Liquid Glass - A must read critique

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

do ppl think OSes are designed over the weekend, with no in-house testing, no discussion? anyway...

You're clearly being sarcastic, but Liquid Glass has been in development for years, as said by Apple themselves. If fundamental issues exist after such a time, then something is wrong with the project planning.

progress happens when ppl are brave enough to make it happen.

Progress as a phrase relates to forwards/positive change or improvement: bravery doesn't enter the equation. Liquid Glass is only an example of progress if it offers clear and obvious benefits over what was previously available.

and if it seems like 'change for the sake of change' to you (...) then that's ok. but the world is a big place, and some of us like things moving forward, like change.

As above.

rules are made to be updated, amended. there's no finite rules on UX/UI.... hence all the changes we've seen to-date.

What changes? If you're talking about the changes between Beta 1 through 3 then there's little consistency in how Apple has applied Liquid Glass. It's more confusing now.

And what are these 'amended' changes? Have Apple's interface guidelines been updated?

 

[fisherking]

You're clearly being sarcastic, but Liquid Glass has been in development for years, as said by Apple themselves. If fundamental issues exist after such a time, then something is wrong with the project planning.


Progress as a phrase relates to forwards/positive change or improvement: bravery doesn't enter the equation. Liquid Glass is only an example of progress if it offers clear and obvious benefits over what was previously available.


As above.


What changes? If you're talking about the changes between Beta 1 through 3 then there's little consistency in how Apple has applied Liquid Glass. It's more confusing now.

And what are these 'amended' changes? Have Apple's interface guidelines been updated?

i won't go back & forth, so no worries. just again, every opinion is just an opinion, even yours. but the ppl at apple own the OS, can take it where they choose to take it. and even if i don't like everything, i'm already comfortable in tahoe, and have long-enjoyed the os x/mac os adventure.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

i won't go back & forth, so no worries

Because you don't have a counter-argument. Anyway keep enjoying it, genuinely. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like on a Microsoft forum...

 

[fisherking]

Because you don't have a counter-argument. Anyway keep enjoying it, genuinely. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like on a Microsoft forum...

or perhaps i've lost interest in arguing?

feel that you're right, be indignant. carry that with you up to the official os release, and thereafter. meanwhile, i'll be enjoying the experience, and getting my work (& play) done. so there's nothing really to prove or win 🤷

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

or perhaps i've lost interest in arguing?

That’s fine. Sounds like we won’t see you here again, so enjoy!

 

[fisherking]

That’s fine. Sounds like we won’t see you here again, so enjoy!

not leaving, simply not arguing. now back to the subject at hand...

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

not leaving, simply not arguing. now back to the subject at hand...

We were discussing the subject.

 

[fisherking]

We were discussing the subject.

yes then WE derailed the conversation. so i'll stop that now (& hopefully you will as well).

 

[maxoakland]

yes, decisions made based on observation.

do ppl think OSes are designed over the weekend, with no in-house testing, no discussion? anyway... progress happens when ppl are brave enough to make it happen. and if it seems like 'change for the sake of change' to you (and we've heard this on the macrumors forums with every new OS), then that's ok. but the world is a big place, and some of us like things moving forward, like change.

rules are made to be updated, amended. there's no finite rules on UX/UI.... hence all the changes we've seen to-date.

You’re missing the obvious point: liquid glass was made to look cool, not to work well. Insiders indicate the design was thrown together at the last minute, which shows

 

[n-evo]

.

 

[fisherking]

You’re missing the obvious point: liquid glass was made to look cool, not to work well. Insiders indicate the design was thrown together at the last minute, which shows

sure 🙄

"made to look cool, not to work well". ''thrown together at the last minute". that's how corporations like apple work (and why they succeed).

(weirdly), it's looking cool AND working well here 🤔

 

[StellarVixen]

You are giving me huge dishonesty vibes. You might like it, and that's ok, but saying that 26.0 has no issues is absolutely untrue.

Look at this for example.

There is a problem with contrast in several places. Look at those checkboxes for example. They are almost invisible.

But to be fair, I will give them a benefit of the doubt. This is still a beta, and things may get tweaked (I certainly hope and expect them to be). At the present state, it has issues.

 

[fisherking]

You are giving me huge dishonesty vibes. You might like it, and that's ok, but saying that 26.0 has no issues is absolutely untrue.

am sure you don't mean me? i have stated in various places on the tahoe forum that i expect to see fixes and improvements by tahoe's official release. in the meantime, nothing is keeping me from working & playing on my mac.

all OSes are, in every iteration, works-in-progress, of course.

 

[shijan]

I believe it is not correct to talk about UI in common. Any UI consists of independent parts and each of this part should be discussed separately:

Global Structure (buttons arrangement, sidebars and toolbars placement, spaces between elements and so on..)

Visual Look (buttons and elements appearance, backgrounds, colors and so on...)

Animation Effects

Icons (design and global style of application icons)

Symbols (design of global symbols system that act like buttons in any app)


Global Structure:
From Tiger to Catalina global structure was almost unchanged. It was perfect, simple and could last forever. Columns navigation in Finder was unique. Stacks and QuickLook introduced in Leopard where really nice improvement in usability. I still believe that best Spaces/Exposure structure was in Leopard. Later there where some bad experiments around Spaces/Exposure. Later it came to some compromise, but as result we have that useless and distracting sliding fullscreen animation effect. iOS-like Launchpad introduced later remained unusable for me, because it was impossible to quickly arrange icons by name and because minimum allowed icons size was too huge. After all instead of bugfix and improve it, they simply removed Launchpad in Tahoe.
Starting from Big Sur original structure was permanently damaged without any practical reason.

Visual Look:
I liked striped background texture in Tiger. Brushed Metal probably draw too many attention, but it was ok. Titlebar fonts with bevel effect visually added sharpness. Overall everything was well optimized for low contrast and low resolution displays of those times. Leopard/Snow Leopard visual look was like improved and simplified Tiger. Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks felt like more desaturated lightweight and simplified Aqua. Everything became grey on grey, less contrast and less visible, so i skipped those systems because stayed on Snow Leo. When i saw new lightweight "content-focused" visual look in Yosemite, first i didn't like it, but later i realized that it looked ugly mostly due iOS7-like system icons. Big Sur was too bright, too rounded and with too many visual noise generated by floating selection rectangles. Many complex apps that use native system windows and sliders now became less usable due that new visual look. Tahoe became even more bright, more rounded and generate even more visual noise between UI elements. The main problem here that Big Sur/Tahoe visual look was taken from iOS visual look which was designed for 5" smartphone touchscreen, but not for 27" display and mouse. It is also interesting to see how default wallpaper abstractions and default desktop colors where changed from nice looking artwork and color schemes to saturated tasteless artwork and color schemes (smells like Windows).

Animation Effects and Sounds:
Overall in all macOS versions animation effects usually looks OK. But i really miss that veru special animation effect in Leopard Stacks. Guess it was too complex and slow to render, so was replaced with simple zoom animation in Snow Leopard. Also i wish it was an option to turn off sliding effect when switch fullscreen mode. Enabling Reduce Motion in Settings is not a solution because it disables other useful animations. Also i have no idea why in last versions they disabled that iconic Poof animation effect

Icons:
Icons style introduced in 10.0 Cheetah (2000) was preserved up to 10.9 Mavericks. Icons where improved from version to version, so it was great evolution of great idea. Those icons where example of beautiful well recognized artwork made by real skilled artists with real vision. That style could literally last forever. But started from 10.10 Yosemite everything was destroyed when stupid kindergarden iOS7 icons style migrated to macOS. One of the ugliest thing was strange green tint on HDD, Preferences and other metal-like icons. It looked like object was lit by low quality CCFL or LED light. In last versions including Tahoe we can see some unlucky attempts to bring back fine details to the icons.

Symbols:
New SF Symbols system introduced in iOS and macOS looks nice and works well as universal visual language. One of not so many good new things in macOS.

 

[fisherking]

Starting from Big Sur original structure was permanently damaged without any practical reason.

while i appreciate the effort you've put into your opinion about all of this, the sentence above wins 'statement of the day' (for me, anyway) 🙄

am glad appl has designers who are forward-thinking, and we're not still looking at things like this:

 

[shijan]

By "Original Structure" i mean classic layout of the windows elements, sidebars, menus, proportions from Tiger/Leopard.
As i told Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks Visual Look for my opinion was worse than Leopard/Snow Leopard. They started to "make everything realistic and iOS5-like" game and it came to overloaded and not too practical apps. It is same wrong way as for no any practical reason "make everything rounded and iOS-like".

 

[fisherking]

By "Original Structure" i mean classic layout of the windows elements, sidebars, menus, proportions from Tiger/Leopard.
As i told Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks Visual Look for my opinion was worse than Leopard/Snow Leopard. They started to "make everything realistic and iOS5-like" game and it came to overloaded and not too practical apps. It is same wrong way as for no any practical reason "make everything rounded and iOS-like".

i understood what you said the first time.

am glad the UX/UI elements in mac os aren't being designed by macrumors members 😰

 

[maxoakland]

(weirdly), it's looking cool AND working well here 🤔

It’s not working well for a large number of users and they all have concrete complaints, like legibility issues… so it’s great that it works for you but you don’t care about anyone else?

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I believe it is not correct to talk about UI in common. Any UI consists of independent parts and each of this part should be discussed separately:

Global Structure (buttons arrangement, sidebars and toolbars placement, spaces between elements and so on..)

Visual Look (buttons and elements appearance, backgrounds, colors and so on...)

Animation Effects

Icons (design and global style of application icons)

Symbols (design of global symbols system that act like buttons in any app)


Global Structure:
From Tiger to Catalina global structure was almost unchanged. It was perfect, simple and could last forever. Columns navigation in Finder was unique. Stacks and QuickLook introduced in Leopard where really nice improvement in usability. I still believe that best Spaces/Exposure structure was in Leopard. Later there where some bad experiments around Spaces/Exposure. Later it came to some compromise, but as result we have that useless and distracting sliding fullscreen animation effect. iOS-like Launchpad introduced later remained unusable for me, because it was impossible to quickly arrange icons by name and because minimum allowed icons size was too huge. After all instead of bugfix and improve it, they simply removed Launchpad in Tahoe.
Starting from Big Sur original structure was permanently damaged without any practical reason.

Visual Look:
I liked striped background texture in Tiger. Brushed Metal probably draw too many attention, but it was ok. Titlebar fonts with bevel effect visually added sharpness. Overall everything was well optimized for low contrast and low resolution displays of those times. Leopard/Snow Leopard visual look was like improved and simplified Tiger. Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks felt like more desaturated lightweight and simplified Aqua. Everything became grey on grey, less contrast and less visible, so i skipped those systems because stayed on Snow Leo. When i saw new lightweight "content-focused" visual look in Yosemite, first i didn't like it, but later i realized that it looked ugly mostly due iOS7-like system icons. Big Sur was too bright, too rounded and with too many visual noise generated by floating selection rectangles. Many complex apps that use native system windows and sliders now became less usable due that new visual look. Tahoe became even more bright, more rounded and generate even more visual noise between UI elements. The main problem here that Big Sur/Tahoe visual look was taken from iOS visual look which was designed for 5" smartphone touchscreen, but not for 27" display and mouse. It is also interesting to see how default wallpaper abstractions and default desktop colors where changed from nice looking artwork and color schemes to saturated tasteless artwork and color schemes (smells like Windows).
View attachment 2528511


Animation Effects and Sounds:
Overall in all macOS versions animation effects usually looks OK. But i really miss that veru special animation effect in Leopard Stacks. Guess it was too complex and slow to render, so was replaced with simple zoom animation in Snow Leopard. Also i wish it was an option to turn off sliding effect when switch fullscreen mode. Enabling Reduce Motion in Settings is not a solution because it disables other useful animations. Also i have no idea why in last versions they disabled that iconic Poof animation effect

Icons:
Icons style introduced in 10.0 Cheetah (2000) was preserved up to 10.9 Mavericks. Icons where improved from version to version, so it was great evolution of great idea. Those icons where example of beautiful well recognized artwork made by real skilled artists with real vision. That style could literally last forever. But started from 10.10 Yosemite everything was destroyed when stupid kindergarden iOS7 icons style migrated to macOS. One of the ugliest thing was strange green tint on HDD, Preferences and other metal-like icons. It looked like object was lit by low quality CCFL or LED light. In last versions including Tahoe we can see some unlucky attempts to bring back fine details to the icons.

Symbols:
New SF Symbols system introduced in iOS and macOS looks nice and works well as universal visual language. One of not so many good new things in macOS.

Excellent post, well-put together.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

while i appreciate the effort you've put into your opinion about all of this, the sentence above wins 'statement of the day' (for me, anyway) 🙄

am glad appl has designers who are forward-thinking

So you’re implying that anything new is ‘forward thinking’, regardless of the fact (in this instance) they provide no benefits and in some cases is actually a regression?

You also imply repeatedly that, despite us all having different ‘opinions’ (even when backed up by objectivity), yours are superior because we’re not… forward thinking?

You’ve also skirted a number of questions, so here’s a clear opportunity to provide some evidence-based reasoning:

In what way(s) is Liquid Glass an objectively superior experience to the prior/current UX?

 

[fisherking]

So you’re implying that anything new is ‘forward thinking’, regardless of the fact (in this instance) they provide no benefits and in some cases is actually a regression?

You also imply repeatedly that, despite us all having different ‘opinions’ (even when backed up by objectivity), yours are superior because we’re not… forward thinking?

You’ve also skirted a number of questions, so here’s a clear opportunity to provide some evidence-based reasoning:

In what way(s) is Liquid Glass an objectively superior experience to the prior/current UX?

i never said that 'anything new' is forward thinking, please don't put words in my mouth.

it's not a regression in fact, that is your opinion. and saying something is 'backed up by objectivity' doesn't make that a fact. UX/UI is a design philosophy ultimately, and it can be rethought, reconsidered, updated, changed.

do you really believe apple hasn't thought this thru?

anyway, liquid glass is the new look for mac os, like it or not (i'm fine with it, and willing to bet the majority of macusers in the world who don't live on internet forums or sweat minutiae will be fine with it too).

it is not objectively superior (or inferior) to what came before it... it is different.

🎤↘️

 

[fisherking]

It’s not working well for a large number of users and they all have concrete complaints, like legibility issues… so it’s great that it works for you but you don’t care about anyone else?

i never said anything like that, i'm a big fan of discussion, just not much a fan of whining, and 'this is how things should be because i believe it's how things should be' posts.

this is developer beta 3, it needs work. but the basic idea of liquid glass is unlikely to change much. and 'large number of users', doesn't begin to consider the actual macuser base in the world.

again, we go thru this with every new mac OS. and again, if it's endless, at least it's entertaining

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

it's not a regression in fact, that is your opinion. and saying something is 'backed up by objectivity' doesn't make that a fact. UX/UI is a design philosophy ultimately, and it can be rethought, reconsidered, updated, changed.

it is not objectively superior (or inferior) to what came before it... it is different.

You still aren’t answering why being different is better.

 

[fisherking]

You still aren’t answering why being different is better.

it's not a matter of 'better' or 'worse'. coke isn't objectively better than pepsi... people simply have their own preferences. and so on

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

it's not a matter of 'better' or 'worse'. coke isn't objectively better than pepsi... people simply have their own preferences. and so on

Yet the moment a forum member dislikes Liquid Glass with objective reasoning, you quickly discredit their comments?

So I’ll ask you once again, since you love this UX: how is Liquid Glass an improvement over what we currently have?