Re: Icon View vs. List View

In article znu-53DD61.21003910012009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, ZnU at
znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 1/10/09 9:00 PM:

In article <C58E98F9.2C3D6%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

In article znu-CD377D.19153209012009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, ZnU at
znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 1/9/09 7:15 PM:

In article <C589B68A.2B6EC%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

In article 1it6rp3.38qvws4973k7N%jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jamie Kahn
Genet at jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 1/7/09 1:08 AM:

Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

In article jollyroger-DE1C9A.10320206012009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jolly
Roger
at jollyroger@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 1/6/09 11:32 AM:

In article <1it5eag.r8i1131o44iheN%jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jamie Kahn Genet) wrote:

...
...


Column view
is excellent and I find it hard to believe I got by without it in the
Finder before OSX.

Personally, I think column view sucks major ASS, and refuse to use it.
Every so often I try it just for kicks, laugh, and switch back to list
view.


I tend to agree with you, JR...though since I still am (technically
speaking) an OS X "newbie," it might simply be my own residual OS 9
preferences (yes, I still do find OS 9 much easier, more logical and, in
it's own way, "refined" -- I still lay awake at nights, longing for
Sherlock! -- to use).

[BTW: I love your facility with the technical jargon (e.g., "sucks major
ass").]

If I had System 6 (MacOS's high point in usability, simplicity and
intuitiveness, IMO) with column view, a windows menu, and large
widescreen monitors (which simply didn't exist back then) I'd be pretty
happy, especially when I'm trying to teach newbies how to use a Mac.

Not to say there's not a lot to like about OSX (Unix's stability and
memory protection are wonderful), but everything since System 6 has
become LESS intuitive and that is not what was supposed to happen. It's
not what the Mac started out as - the computer or the rest of us.

Sure I'm a geek and appreciate all the neat stuff in MacOS since then,
but efforts over the past few years to try to get my Mum and grandmother
up to speed on their Macs, has really brought home the failure of the
dream we had back in the 80's.

They do both agree their Macs are easier and friendlier to use than
their previous Windows PCs, so I suppose all is not lost.

My memory of OS 6 is restricted to "don't shut down the Mac unless you're
sure there's nothing in the trash that you might want to retrieve" and the
lack of MultiFinder, as that's when I was first introduced to the Mac. I
do
believe, however, that the OS got progressively better (not worse) thru OS
9, with the sole exception of the proliferation of inits/cdevs and the
concomitant growing OS instability.

I do appreciate the fact that OS X seems rock solid and bullet proof, both
in terms of stability as well as its recoverability after a failure (which
is rare to begin with). But it just isn't as usable...or when in fact it
is,
it's not "intuitively obvious" how to use it, nor is it easy to find out
how
to use it.

Strongly disagree. OS X solves several usability issues with pre-X
versions of Mac OS which caused substantial problems for less savvy
users. Here are a few:

- It does away with OS 9's kooky desktop behavior with respect to items
on multiple volumes. (Yes, I understand exactly what that behavior was
and what the benefits were, but regular users never understood why if
they inserted a disk dragged something from it to the desktop, and then
ejected the disk, the item on the desktop disappeared.)

Oh? I found it entirely logical...it took me less than 10 seconds to figure
it out the very first time it happened.

Then you're rather unusual.

I've been called worse. ;)



- It replaces the Applications menu (which many less savvy users of OS 9
never quite figured out) with the Dock, which is much more visible and
allows the same interface to be used for both application launching and
application switching. It also adds a standard behavior where apps
without open windows create new ones when reactivated, solving the
problem many less savvy users had with understanding that they had to go
to File -> New to get a new document/window in an already open app.


While the Dock is rather nice, I never found OS 9's Applications menu to be
a "problem."

This doesn't reflect my experience with average users.

What was their "average" backgrounds?


- The OS X UI much more heavily favors single-window apps, which makes
managing window clutter (a task many less savvy users struggle with)
much easier.


How about this not-so-single window behavior under OS X: There is no
"single" folder. In other words, in OS 9, if I opened a folder called
"Research Papers," it would, of course open. No matter where I went on my
drive...no matter where I was in my system...any attempt to open that folder
would open that folder and only that folder -- if it already was open, it
would just be brought to the front. Not so under OS X: I could open
"Research Papers" 1,000 times from 1,000 different Finder windows and each
time I'll end up with a duplicate "Research Papers" window. Now _that_ is
something even a not-so-less-savvy OS 9 user such as myself finds not at all
intuitive (and at times the cause of _a lot_ of confusion).

It's merely a result of the fact that in OS X Finder windows are views
on a collection whereas in OS 9 each window represents a specific
location in the file system. The collection model is widely used and I
wouldn't consider it particularly unintuitive. It's conceptually similar
to the way web browser windows work, and I suspect these days users
understand browser UI better than just about anything else.

I wasn't asking for an explanation of _why_ it worked that way; I was
pointing to the fact that it _did_ work that way. The "Finder windows are
views on a collection" approach is a complete break from (read that as
"totally inconsistent with") the original Macintosh desktop metaphor.

Telling me the rationalization for doing something doesn't necessarily make
it "easy" or "intuitive." It is analogous to the kind of responses I recall
getting years ago when I'd call Microsoft for technical assistance: They
would _always_ provide very polite, professional, and technically accurate
explanations; and those explanations would almost always be totally useless.


- It drastically reduces the use of application-modal dialogs and almost
entirely eliminates the use of system-modal dialogs.


And that improves usability how?

You're asking how not blocking the user from interacting with the entire
UI for no particularly good reason improves usability? Does that really
need to be explained?

I just never found "unnecessary" (as in "innocuous") interaction with the
system to a problem. In fact, I'd have to say that in some subliminal way it
likely was reassuring (at least I knew I wasn't screwing up).


- It almost completely eliminates the mixing of system files and other
types of files, even third-party system enhancements. There is virtually
no reason for an OS X user to ever need to go into /System or the UNIX
directories, whereas in OS 9 there was considerable occasion to need to
go into the System Folder. This means users no longer need to understand
the contents of system directories and are less likely to break things
messing with them.


I agree with you, up to a point. It certainly _does_ require less knowledge
on the part of the user. I found it a bit unsettling, however: Coming from a
"simple" OS to a "industrial strength" OS, I expected just the opposite.
And, strangely, it brought with it its own "difficulties."

With OS 9, that "under-the-hood" knowledge enabled me to solve (or avoid to
begin with) a lot of problems. I lost that "knowledge edge" when I came over
to OS X. Now if I want to get "under the hood," I need to learn quite a bit
about Unix and terminal. Quite frankly, learning about OS 9's System Folder
was a "cake walk" compared to what I'll need to do to "come up to
_equivalent_ speed" with OS X.

You're drawing equivalencies where they don't exist, though.
Understanding the contents of /System an the invisible UNIX directories
is about as useful on OS X as understanding what you'd see inside an OS
9 "System" file if you opened it up with ResEdit.

Not the analogy I had in mind. Under OS 9, understanding the basic "under
the hood" issues enabled me to "fix" things that got broken, or at least to
have an idea what in fact _was_ broken. I can't do that in OS X...unless I
gain enough of a basic understanding of Unix to enable me to develop _some_
facility with Terminal.


- It allows the trash and mounted volumes to be accessed from Finder
windows and/or the Dock rather than just from the desktop, which is
useful because a Finder window can be brought in front of whatever other
windows you have open, whereas the desktop is always behind everything.
Add this to the fact that many less savvy users never understood
application hiding in OS 9 and OS 9 also didn't have an explicit command
to reveal the desktop, and this is quite significant.

Again, this seems like a solution in search of a problem.

Again, if you never saw the problem, you didn't interact with less savvy
users much.

I await your description of these poor folks' backgrounds. ;)



- The use of bundles for software simplifies the file system relative to
having essentially all large apps live in their own folders with a dozen
subfolders and hundreds of files. (Of course some third-party developers
are still out to lunch on this -- I'm looking at you, Adobe).

Yes, this is a definite "plus." (I must confess, however, that it still
"throws" me a bit: Getting used to not having to chase all over the hard
drive "In Search Of..." does take some...well..."getting used to." ;) )

- It has reasonable default locations for many types of files. OS 9 was
starting to introduce this, having Applications, Utilities, and
Documents folders (among others) by default, but for most of its
history, and even with OS 9, it was still far too easy for less savvy
users to accidentally scatter files around the file system, ending up
with documents in their app folders, tons of files floating around at
the root level of the hard drive, etc.


Actually, I found the _lack_ of "default" folders to be an advantage:
Default folders always seemed so "restrictive," reminiscent of Windows. (But
then again, I never did like having one particular drawer reserved
exclusively for my socks. ;) ) (BTW: I'm still not quite sure how the
vendors decide to categorize certain apps as "applications," and others as
"utilities.")

There's nothing restrictive about encouraging users to follow reasonable
practices. If you really want to OS X will let you save documents in
/Applications.

Yes, I know. And, in fact, I've grown to like the idea of having separate
folders. But I still don't like having to keep my socks in that sock drawer!
;)


- It restructures menus in a more logical way, with a hierarchy moving
from right to left and going from more specific to more general. From
left to right one has the Apple menu (system-wide commands), the
application menu (application-wide commands), the File menu (commands
the impact the entire file), and then other menus for manipulating the
contents of the file or view. It also puts several commands into a
system-wide context that were previously an an application specific
context that made little sense (Restart, Shutdown).


The menu bar is indeed arranged more logically.


- It features more direct manipulation. For instance, the user can place
something in the Dock or the Finder sidebar by dragging it there,
whereas in OS 9 adding an item to the Apple menu required adding an
alias of it to a special folder in the file system that less savvy users
probably didn't even know existed.


While I agree it's more convenient, your constant reference to the "less
savvy user" seems a bit "overdone." After all, you never did comment on my
reference (see below) to that contest between a 10-year old and a VP of
Technology. (Talk about the challenges facing less vs. more "savvy" users!)

I did some freelance in-person Mac support work during the days when
pre-X versions of OS X were widely used. Every time I mention something
less savvy users had problems with, it's because I saw less savvy users
having problems with it.


I have no doubt. I'm just curious what it was about their backgrounds that
differed so much from mine.

My experience with Classic Mac was a very positive one. The Desktop metaphor
was sheer brilliance, and almost any time I wasn't quite sure what to do,
all I had to do was think for a split second while I reminded myself that
the GUI was indeed a metaphor for my desk and filing cabinet! Everything
else -- even implementation annoyances or shortcomings -- was just a minor
detail.



I have more, if you'd like....

Sure. How about my continued inability to find anything reliably using
Spotlight? Or how clicking on the colum titles doesn't consistently order
the results as it should?

Haven't seen either of those.

Maybe I'm not explaining it clearly.

Just for laughs, I just did a CMD-F in the Finder, and entered the word
"water" (I guess I must be thirsty ;) ) in the search field. After a few
seconds, the search was completed, and the list of documents finished
displaying itself. I clicked on the "Name" title in the "Name" column, and
the list quickly sorted itself: The list begins with a string of documents
whose names have the initial letter "H", followed by some with the initial
letter "C," then back to those with "H," then on to some with "A," back to
those with "H," ...you get the idea. I just tried it again with the search
word "circuit," and the list seems even more "random" (doesn't seem to
return to any particular "string" more often than others).


Or how it tells you when the item was last opened, but little else?

In Spotlight search results windows? That one is a bit annoying.

How about the confusion that I, as a "less-savvy" OS X user, still have when
I am searching through an external drive (_especially_ the one that holds my
SuperDuper! clone) and I am not quite sure which drive window I have
open...clicking on my Documents folder in the sidebar will open which
Documents folder where??

Err... I'm not sure why you'd expect it to open anything except the
Documents folder of the active user account.

Have you forgotten? We're talking about us less-savvy user types. :)

Folders in the sidebar are
essentially just aliases. You wouldn't expect an alias to one folder to
point to another folder just because of the context you accessed it in,
would you?

The folks you dealt with didn't find that a bit confusing? Or maybe they
weren't presented with such a scenario (i.e., peering in a window to an
external drive)?


...and I, too, have more, if you'd like. ;)

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) ? OS X (10.5.4)

.

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