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0 pointsaylmao2mo ago0 comments

This isn't the only aspect of Tahoe that seems amateurishly designed by someone following "wrong rules", the wrong rule here being "for consistency, let's assign an icon to every action.

Another wrong rules I've seen blindly followed is making everything an edge-to-edge canvas, so that the sidebar floats on top. Having a full-window canvas with floating sidebars can make sense for applications where content is expansive and inherently spatial (like say, Figma) or applications where the sidebar is an actual floating element that can be moved around (like Photoshop once was).

It doesn't make sense in Finder, or Reminders, where the content is ultimately just a list. Forcing the sidebar "to float on top of the content" yields no benefit because the content wont ever scroll under it, and because it can't be moved anyway, but it does lead to wasted space, that ugly "double border", etc.

0 comments

jval432mo ago

This is what happens when the people issuing the orders (assign an icon for every task) are not the ones doing the task.

And the ones doing it have no say in how it's done.

Being involved and in the loop is how great software is made. Otherwise you can just outsource and have tickets completed.

fainpul2mo ago

> This is what happens when the people issuing the orders (assign an icon for every task) are not the ones doing the task.

No, this is what happens when the people in charge of UI design have no clue what they're doing.

bobbylarrybobby2mo ago

In theory, the problems highlighted in the article would have become apparent shortly into the process of assigning an icon to every menu item. Forging ahead despite the impossibility of doing a good job on the task is a sign of orders being issued from top to bottom without feedback working its way from the bottom to the top.

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reactordev2mo ago

I'm afraid you both may be right in this case. "Make it blue!" - stakeholder. "Ok, but then we'll have to change everything for consistency." - VP of UI. Produces the horror that we have today.

bigyabai2mo ago

If your UI designers can get this much crap past upper management, the managers have officially become the problem.

It's like what Miyamoto warned: a delayed UI is eventually good, but a rushed UI is forever bad.

x0x02mo ago

but being too lazy to even globally coordinate the icons is some deep rot.

pornel2mo ago

They've got the SF Symbols font, and probably assumed that's enough. Everyone has the same set of icons available, technically.

It seems that Apple has nobody left who has all three at the same time: taste, attention to detail, and authority to demand fixes. Having lots of people who have max two out of these three gives you designs of Microsoft and Glass Apple.

wpm2mo ago

I despise SF Symbols. Cheap, lame, boring, flat little hieroglyphics do not make good icons. They're just cheap.

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Gravityloss2mo ago

I hadn't noticed, but I checked. One tiny correction: content can flow under the floating sidebar in Finder.

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