That is a good approach IMO, rather than try and retro adapt every part of OS X to OS 9. It seems he is an OS9 refugee and to his credit he seems to be trying to adopt OS X, pinpoint the weaker aspects compared to OS 9 then find a 3rd party utility to achieve a work monster. I read his articles and he certainly has some valid questioning points of view. Is this guy clinging to the past or what? Rather than snobbishly putting them aside, I think Apple should take them seriously and either confirm or disprove the issues brought up by means of large-scale, scientific user research and usability testing - something that - surprisingly - is not a big part of Apple's interface design efforts. Tog's comments are valid from a person who knows all about interface design best practices. So obviously, lots of unforeseeable things creep up, many little (and big) mistakes are made, etc., even by the best.īut to display truly superior, user-focused, best-of-class design practices (as compared to those of a company like Microsoft), Apple should constantly question its own design from the bottom up - not top down - and fix the things that are sub-ideal, even if they are big issues, rather than sticking with them come hell or high water. The truth is that creating a new operating system is an immense task even for the brightest and most talented minds around, especially with Apple's high standards and the public's expectations from a company like Apple (sure, NEXT etc., but doing a Mac OS really is a different beast). Apple has a wonderful usability team, and I think they're capable of making it much better than its current incarnation, but are now "stuck" in the current iteration because it's been hyped so much by Apple. But that's not to say that people shouldn't criticize it for all that it's NOT, and suggest improvements (it is still lacking in many aspects in a big way, IMHO). Yes, Mac OS X is great for the most part, no question. My feeling is that OS X has done some similarly unfortunate things to Mac users as we've complained MS has done to Windows users (though fortunately on a MUCH smaller scale): Make users accept/even defend a usable, but far from ideal interface just because it is "good enough". This is not about a gut dislike feeling, it's about violating established design principles that make sense. I have to say, I agree with Tog for the most part, especially with his valid comments about the dock.
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