You've heard the advice about code optimization: 1) Don't. 2) Don't yet (experts only).
The same applies for deviating from the OS' look-and-feel guidelines: 1) Don't. 2) Don't yet (experts only).
Unless you're going to devote millions of dollars worth of user testing to your UI concept, there's no way you're going to beat the built-in guidelines.
And, seriously, we have programs made in the year 2009, *TWO THOUSAND NINE*, that don't have working menus. (I'm looking at you, Notepad++.) How do you fuck up menus? They've been perfected for decades! There are dozens of OS libraries, including the OS-native one, that do them correctly! It boggles the mind, it's like software development is going back in time.
For example, I've been trying to get bugs in Thunderbird fixed for a while that seriously impede usability, but the development team doesn't seem to care.
Open source groups that maintain bug trackers, but completely ignore them-- which is something like 95% of all open source projects-- are a usability problem.
If you don't want input, that's fine, but *please* don't pretend like you do. All you're doing is alienating users. I've put in dozens of bug reports, most of which were entirely ignored for years and only closed when the project moved bug tracking software.
BTW: Gnome has a spatial file manager, or at least a spatial mode. Unlike Mac OS X's Finder, the decision to use spatial vs non-spatial mode is a system-wide configuration all file manager windows respect, so it's obvious what you're going to get. I would consider Gnome to be a (very minor, but still noticeable) member of "the industry", so it's still around.
If I ever own a piece of hardware that Linux actually supports, I'll definitely give it a try. I'm not holding my breath, though, since Linux has failed to fully support my G4 iBook, HP Tablet, G4 desktop, Dell tower.
I actually liked the "known unknowns" vs. "unknown unknowns" speech. It made perfect sense to me, and I can think of a lot of stuff in my work that it applies to.
For example:
Setting up the test environment is a "known known"-- I know it needs to be done, and I know exactly how long it'll take.
Implementing my project is a "known unknown"-- I know it needs to be done, but I don't know how long exactly it will take.
On the other hand, a scope change from the client is an "unknown unknown"-- I don't know if it will happen or not, so I don't even know if I need to worry about it, much less how long it'll take.
I dunno, maybe I'm a freak, but it all makes sense to me.
Have you ever used a Mac OS X machine as your main machine for an extended period of time?
Yeah, I dual-booted between 10.2 and Classic, and then ran 10.3 and 10.4 with no Classic (or Classic emulator) at all. I've had more experience with OS X than I'd like to. I love the insinuation that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, though, that's nice.
How do you feel Mac OS X's let you down, ui-wise?
The main thing that bothers me, and that only Apple can get away with: version 10 of a product shouldn't have *fewer* features than version 9. Finder in OS X had some features that Finder in OS 9 didn't have, but the real crime is that OS 9 Finder had *tons* of features that OS X didn't-- and some that *still* haven't been added to OS X. (And many of those features were critical to my workflow.)
For example, my workflow in OS 9 was based around labels and folder tabs. OS X *finally* added labels back in, although it took them until 10.4 (IIRC) to do it, but they've still never added folder tabs back into the OS. (The folder tab feature let you take an open Finder window and drag it to the edge of the screen. It would turn into an always-available 'tab' that you could pop-open to interact with.)
I think they also finally added back-in the ability to auto-mount network drives on login, that was a retarded feature to get rid of.
And it didn't help that every new feature they added to OS X had a horrible, horrible UI. Spotlight search might be powerful, if you could figure out the hideous maze of menus and fields. Oh, and I dare anybody to give me a consistent set of rules for when Apple uses Aqua appearance as opposed to Metal appearance. They just roll a fucking dice, to confuse users.
Speaking of Aqua vs. Metal, I also love how there are two entirely different types of Finder windows, one of each-- double-click a folder and try to predict which type of Finder window opens! It's completely non-deterministic, as far as I can tell. (There's probably some rule that governs it, but damned if I could figure it out in 3 years of OS X usage.)
But in my mind, the greatest crime against Classic users was the removal of spatial browsing. The concept of one-folder = one-window is now completely gone in the industry. Sad, because it worked better than anything I'd ever tried before or since.
(Oh, and don't get me started on the Classic emulator/environment. I've never seen a more shitty piece of software passed off as "production quality." It did nothing but eat up your battery life and CPU, while completely failing to run 20-25% of Classic software. What a turd.)
I've never heard of any classic user who left OS X because of the GUI
That's because most Mac users are so brainwashed that they'd use OS X even if it was just a static photograph of one of Steve Jobs' turds.
I, on the other hand, actually *chose* to use Mac after evaluating the other systems available. And when Apple pissed all over their most faithful users by removing all the features that made their OS so great, I left-- like I said above, if I have to use a crummy UI, I might as well use Windows so I can use more software.
If most Classic users are like me, they couldn't stand the shitty OS X UI. Once it became apparent that Apple has absolutely no interest in retaking their previous position of UI leadership, I moved to Windows. If I have to use a crummy UI, I might as well use the one with the most software. And, unlike Apple, Microsoft is actually interested in evolving the UI.
Mac OS Classic was always under-reported on this site in the "olden days" (i.e. when it was relevant to everybody else.) I have no idea why, since it was the most successful non-Microsoft operating system for, what, 15 years?
That's exactly why I keep telling my friends that WOW graphics are shitty, and they keep telling me that they're fine. Not that WOW is the most immersive game to start with*, but it *really* ruins what little immersion it has when your sword clips right through your character's ear. Or when your polearm is half-inside the gryphon you're riding. Blizzard doesn't even pretend to care about clipping.
* A friend of mine, a hard-core RP MUD player, tried Ultima Online he washed his hands of all MMOs for good. Why? Just as he was getting into the game, his hunter character made its first kill, some moron walked up and said, "hay you killed bambi lolol". He quit the game, right then and there, and never came back.
IE6 remained unchanged because all of Microsoft's competitors gave up. It's the same reason that, for example, PowerPoint has been so stagnant in the last few years-- Microsoft doesn't bother committing resources to products that have no competition. (Indeed, why should they?)
If you want good Microsoft software, *compete* with them.
The iPhone has changed the smartphone market to where even with the best hardware Windows Mobile just isn't wanted much anymore.
Simply untrue. It is true that the iPhone has springboarded into the corporate market extremely quickly, adding in full Exchange compatibility is pretty much the best strategic move they've ever made. However, both Blackberry and Windows Mobile are still doing quite well on their own. It is true, however, that Apple's influence has gotten both RIM and Microsoft to crash-course some new features.
For the home market, you might have a stronger argument, but Windows Mobile was never huge in that space in the first place.
The 360 is still falling behind the Wii despite MS's attempts to beat it with the "New Xbox Experience" and with the development of the Natal controller.
The Natal controller isn't even available yet.
Hardware sales, the 360 fell behind the Wii ages ago and nothing's changed. What's really important for the Xbox 360 is its: 1) Extremely high attach-rate. Xbox 360 players play their consoles a *lot* and buy a *lot* of games. Impressively and surprisingly so, in fact. 2) Its ability to go head-to-head against the Playstation 3 and make an extremely good showing. (I'm not going to fall into the trap of saying one company "wins" the market, but even the most rabid fan has to admit the Xbox 360 is doing much better against the Sony behemoth than anybody expected.)
Office has stagnated and has had a popular revolt going on because of the "ribbon" UI that a lot of people hate, and I don't see a new version remedying that in the future.
"Popular revolt?" Seriously? What fantasy-world are you writing this post from? You gotta back this one up, buddy... I've seen *nothing* resembling a "popular revolt" anywhere except Slashdot, and Slashdot would have "revolted" no matter how good the product is, simply because it's from Microsoft.
MS as a whole has remained the same, however the world is changing and they don't seem to realize that.
The ribbon in Office 2007 *is* realizing that. The new standard-compliance of IE8 *is* realizing that. The quality of Bing's search results *is* realizing that.
The only real problem here is that you're so irrationally biased against Microsoft, you can't even think clearly enough to judge.
I tried the latest Ubuntu release, and I couldn't even change the DPI setting without rebooting. (Given, I didn't try hot-swapping monitors, but I figured if it was shitty enough that it couldn't change DPI on-the-fly it was probably shitty enough to fail at hot-swapping monitors also.)
Out of curiosity, if you rolled-back the clock and you nephew had a Commodore 64 at the age of 17, do you think he would "get more out of it" than his Dell now?
That sounds like it attaches to the *person*, not the chunk of plastic.
Oh. I do web analytics, so I have no choice but to use all browsers pretty regularly. I like IE8, it's leaps and bounds above IE7, which is leaps and bounds above IE6. The least-usable browser from my experience is Opera, I just can't stand it's mutant UI. (Although the rendering and JS functionality is fine.)
Well, ok. And yet none of that changes the point I was making, which is that anybody closely following this market saw the feature at work (i.e. not rumored) first in IE8.
That link is the only thing I've seen, IE8-wise, comparing it to other browsers. But generally IE doesn't get advertised at all-- I haven't seen an IE ad in ages. (Of course, I don't watch TV, so there's a whole world of advertising I get no exposure to.)
They're not doing it because Chrome has it, they're doing it because IE8 has it. Microsoft putting this in Internet Explorer before Firefox is basically equivalent to kicking Firefox developers in the nuts.
And yet, you still can't hot-swap external monitors with a laptop.
People don't care about all the cool stuff you've listed that it *can* do, people care more about the extremely basic stuff that it *can't* do (and that every other OS has had figured out for ages.)
One of the best reasons for replacing X11 is that laptops *aren't* single-screen devices. In fact, laptops are much more likely than desktops to have to hot-swap monitors, and that's something that, currently, X11 handles like ass. (If it handles it at all, which from my experience it doesn't.) Meanwhile, OS X and Windows are perfectly fine with hot-swapping monitors.
In short, replacing X11 would make laptops much *more* useful, not less.
Of course, Air France is going to give some money to the victims, but I don't see them as being particularly at fault in the crash. The only thing they *may* have done wrong is hold-off on replacing speed sensors quickly enough, but even that isn't proven to be the cause of the crash.
I think it says a lot more about society that everything has to have somebody "at fault." Sometimes planes, despite everybody's best efforts, crash. Shit happens.
Slashdot Mirror
You've heard the advice about code optimization:
1) Don't.
2) Don't yet (experts only).
The same applies for deviating from the OS' look-and-feel guidelines:
1) Don't.
2) Don't yet (experts only).
Unless you're going to devote millions of dollars worth of user testing to your UI concept, there's no way you're going to beat the built-in guidelines.
And, seriously, we have programs made in the year 2009, *TWO THOUSAND NINE*, that don't have working menus. (I'm looking at you, Notepad++.) How do you fuck up menus? They've been perfected for decades! There are dozens of OS libraries, including the OS-native one, that do them correctly! It boggles the mind, it's like software development is going back in time.
For example, I've been trying to get bugs in Thunderbird fixed for a while that seriously impede usability, but the development team doesn't seem to care.
Open source groups that maintain bug trackers, but completely ignore them-- which is something like 95% of all open source projects-- are a usability problem.
If you don't want input, that's fine, but *please* don't pretend like you do. All you're doing is alienating users. I've put in dozens of bug reports, most of which were entirely ignored for years and only closed when the project moved bug tracking software.
BTW: Gnome has a spatial file manager, or at least a spatial mode. Unlike Mac OS X's Finder, the decision to use spatial vs non-spatial mode is a system-wide configuration all file manager windows respect, so it's obvious what you're going to get. I would consider Gnome to be a (very minor, but still noticeable) member of "the industry", so it's still around.
If I ever own a piece of hardware that Linux actually supports, I'll definitely give it a try. I'm not holding my breath, though, since Linux has failed to fully support my G4 iBook, HP Tablet, G4 desktop, Dell tower.
I actually liked the "known unknowns" vs. "unknown unknowns" speech. It made perfect sense to me, and I can think of a lot of stuff in my work that it applies to.
For example:
Setting up the test environment is a "known known"-- I know it needs to be done, and I know exactly how long it'll take.
Implementing my project is a "known unknown"-- I know it needs to be done, but I don't know how long exactly it will take.
On the other hand, a scope change from the client is an "unknown unknown"-- I don't know if it will happen or not, so I don't even know if I need to worry about it, much less how long it'll take.
I dunno, maybe I'm a freak, but it all makes sense to me.
It seems to me like this offers a remarkable opportunity for some very serious vulnerabilities if it is not handled very very carefully.
Like... what?
If I download a SWF file to my desktop, and run it by double-clicking it, is it somehow less secure than if I run it in a browser?
Have you ever used a Mac OS X machine as your main machine for an extended period of time?
Yeah, I dual-booted between 10.2 and Classic, and then ran 10.3 and 10.4 with no Classic (or Classic emulator) at all. I've had more experience with OS X than I'd like to. I love the insinuation that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, though, that's nice.
How do you feel Mac OS X's let you down, ui-wise?
The main thing that bothers me, and that only Apple can get away with: version 10 of a product shouldn't have *fewer* features than version 9. Finder in OS X had some features that Finder in OS 9 didn't have, but the real crime is that OS 9 Finder had *tons* of features that OS X didn't-- and some that *still* haven't been added to OS X. (And many of those features were critical to my workflow.)
For example, my workflow in OS 9 was based around labels and folder tabs. OS X *finally* added labels back in, although it took them until 10.4 (IIRC) to do it, but they've still never added folder tabs back into the OS. (The folder tab feature let you take an open Finder window and drag it to the edge of the screen. It would turn into an always-available 'tab' that you could pop-open to interact with.)
I think they also finally added back-in the ability to auto-mount network drives on login, that was a retarded feature to get rid of.
And it didn't help that every new feature they added to OS X had a horrible, horrible UI. Spotlight search might be powerful, if you could figure out the hideous maze of menus and fields. Oh, and I dare anybody to give me a consistent set of rules for when Apple uses Aqua appearance as opposed to Metal appearance. They just roll a fucking dice, to confuse users.
Speaking of Aqua vs. Metal, I also love how there are two entirely different types of Finder windows, one of each-- double-click a folder and try to predict which type of Finder window opens! It's completely non-deterministic, as far as I can tell. (There's probably some rule that governs it, but damned if I could figure it out in 3 years of OS X usage.)
But in my mind, the greatest crime against Classic users was the removal of spatial browsing. The concept of one-folder = one-window is now completely gone in the industry. Sad, because it worked better than anything I'd ever tried before or since.
(Oh, and don't get me started on the Classic emulator/environment. I've never seen a more shitty piece of software passed off as "production quality." It did nothing but eat up your battery life and CPU, while completely failing to run 20-25% of Classic software. What a turd.)
I've never heard of any classic user who left OS X because of the GUI
That's because most Mac users are so brainwashed that they'd use OS X even if it was just a static photograph of one of Steve Jobs' turds.
I, on the other hand, actually *chose* to use Mac after evaluating the other systems available. And when Apple pissed all over their most faithful users by removing all the features that made their OS so great, I left-- like I said above, if I have to use a crummy UI, I might as well use Windows so I can use more software.
If most Classic users are like me, they couldn't stand the shitty OS X UI. Once it became apparent that Apple has absolutely no interest in retaking their previous position of UI leadership, I moved to Windows. If I have to use a crummy UI, I might as well use the one with the most software. And, unlike Apple, Microsoft is actually interested in evolving the UI.
Jesus Christ the paranoia is thick in here today... what happened? You all lost your tin-foil hats on the same day?
Mac OS Classic was always under-reported on this site in the "olden days" (i.e. when it was relevant to everybody else.) I have no idea why, since it was the most successful non-Microsoft operating system for, what, 15 years?
Not on this site. Not unless he wanted to see 300 posts extolling the virtues of the Model M. Ugh.
That's exactly why I keep telling my friends that WOW graphics are shitty, and they keep telling me that they're fine. Not that WOW is the most immersive game to start with*, but it *really* ruins what little immersion it has when your sword clips right through your character's ear. Or when your polearm is half-inside the gryphon you're riding. Blizzard doesn't even pretend to care about clipping.
* A friend of mine, a hard-core RP MUD player, tried Ultima Online he washed his hands of all MMOs for good. Why? Just as he was getting into the game, his hunter character made its first kill, some moron walked up and said, "hay you killed bambi lolol". He quit the game, right then and there, and never came back.
5 is unplayable on a dual-core Dell laptop, (except with minimal settings in 640x480),
Bulllllllllshiiiiiiit.
I play it every day on my much-wimpier-than-a-dual-core HP tablet.
IE6 remained unchanged because all of Microsoft's competitors gave up. It's the same reason that, for example, PowerPoint has been so stagnant in the last few years-- Microsoft doesn't bother committing resources to products that have no competition. (Indeed, why should they?)
If you want good Microsoft software, *compete* with them.
The iPhone has changed the smartphone market to where even with the best hardware Windows Mobile just isn't wanted much anymore.
Simply untrue. It is true that the iPhone has springboarded into the corporate market extremely quickly, adding in full Exchange compatibility is pretty much the best strategic move they've ever made. However, both Blackberry and Windows Mobile are still doing quite well on their own. It is true, however, that Apple's influence has gotten both RIM and Microsoft to crash-course some new features.
For the home market, you might have a stronger argument, but Windows Mobile was never huge in that space in the first place.
The 360 is still falling behind the Wii despite MS's attempts to beat it with the "New Xbox Experience" and with the development of the Natal controller.
The Natal controller isn't even available yet.
Hardware sales, the 360 fell behind the Wii ages ago and nothing's changed. What's really important for the Xbox 360 is its:
1) Extremely high attach-rate. Xbox 360 players play their consoles a *lot* and buy a *lot* of games. Impressively and surprisingly so, in fact.
2) Its ability to go head-to-head against the Playstation 3 and make an extremely good showing. (I'm not going to fall into the trap of saying one company "wins" the market, but even the most rabid fan has to admit the Xbox 360 is doing much better against the Sony behemoth than anybody expected.)
Office has stagnated and has had a popular revolt going on because of the "ribbon" UI that a lot of people hate, and I don't see a new version remedying that in the future.
"Popular revolt?" Seriously? What fantasy-world are you writing this post from? You gotta back this one up, buddy... I've seen *nothing* resembling a "popular revolt" anywhere except Slashdot, and Slashdot would have "revolted" no matter how good the product is, simply because it's from Microsoft.
MS as a whole has remained the same, however the world is changing and they don't seem to realize that.
The ribbon in Office 2007 *is* realizing that. The new standard-compliance of IE8 *is* realizing that. The quality of Bing's search results *is* realizing that.
The only real problem here is that you're so irrationally biased against Microsoft, you can't even think clearly enough to judge.
Please.
I tried the latest Ubuntu release, and I couldn't even change the DPI setting without rebooting. (Given, I didn't try hot-swapping monitors, but I figured if it was shitty enough that it couldn't change DPI on-the-fly it was probably shitty enough to fail at hot-swapping monitors also.)
Out of curiosity, if you rolled-back the clock and you nephew had a Commodore 64 at the age of 17, do you think he would "get more out of it" than his Dell now?
That sounds like it attaches to the *person*, not the chunk of plastic.
Oh. I do web analytics, so I have no choice but to use all browsers pretty regularly. I like IE8, it's leaps and bounds above IE7, which is leaps and bounds above IE6. The least-usable browser from my experience is Opera, I just can't stand it's mutant UI. (Although the rendering and JS functionality is fine.)
Is there something about my post that gave you the impress I hate think IE8 isn't standards-compliant? Or are you replying to someone else?
Well, ok. And yet none of that changes the point I was making, which is that anybody closely following this market saw the feature at work (i.e. not rumored) first in IE8.
IE had this feature in public betas before Chrome was announced.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-comparison.aspx
That link is the only thing I've seen, IE8-wise, comparing it to other browsers. But generally IE doesn't get advertised at all-- I haven't seen an IE ad in ages. (Of course, I don't watch TV, so there's a whole world of advertising I get no exposure to.)
They're not doing it because Chrome has it, they're doing it because IE8 has it. Microsoft putting this in Internet Explorer before Firefox is basically equivalent to kicking Firefox developers in the nuts.
And yet, you still can't hot-swap external monitors with a laptop.
People don't care about all the cool stuff you've listed that it *can* do, people care more about the extremely basic stuff that it *can't* do (and that every other OS has had figured out for ages.)
One of the best reasons for replacing X11 is that laptops *aren't* single-screen devices. In fact, laptops are much more likely than desktops to have to hot-swap monitors, and that's something that, currently, X11 handles like ass. (If it handles it at all, which from my experience it doesn't.) Meanwhile, OS X and Windows are perfectly fine with hot-swapping monitors.
In short, replacing X11 would make laptops much *more* useful, not less.
Of course, Air France is going to give some money to the victims, but I don't see them as being particularly at fault in the crash. The only thing they *may* have done wrong is hold-off on replacing speed sensors quickly enough, but even that isn't proven to be the cause of the crash.
I think it says a lot more about society that everything has to have somebody "at fault." Sometimes planes, despite everybody's best efforts, crash. Shit happens.