I stopped there because we had to get back to work, but without even leaving the Finder and Desktop I was able to find a bunch of things that long-time Mac users had never known about because they never discovered them in their daily use.
None of this is meant to say macOS is garbage or anything like that. It’s just interesting to see when people who love the Mac and are so critical of “discoverability” on the iPad. I’m not even saying the iPad is better than the Mac here, I’m just saying that “discoverability” is one of the big things that has people in a tizzy right now about the iPad, but I think some are laying into the iPad harder than is warranted.
You have no idea how many undiscoverable or obtuse features, functions, tricks, and so on you take for granted when using old, established platforms like Windows or macOS.
Nice, didn’t know about the Option+”Open in” trick.
To add to the list, there’s no Cutting files in Finder, which initially causes some Windows users aggravation, but you can indeed move files by doing a copy Cmd-C and then Cmd-Option-V.
Another new and useful shortcut I discovered only recently is Cmd-Shift-Period to show/hide hidden files – a lifesaver for what used to require a Terminal command.
Most “standard” shortcuts map to CMD instead of CTRL. It’s a bit obtuse, but generally the keys are in the same place on a mac or Windows machine. CMD+Z is undo, CMD+Y is redo, CMD+A selects all.
Something i think most people miss is SHIFT+click. This allows you to select multiple items in sequence. CTRL+click does the same, but only selects what you click on. Both SHIFT and CTRL also work when selecting things with arrow keys. On a Mac, it works exactly the same as on Windows, though i think it’s CMD instead of CTRL again….
Yeah, I didn’t know about that one either. I’ll be using it quite a bit now though.
I hate the hidden scrollbars. Some designers thought that they could hide the scrollbar when you didn’t need to scroll.
The problem is that the major purpose of the scrollbar, isn’t to scroll – it’s to show where you are in the document. Nowadays, people use the mouse wheel or trackpad to scroll.
The privacy options in the Android version of MS Office have undiscoverable scrollbars. Worse, even if you try to scroll, you risk not discovering them, because there is a blank area at the bottom of the dialog, that isn’t part of the scrollable area. Probably they indented to place an OK button there, but forgot.
Invincible Cow,
+1,000,000
I hate scroll bars that disappear or are too damn small.
On a phone obviously there’s compromise, but don’t do this on desktops. This article is about macos but I hate it just as much on linux or in any programs that use a tiny custom scrollbar. We’ve got all these widescreen displays, which inevitably result in horizontal whitespace, only to result in these narrow/disappearing scrollbars that hurt usability to add even more whitespace. The expression “penny wise, pound foolish” comes to mind.
Windows 10’s UI is completely irresponsible of the same flaws. But what are UI designers thinking about usability ? What I’d like instead :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_T80ZVD7e8
“You have no idea how many undiscoverable or obtuse features, functions, tricks, and so on you take for granted when using old, established platforms like Windows or macOS.”
True, only that’s not what the article is about. The argument there is that Apple, in their attempt to streamline their UI to the extreme made a lot of stuff hidden. The scrollbars are the most obvious example, but the rest of the article follows suit. It’s not a matter of old/new, one of the Gnome early mistakes was hiding the shutdown feature, I recall you had to press Alt and the logout button would change or something. This goes against the idea that an interface should show you what you can do, and not hide it.
As a long time Mac user, there’s nothing here I didn’t already know about. What annoys me with recent MacOS releases is how these “old” features get muddled into “new” ways of working (to me the new ways seem to be influenced by iOS and Windows). I struggle more with the “new” stuff because I’m not an iPhone user. The wonderful Services menu seems to have been neglected and the right-click menu now has a stupid “Import from iPhone” option. Bring back Leopard!
Windows 10 probably has at least as many undiscoverable UI stuff.Right Click on “My Computer”, you can access easily some system stuff. Shift + Right click on any file, then you can open it with any software you want. Use backspace in file explorer and you can go up a level.
There are so many of those tricks in Windows, and you will probably never get an exhaustive list of those. And that is probably the same in any long-lived OS.
This is pretty much it. Operating systems are feature dense, and any one person probably only has a small percentage of it’s functions memorized.
Nice, thanks for the shift-right click trick. I had no idea that this would reveal other options in the right click menu.
Crapple is and has always been absolute rock bottom when it comes to discoverability.
Back when they only allowed one mouse button and no control clicking, this was the argument that forcing a single way to do things and not hiding things behind context menus was a good way of making developers create a more discover-able ui. I really thought it was like training wheels that Apple kept on way too long. It was good for people who were just learning how to use a computer, but also very limited for experienced users. Old hardcore mac users will tell you mac os classic was the best, it all went down hill from there once all that unixy stuff started showing up in os x.
It’s about iOS on iPads not working 100% like MacOS. They are having to learn new things to be productive, and it’s creating friction. Discoverability just happens to be the buzzword they’ve latched onto to express what they are feeling.
I’ve been trying to integrate an iPad into my life more in order to lighten my bag, and it’s not like for like. It’s like 80% there with a keyboard, but there are still things I need to figure out.
I’m used to jumping between different operating systems, so I know it’s new territory and things are going to be different. However, other people are not used to this, and they get frustrated when their old knowledge doesn’t work in the new setting.
Also people shouldn’t try to switch when they have deadlines or need to be productive. It takes time to integrate a new OS into your life. There is going to be lots of periods of unproductive time figuring out how to work with it.
For most people, computers are an ancillary tool. They learn what they need to know to do their job, and once they have a workflow, that’s it.
I’ve been talking about that for years:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/01/27/1425205/ask-slashdot-a-point-of-contention—modern-user-interfaces