Apple's UI priorities - a bit of a rant
 

Priority number 1 - Buyers
The dock, the traffic lights, the bright colors, the spotlight button, the variety of window styles. All of these things are designed to captivate someone in a showroom and get them to buy a Mac.

Priority number 2 - The Entertainment Industry
Why can't I move my songs from my iPod to another computer? This question, and questions like it, come up all the time. The answer is that Apple has designed their music software for the music industry, not for you, the user. Various deliberate DVD and video format incompatibilities fit under this heading also.

Priority number 3 - The File Structure
Get any new Mac and click on the hard drive. What you see is a bunch of names and folders. Everything but Applications has nothing to do with you getting anything done with your computer.
Click on the home folder and you'll see several folders that it's best if you stay out of, including Library, Music, and Pictures. There are two mostly irrelevant folders called Public and Sites. And one or two useful folders.
Many of these folders that it's best for users to leave alone can be moved or renamed with no warnings whatever, with very bad consequences.

Priority number 4 - The User
Do you see my point here? I answer questions from confused users. Some of them are apologetic about asking, thinking that they are stupid or missing something. I find myself saying, "No, it's not you, Apple made it that way to get people to buy the computer." Or, "No, it's not you it's just that Apple doesn't want to offend the record companies." And I really don't like telling people, "Don't touch that, don't go in there."

Remedies
1. One style of windows.
2. A clear, systemwide indication of when something is fake and when it is real. Fake includes aliases, dock items, and items in the left hand column of finder windows. Let's call entries in albums in iPhoto and iTunes fake as well.
3. Hide most of the file structure from the typical user. Applications, Desktop, and "My Stuff" are just about all users need to see.

Priority 1- Good for business, but bad for the base. We must adapt, I'm afraid.

Priority 2- Jobs did an impossible coup, and Apple is reaping the benefits. Yes, unfortunately you have to keep the entertainment slobs happy, and I always convert my downloaded songs to MP3, or just buy the CD anyway. Without the security in place, we would not have an iTunes store and a myriad of folks buying iPods. Again, good business, but bad for the base.

Priority 3- I agree, new users should never see Library. There should be a "Users" folder and a "User System" folder on the root of the drive. The icon of the drive should not look like something under the hood. It should look like your computer. The most basic, important application icons should be premounted on the Dock, ready to use.

Priority 4- The user needs a basic manual to sit and read.

Remedies:
1. One style of window - Totally agree. The window changes in Finder, to iTunes, to GarageBand, to Soundtrack Pro. Inconsistency is a sin in the UI world. Pick one style and stick with it and also provide a way to choose themes. Why should we have one "love it or lump it" UI theme?

2. Indication of when something is fake - Good idea, but not sure what to do that will not look cruddy. Perhaps a preference choice-- Transparency? Colored circle or rounded square around icon? Small arrow icon in corner?

3. Hide most of the file structure - Out of the box, yes. Perhaps a type of user preference selection that allows high end activity and access (visibility) of various applications. Examples: Novice, Normal, Expert. Expert will see more Finder choices and such applications as Terminal and Disk Repair Utility.

The big one for me is iTheme. An application that replaces UI tif files, size to size (so it all works the same), choose blessed fonts, window colors, button styles, window backgrounds, interface icons etc. This way we can compute in a boring, wild or classic environment.

While I also lament the variety of window styles, I disagree on the other things. I think these have usability benefits - i.e. they are good because they make it easier for people (greatest good for greatest number) to figure out how to accomplish their tasks.

I don't know what you mean by the format incompatibilities, but it is clear that what Apple has done with the iPod is a compromise between what would be best for the users in an ideal world and what makes political sense in the current world we live in. I.e. I think that Apple decided that in the current big-media-dominated climate, it is best not to appear to be aiding users in trading songs etc - in order to avoid a political backlash. Perhaps you haven't heard of the various efforts by the media industry to get laws passed that would force technological constraints on computer hardware and other consumer items?

Many user don't find those folders irrelevant - they use them all the time.
The visibility of the Library folder under the home folder and the one at top level is a compromise between usability and flexibility. E.g. many users make use of the Fonts and ScreenSavers folders. And access to the Preferences folder is a key troubleshooting tool.

Apple does provide the "Simple Finder" as an option in the Accounts preferences (under Parental Controls in Tiger) - perhaps you are suggesting that this would be more suitable for most users.

I have heard. Note that I didn't suggest a remedy for Apple's putting the entertainment industry ahead of the user. Certainly they aren't alone in doing so. Times change, companies adapt and change. I understand that.

Back to users again, one had a problem listening to internet radio on RealPlayer and ended up at the real.com site, where just about the only thing they could find to do was buy RealPlayer Gold, which was totally unnecessary and didn't solve the problem. It was a very bad user experience. Apple has a long way to go before they treat their users as badly as Real does.

If there was a main point to all of this it's to call attention to how Apple's priorities have changed in the past 20 years. I'd say that making things easy for the user has slipped down the list a bit since 1984. Yes some of it can be justified, but all of it makes my job of helping people use their computers less enjoyable. And so I rant... :-)

1. I really like the buttons and colors. The dock is on my top 5 reasons to buy a Mac. Make that top three. HUGE productivity booster.

2. So get your music from another source, like I do. This has nothing to do with the OS. However, Apple does have the least-bad DRM.

3. If you can't resist renaming things without knowing, maybe you shouldn't own a computer. If you can't resist running into telephone poles, you probably shouldn't own a car? Should we remove all the poles?

4. No, I don't see it.

Remedies #2 and #3 seem to conflict. Let's hide the stuff under the hood in one place, but make it more obvious in another.

At one point, moving and renaming just about anything on the Mac was not a problem as long as you stayed out of the System Folder. It was seen as customizing, personalizing the computer. People learned a lot about the Mac by renaming and moving stuff, including applications.

Well to tell the truth part of the point is to get people's minds off of gas prices. How am I doing with that? :-)

Well, I heard that if you put some acetone on your keyboard, it makes you type faster. :)

You definitely got my point in the above post hayne! Moving right along now...

It's been a long time since I looked at Simple Finder. Thanks for reminding me about it. It's a lot simpler than what I have in mind. I'd leave it alone, bump the current Finder to "Advanced" and make something new in between the two as the default.

I put just over $100 in the tank the other day. On the bright side, I *had* forgotten about it for a while since I get about 600 miles on a tankful. Until you reminded me... :D

So why do you hate the dock?

I'd rate the dock as pretty good for users, and very good for sales. All of the stretching, shrinking and of course the bouncing are what I would classify as designed to sell more than to use.

The most important improvement for users that I know of is to have permanent residents of the dock stay in the same place on the screen. Temporary items would appear and disappear without changing the position of the permanent items. Your muscles would learn where your most used apps, files and folders were, and you could open them without looking.

The Apple Menu in earlier OS releases allowed for use of this muscle memory. I could launch apps almost before I thought about doing so, never giving the process a thought or a glance. I'm not suggesting a return to that, just some user centric improvements to the dock.

Instead of bouncing I'd rather see the triangle under the icon flash, but that's more trivial.

I'd replace the Dock with a Dock Menu. In fact, I'd incorporate the display of currently running apps into the Apple Menu. In the vicinity of "Recent Folder", "Recent Applications" and "Recent Documents", I'd put "Current Folders", "Current Applications", and "Current Windows".

Good discussion.

Get any new Mac and click on the hard drive. What you see is a bunch of names and folders. Everything but Applications has nothing to do with you getting anything done with your computer.
Click on the home folder and you'll see several folders that it's best if you stay out of, including Library, Music, and Pictures. There are two mostly irrelevant folders called Public and Sites. And one or two useful folders.
Many of these folders that it's best for users to leave alone can be moved or renamed with no warnings whatever, with very bad consequences..

This point has been made in countless discussions on Mac boards -- often by people nostalgic for the simplicity of Classic days. Some would have it so that only Applications and Users would show at root level, and Library would be invisible in the home folder. Recall, however, that the System Folder was visible in Classic days (still is), and you can move stuff in and out of it; if you don't know what you're doing, you can really mess things up. You even had full access to the System folder in Windows. There should definitely be a warning dialogue when one tries to move Photos or Music out of the home folder.

Having these things in a menu would seem to lose the current functionality of the Dock as a drag & drop destination. I use it this way all the time - e.g. dragging a file to the Mail.app icon in the Dock to send a new email with that file, dragging a text file to whichever of my several text editors I think is most suitable for this file, etc.

Interesting thoughts on the dock. I can't say that I agree, and I can't think of anything that could improve it. I absolutely love and value the way it works right now. I don't find that a few transient apps pushing the others to the left does anything to impact my ability to instantly get to them.

I have a dock menu also for less-used apps (DockExtender). It works basically like the Windows Start menu, which I always found to be too slow and require too many clicks. I want my most-used and currently-running apps right up front there.

The dock eye candy is fun but also useful. Making the dock small but adding magnification gives the best of two worlds (space taken vs. usability). The bouncing is neither particularly great nor bad, except on a slow machine where it is useful to know that the app is still working on starting up.

I second what Hayne said; I love the ability to drop things on the dock.

Both are based on what I see users doing.
Remedy 2 - They get confused by all the levels of folders that aren't relevant to them.
Remedy 3 - They get worried when they accidentally delete something from the dock, thinking they have lost it irretrievably. In iPhoto they delete photos from albums and expect them to be gone from the library as well. And most have no idea that they can add or remove (some of) the icons on the left side of finder windows.

Having folders which normal users should not touch have a readily distinguishable icon or prefix (perhaps the apple logo) would be a great warning device.

Not everything in the Library is off limits-- I often add pictures to use as Desktop Wallpaper.

My First Post
 

My first post on MacOSXhints was regarding the Dock. I have no real hatred regarding the Dock, I just don't like Apple foisting it upon me without giving me a way of turning it off or modifying it to work the way I want it to work. This is the problem with Spotlight, though I love it, if you do not have a super-fast machine, it could cause you to sit for 2 minutes while you try to finish your typing. Yet Apple provided NO way to set preferences to work like the old Find routine. Apple is FORCING us to get used to their new and great ideas, thus hindering our productivity to advance their agenda. I just do NOT like that.

Actually, I think this sort of thing is done merely because of economic reasons - it takes a lot more development and testing time to provide configurable interfaces. Apple saved the time/money in order to be able to spend it on other things.

I can only guess that it must be a difficult choice to decide where to draw the line in terms of allowing customization. Given the choice between an infinitely configurable OS and a bombproof, unalterable OS designed by the best UI designers around, I'd always take the latter. Obviously, some customization is necessary--I'd be aggravated if had leave the dock at the bottom taking up valuable vertical real estate which is at a much greater premium relative to horizontal in my life--but they've got to draw the line somewhere.

That line will always be a little arbitrary and it will always prove most frustrating to power users who muck around all the time with their OS settings.

It is certainly fair to criticize "Apple's UI priorities," and a board like this is the place to do it. But, please at least acknowledge the importance of also asking "compared to what?"

Windows?

All those open source Linux variants?

Well said. If there was a point to the rant it's that over time Apple's UI priorities have changed to the detriment of the user, and let's be honest about that. But given what else is out there and how much more can be done with computers now than in 1984, I'd say all in all Apple is doing a pretty good job. With a few very irritating exceptions! :-)

I think Irene's idea is a brilliant one. Apple logo folders would be an excellent way of telling users that "these folders are official." Or something as simple as having them come standard locked. So the unsavvy user would have to go through the trouble of unlocking them before actually make mistakes. Any any user who knows what he is doing would only need to unlock the library once and is free to make changes.

The dock can be modified to be less intrustive if you wish. You can simply turn maginification off and it becomes a much simpler animal. However I do wish the icons in the dock had a little alias arrow on them. Because alot of people are the opposite of the kind that throw things away on accident. Meaning, they are afraid to touch or move anything. There are so many people I see that have Safari and IE in the dock, and Eudora mail and apple mail, and they have iphoto and imovie in the dock even though they have never, and never plan on opening them.

The saddest thing of it all is, the OS X manual is elegany, colerful and easy to understand, and it explains to people that Safari, and Mail are APPLE PROGRAMS MADE BY APPLE FOR APPLE. Yet people don't even both to learn what all those things in the dock are, and just default to IE and Eudora, the only 2 mac viruses.

I didn't know IE and Eudora were Mac viruses. Maybe you meant to say something else about them?

For all the complaining about the OS X UI that's gone on since 10.0, I can say with no hesitation that I've been much more productive in OS X than I was in OS 9 (or any iteration of Windows) because of the UI. The column view Finder, with tool- or sidebar shortcuts, the ability to open multiple Finder windows, and, yes, the Dock, all combine to make possible a much faster and more productive workflow than other OSes. I'm not saying it couldn't be improved, only that it's not too shabby. And I don't see where having different kinds of window themes makes much difference -- at least re. workflow. Inconsistency, here, seems more about a UI in an ongoing process of development, mostly for the better, overall.

From the beginning, some (very small percentage, I believe) have been clamoring for themes, with complaints that Apple is trying to force something obnoxious on users. I've done the theming thing off and on and always come back to the default set-up. For one thing, I think things are more stable that way, but it also seems easier on the eyes and less bothersome than any other themes I've used. The default setup since Panther is really a lot softer than the glaring stripes and buttons we had from 10.0 - 10.2.

mclbruce: If there was a point to the rant it's that over time Apple's UI priorities have changed to the detriment of the user, and let's be honest about that. But given what else is out there and how much more can be done with computers now than in 1984, I'd say all in all Apple is doing a pretty good job. With a few very irritating exceptions! :-)

Agreed, although I don't think their changing UI priorities have been to the detriment of the user. Quite the contrary.

Phil, I complained about the Chooser because it made printing a real pain. Who would not agree? Yet how many iterations of the Mac OS did it take for Apple to get the hint? OS6? OS7? 8? 9!? It took until OSX to finally see it turn into what it was suppose to be. Something that Windows had at the outset. So I take the same issue with a few things here and there, because I want to see the user have control over the interface and not vise verse.
I see no heavy burden of coding in providing direct swap of TIFF files and tweaks to colors or changes in exact size fonts. I do not think Tiger will suddenly become spastic if the folder icons change or windows are suddenly without brushed aluminum. I do not see why all my windows can't look like GarageBand's anodized black metal with wood veneer, or how such a change would make UNIX suddenly unstable. But install a third-party themer, and you will see more than just a little instability. So for now, I'm stuck with 4 different UI themes--Finder-brushed, iTunes-iTunes mild gradient, GarageBand black and wood, and Soundtrack Pro teeny tiny flat gray.

I know what you mean, Schenb, but back where I come from (S. Louisiana), contending with something like four different UI themes on a computer would have been called a "small alligator," if you know what I mean. ;) If one is especially sensitive to aesthetics, however, I suppose that could be annoying.

1) Let's be clear. This is all possible. But I think you underestimate the programming effort to make it happen. The different appearances that almost all of us lament are not just a matter of what TIFF file is used. In many cases, the programmers are using different software components to implement the different looks. So changing to some sort of unified, configurable look would mean implementing new lower-level components. It is sort of analogous to getting all the automobile manufacturers to use standard interchangeable parts so you could use parts from anyone. It's not nearly as big a change as that would be for the auto industry, but the point is that it would require considerable effort. It's not free, it's not even cheap - so Apple would need to devote some not insignificant resources to do this. Apple will decide if that is their highest priority for their limited time and budget.

2) On Terminology: The low-level OS is Unix. What you have been talking about is not related to Unix. In fact what you have been talking about is all at the application level. E.g. Finder is an application. It's not part of the OS strictly speaking. Thus none of this has anything to do with the stability of the low-level OS (Unix). But it might well have impacts on the stability of the apps that run on that lower level OS, and if Finder gets unstable, hardly anybody cares that the underlying OS is still purring away.

I think the level of file system worship required to use OS X is far too high. That's one area where the users can be treated better. Where is the quiet, peaceful place where users can keep their files and folders without being intruded upon by the OS or by applications? It doesn't exist in the standard install of OS X.

Desktop - not quiet and peaceful because it causes things to appear on the Desktop.
Documents - users files and folders will be invaded by files and folders from many apps, including AppleWorks and iChat.
Library - no way.
Movies - maybe, but something put a My Movies folder inside the Movies folder, and I don't think it was me. Besides how could I recommend that people keep all of their files in a folder called Movies?
Music - will be invaded by iTunes.
Pictures - will be invaded by iPhoto.
Public, Sites - special folders not for general use.

Is a "my files" folder that belongs only to the user too much to ask?

LOL, I like that one. My grandparents were from there, so I know what you mean exactly. However, if you are looking at the ugly face of that alligator every dog-gone day, you tend to want to turn it into a handbag or pair of shoes after a few years.

mclbruce, I'm not following some of this. You seem bothered that certain folders are used by default and lament the absence of a folder that people can use as their own. I know you know you can move many of those files and folders (e.g. music and movies) elsewhere if you want, but you do so at the expense of the kind of media interfacing that has been an important part of Apple's "digital hub" strategy. So it's not like default folders for certain files is a completely arbitrary and senseless move by Apple to "control" someone's computer. Media interfacing is a strong point for many users, but for it to work, you do have to have your media in certain folders.

Why is your desktop not quiet and peaceful? Mine has only the hard drive icon and whatever else I've decided to save there.

Is a "my files" folder that belongs only to the user too much to ask?

I've created a lot of these, as I'm sure you have as well. I suppose you mean one that's there by default. I don't recall that on OS 9, fwiw. The "Documents" folder was used by Eudora and a few other apps, so it's not like we've lost some ground, here.

I'm not going to say I know the deep nits and nats of Aqua and how it relates to other apps. But applications made for OSX are using basic building blocks provided by the OS. The aqua buttons, the window resizers, the brushed metal. If these are changed in their default location, they will change on everything else. But I will drop this for now. It has been a spirited debate and always gets my blood pumping. heh heh ;)

Oh I knew that hayne, that's why I said that I couldn't see how changing a tiff here and there... (and I quote)"would make UNIX suddenly unstable". So we are in agreement there. (I was being sarcastic in other words)

So, why do I care what the OS looks like? A. I have to look at it daily. B. It is inconsistant from app to app. D. I like my UI to not change on the whim of Apples design team. (as much as they deserve kudos--don't get me wrong)

What I was trying to explain above is that there are several versions of these, not all of them are provided by the OS in the sense of being in libraries that are shared by all apps - some of these component libraries have been developed for one app only and are embedded within the app.

You no doubt have heard about Cocoa versus Carbon. These are two different sets of code libraries. The Finder is implemented using Carbon, Safari using Cocoa - just to give a few examples. But even within Cocoa or within Carbon, some apps are using their own versions of some components in order to get a different look or functionality.

Hmmm, so why not (as part of the iTheme project) centralize the image files? If a third-party wants to venture on their own (I remember Bryce's little trek as a renegade interface) then they take their chances. Seems the UI would benefit from creating an interface building-block library in a central location. Heck, they are doing much more complicated things these days.

As I said much earlier, all this is certainly possible. But please note that it isn't anything as trivial as just centralizing "image files". It would mean large programming changes. The apps don't just load image file1 or image file2 to create the GUI - they invoke code from software libraries.

Just to give you some flavour of what it is like, here's some (made-up) example code showing how two different apps might create a button:

App1
------
String label = "Press Me";
int x = 200, y = 300;
libA_createButton(label, x, y);

App2
------
buttonStruct foo;
foo.name = libB_createStringLabel("Press Me");
foo.x = 200;
foo.y = 300;
libB_buttonCreationFunction(&foo);
--------------------------------------------------------------

Even if you aren't a programmer, I think you can see that there is not a straightforward one-to-one correspondence between these.

So it would be necessary to:
a) create a customizable button-creation library that would provide a superset of the capabilities of the existing libraries
b) change all of the application code to make use of that new library

As I said, this is obviously possible - everything is possible in software. It's just a question of:
a) how much effort it would be
b) whether this is the best thing to spend the effort on

I"ll go back to user experience to try to explain. People ask me, "Where should I put my files?" They want their own place to store their own files. There is no such place in OS X now.

I often tell them the Documents folder. Then they get annoyed when the AppleWorks User Data folder (for example) shows up in "their" documents folder. They start renaming or moving these alien folders. Sometimes they even want to rename "their" Documents folder. Then their computer doesn't work right. They get mad. In my experience, there would be a lot fewer problems if users had a default place to store things where they would not see any files or folders created by the system or apps. This place should be able to be renamed and moved by the user with no ill effects.

My desktop is fine. However if I told users to keep all of their files and folders in the desktop folder their desktops could become cluttered. I'm just saying the desktop is not a good candidate for this hypothetical folder that is for users files only. The point to my listing all the directories and commenting about them is to show that there is no good candidate for a user files folder that actually belongs to the user.

I realize there is a solution. Create a folder called " My files." Put it in the home directory. Put an alias on the desktop if the user wants. Put it in the Dock. If there is only one user on the computer put an alias at the root level, so if they end up there they can get back where they want to be easily. Put it on the left side of finder windows and rip out everything else that's there. Change finder preferences so new windows open in " My files."

The only problem with that is if they call Apple or some other place for support and this place doesn't know what I've done to their computer. Still I think it may be worth it. Perhaps I'll leave the home directory in the left hand column of finder windows to satisfy other tech support people. Thank you Phil for helping me think about this a bit more.

I guess I can turn this thread over to shneb and his theme crusade now. :-)

Wow, I just don't understand that. Annoyed that there are folders there? Why? This makes it sound like no matter how hard you try, some people are still going to work hard at screwing up their computers.

mclbruce, I hear you wanting things radically simplified for new users, and that makes sense. But sooner or later, if one is going to use a computer somewhat regularly, one will need to know how to make new folders and how to save files into them. In fact, knowing how to save a file to a certain location can be a big deal for new users. The bottom line, I guess, is that one just has to learn a few basic skills in order to make things work out the way you want.

What I tell new users is not to move any folders out of their home account, but to make all the new ones they want both in that directory and in the ones already there. Seems to work just fine.

Are you hearing complaints from new users about this. It seems to be an issue that's easy enough to resolve.

I think the "Documents" folder is what Apple intended to be the user's "own place". The trouble is that some apps have mistakenly taken this as the place to store their support files. In my "Documents" folder, the only things that are there that I haven't created myself are "AppleWorks User Data", "Microsoft User Data", "Palm", and "EA Games".

AppleWorks is an Apple app and so you'd think it would know better. But AppleWorks is not really supported anymore - it is a leftover from a previous era and so is largely left to its own devices I think.

Of course Apple can't do much more than look sternly when 3rd-party apps put stuff where it doesn't belong. I suspect in fact that Apple wasn't too clear in its guidelines about what goes where in the early versions of OS X and so 3rd-party developers had to make their best guess.

For what it's worth, many of the non-technical users I deal with keep most of their documents on the Desktop. When it gets messy, I show them how to create folders (on the Desktop) to keep related documents together.

The effort some folks spend to do just that is utterly amazing sometimes.

I agree that the Documents folder started it's life as the user's own place. Apple had a multi user setup in OS 8 and 9 that involved swapping, renaming, and hiding various Documents folders when user IDs were switched. I believe at that time Apple actually asked developers to put user data in the Documents folder. That way (Apple reasoned) each user would have their own data that would stay with them as these various Documents folders were renamed swapped around. So I don't blame developers for using the Documents folder. Some of them are just continuing to do what Apple once asked them to do.

If you opened your dresser drawer and found somebody else's socks mixed in with your own, wouldn't you be upset?

Yes, some people do seem to work hard to screw up their computer. But some things are easier to do and to protect against. If a user messes up a double click they can end up dragging a folder to a new location instead of opening it. If that folder is the Documents folder or Music folder, bad things can happen. It wouldn't take much to prevent that from happening.

Only if it they belong to someone who doesn't live in my house. I have yet to have someone break in and leave socks, though of course someone breaks in and steals ONE sock from the dryer pretty regularly. The boy's socks end up with mine all the time, I don't really care. Really, you think a sock drawer and a folder on a computer are the same?

I think anyone using technology needs to learn a little something to start with. Coddling ignorance is not making the world a better place.

Nah... already stormed the gates. They are too thick and I got a spinter. ;)

I mentioned this before, that there really should be two user folders, one for the User him/herself (empty, good place to put new folders) and a User System folder for Library, cache, bookmarks, address files, temps, and backup files by various applications. This is pretty much unseen by the average user.

It's mostly the old time Mac users that I notice having problems with the file structure in OS X. The new people and Windows transplants seem to have less trouble, although I did get an email problem the other day due to a Windows transplant moving a folder. For me, in general, the pattern holds that the longer a person has used a Mac casually, the harder time they have with some things in OS X. I'm excluding power users and professionals here.