Comment by sim04ful
4 hours ago
There's no universe this doesn't negatively affect the UX of the OS for non-touch users. You can't simply support (or rather you can half-arse) new affordances without contorting the rest of the already well worn paths.
How do you think webapps work today? Is macOS UX actually well thought out to begin with? (no)
It's a nonissue when you look at the state of macOS attention to detail nowadays, regardless of which side of the fence you're on.
>Is macOS UX actually well thought out to begin with?
To begin with, yes. The decline only started around ten years ago.
It already has, see the massive increase in UI padding in Tahoe and later. Windows and GNOME both sacrificed their UX to support touchscreen laptops years ago, Apple was one of the holdouts before that point.
Windows did this seemingly by not caring that it's also a touch screen, so not everything in the system is touch-friendly. It's still fine for many situations.
But they have already done it. The updates are already in macOS and they have not negatively affected the UX.
Density is way down on UI elements for one. OS X used to feel like a Workstation. With every release macOS feels closer to a toy. Touch is great for convenience, but not getting into the weeds with “real” work.
Er… Yes they have. Liquid Glass is awful. It’s not only ugly (that’s preference, though), it has definitely negatively affected the UX. That’s why they’re adding sliders and options and reversal left and right.
[dead]
I can actually see a possibility where this improves UI/UX a bit. One being the removal of some many hover-over UI elements, e.g., the (x) button on notifications do not display unless a mouse is hovering over the notification badge.
So, it may makes things a little easier for some GUI scripting. I can also see the UX improving for some disabilities, but I know that is merely coincidental rather than intentional.
> e.g., the (x) button on notifications do not display unless a mouse is hovering over the notification badge
Same applies to spaces where there's also delay applied before it appears for whatever reason. It would be nice if this fixed (on non-touch Macs as well).
Those changes are already in the latest macOS. So feel free to share your opinion on what we’ve already been using instead of speculating.
I'm still on Sequoia for this reason. I want a UI optimized for displaying text content and mouse and keyboard control. Mostly keyboard. I definitely don't want the larger border radius on the windows that would seem to be designed for touch.
The big UI changes for touch were years ago, with Big Sur
Isn't that his point though ? Their plan seems to half-ass touch support (i.e. the menu bar, minimize/close buttons, etc. all stay in their current size), so it seems like a waste of hardware to include a touch screen just for very little functionality. If instead they make the UI friendly to fat fingers, they'd very much affect the mouse/trackpad experience.
Does that mean you also believe the same to be true for mouse affordances ruining it for keyboard users and vice-versa? Or "touch" is special in this regard?
Mouse affordances don't usually ruin it for keyboard preferrers. Keyboard shortcuts and control are often an afterthought or downright written off because "they can just click" but thats down to laziness or lack of care than some hard and fast rule. However, a keyboard affordance is usually invisible, and a mouse affordance isn't, so they can very happily co-exist without affecting one another. For instance, the Alt modifiers in menus in classic Windows, those have almost no effect at all on anyones ability to click the menu item with a mouse.
Touch affordances and UI does have to be visible, and there is only one screen. So the touch affordances and mouse affordances are mutually exclusive: targets get larger, padding expands, UI gets dumbed down, etc etc.
well put!
I can't think of cases where mouse affordances necessarily, intrinsically make things worse for keyboard users.
Of course, there's the extremely common case of keyboard support being half-assed or missing from GUI apps. But that's not mouse affordances making things worse, that's developers just not having the time or inclination to have great keyboard support.
Whereas, touch affordances seem like they'll be a lot more disruptive.
Just look at Windows 8?
Most Windows laptops have had touch for a very long time now.