effect on the user experience. Please note that I'm not calling for lots of anecdotal evidence to demonstrate one's personal feelings, I'm just trying to inject a little perspective here. For what it's worth, I personally am not fond of the changes in the UI but suspect that like me, given the real lack of hue and cry on the web, most iTunes users have seen a degradation in ux. Let us state it this way: the GUI remains consistent across the Mac OS X interface but the visual design does not. In 1984 and for many years after, it was very much a necessity that the GUI be consistent in interaction and visual aspect as computer users gained experience and confidence in using graphical systems in place of textual systems. Dave Henderson_______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
