I’ve spent my fair share of time railing on Lion these last couple of months. Heck, it even sparked someone to call me part of a “corrupt Apple press.” But here’s the thing: no matter how much time passes, and how many times I find something neat in Lion, I still grumble when I realize just how many bugs and design problems remain in it currently.
I’m not a graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I know what I like. What I don’t like is OS X apps that look and feel like they don’t belong on my desktop, but I live with it. I’ve never once pointed out, in public at least, that the new Address Book is ungodly ugly in my eyes. Why? Well, because that’s my opinion, and you’re entitled to think whatever you want about it. People either love or hate the new iPadification of some applications, and I’m fine with that. But what I’m not fine with is applications that suddenly seem to lose functionality, but in reality, they do not.
Doesn’t seem to make sense, right? Take a look at our header again. Did you know that the ribbon was a button? You can click on it, and it adds some functionality back to the Address Book that I’ve long assumed was missing in Lion.
That’s a problem.
I didn’t know it was a button. I found out that it was a button by stumbling on a Reddit post asking people if they knew the ribbon was a button. Opinions are split on Reddit between the people who realized and the people who didn’t realize, but more than not, it seems like those who know just happened to stumble across the button by randomly clicking on the ribbon. There are no visual indicators that reveal that you can click that ribbon and something will happen. I’m not alone here either.
Cmatute on Reddit:
Hey, everyone’s bickering OP for not knowing this was a button, but his point still stands. That thing doesn’t even have a rollover animation, NOTHING to informs us that is a clickable object. I’ve had Lion since it came out, and this is the way I find out there is more to the Address Book application. Not intuitive at all. An example of a good implementation: Flipboard has this same bookmark object, but it has this animation to let you know you can interact with it.
This is a problem.
The problem extends far beyond Lion. The recent release of Yellow Submarine on the iBookstore has had its fair share of posts pointing out just how amazing the book is, but not too many pointed out that you had to stumble your way into finding hidden features, audio tracks and other touch-based perks that are available in the book. Once you find them the book is even more amazing. Yet how many people will actually read through the book but never find all of the hidden Easter eggs? That’s what this kind of feels like, a giant Easter egg hunt. If you find the Easter eggs, good for you. If you don’t, no perks for you. Call me an Apple-nazi all you want, but if I can’t find this stuff, do you think the majority of people can? How about the people who have a hard enough time not adding a bajillion toolbars to their favorite browser?
This makes no sense to me. Does it make sense to you? Did you know that ribbon was a button? If it is, it sure doesn’t look or act like one.
I think the biggest problem isn't the changes to the UI or changes to the feature set. Those are simply matters of taste and perspective. The biggest problem is that Apple chose to make changes to core productivity apps - iCal in particular - that dramatically affect people's workflow without documenting any of them. I've been using iCal religiously for years, but why is it that in Lion I had to go and do a Google search to figure out how to change my workflow so that entries don't default to all-day events? Why is it that Joshua only found the functionality of the ribbon in Address Book by stumbling onto it nearly five months after Lion's release.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all against change. I'm just against change for change's sake - especially when major, impactful, changes aren't documented/communicated.
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LikeI found it to be pretty intuitive, as do people who still use paper organisers I would think, but I agree that the Apple needs to add some kind of indication, telling the user which part of the interface actually does something.
I agree with @Marilyn that the iOS-indication can go too far; I have a few gripes with iCal myself.
Seething like an overlay, like the ones you sometimes see in app previews, would be sufficient IMO. Something that the user can quickly enable and disable.
In a way this highlights a problem Apple is facing:
How can they make the interface intuitive enough that even newcomers won't need any instructions, without adding too many "secret handshakes" to the OS, making it close to impossible for newcomers and seasoned users to efficiently interact with the OS. This kind of thing is what makes Windows sucha pain to use sometimes: The software engineers simply presume that people will "get it".
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LikeFor me, I see that as the iOSification of OS X. There are so many times I'm in an iOS app and I just stumble upon stuff. There's often no tutorial or obvious help menu in so many of the apps we use day to day. Often I will gripe on twitter about a lack of functionality of an iOS app only to discover there is some sort of swipe or invisible click to get me where I want to be. I know Apple wants it all to be intuitive but maybe we need to find some sort of visual indicator that there's something more than what you are just seeing available to you on any given screen.
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LikeWhat's the fucking button for?
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LikeIf you click it, it reveals your contact groups, and the locations where your contacts are saved. If you click it again, you just get a unified list of contacts in the left column, and the contact details in the right column.
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LikeJoshua, Thank you for the explanation. Really New to some of this stuff. New Mac user for 2 weeks and been trying to absorb so much information that I am starting to feel a little saturated.
Thanks again!
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LikeNo problem. If you ever have questions just feel free to ask. We're also on twitter (http://twitter.com/macagsm) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/macgasm). Someone should always be around to help you out.
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