Good article on the MacOSX dock.
http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
This might be an old article, but since I'm an Interaction Designer as well, AND since I work with both Mac and PC, I find it a very nice read.
Personally, I think the Windows task bar is a more productive, powerful tool compared to the dock. Although the Dock breaths Apple's philisophy (less is more), I think the Dock is in fact "less is less".
The bad thinks from the Windows taskbar:
- personalised menu's (optional, on by default.
items get hidden/shown based on the frequency of use.
Causes the taskbar to look different everytime, very
disorienting.
- Taskbar auto-hide/show, same problem as Dock, I find
it annoying and is easily triggered by accident.
I am curious about your opinion on the Dock VS taskbar.
This might be an old article, but since I'm an Interaction Designer as well, AND since I work with both Mac and PC, I find it a very nice read.
Personally, I think the Windows task bar is a more productive, powerful tool compared to the dock. Although the Dock breaths Apple's philisophy (less is more), I think the Dock is in fact "less is less".
The bad thinks from the Windows taskbar:
- personalised menu's (optional, on by default.
items get hidden/shown based on the frequency of use.
Causes the taskbar to look different everytime, very
disorienting.
- Taskbar auto-hide/show, same problem as Dock, I find
it annoying and is easily triggered by accident.
I am curious about your opinion on the Dock VS taskbar.
Comments
Most of the complaints I've heard levelled at it are non issues for me, I have always got at least 45 items there on a permanent basis and very often find myself working with maybe another 20 open documents, some in the dock and some on the desktop.
I've never found it particularly intrusive and I have no problems finding what I'm looking for, even when it's really full! I do keep the dock very small and only have a slight magnification set, really it hardly takes any space at all.
There is the idea that you should not care if an app is on or not, you click on it and it appears. Well, it's not really consistent what an app does upon that click (does it spawn empty documents/open an old workspace/come out of hiding/present empty screen and menu/move to front?), and it depends both on the app and the state the OS was keeping it in, but the idea itself is cool and IMO worthy of a better implementation.
Also great is the fact that many Dock icons at least try to give you some additional information once the app is running. But there are a lot better ways for that.
Overall I think Tog is more right than he is wrong. I don't agree with his "destructive behavior" comment, but the rest pretty much.
I don't agree to that the Taskbar is better.. different certainly. I'd go as far as to say it is worse. Dock doesn't try to be all the Taskbar is trying to be. In many things it succeeds in being better, in others it doesn't try. It's more accurate to look at Dock and Expose together versus Taskbar.
I think Dock is great for beginners.
Personally I'm trying to get rid of it. To that end I'm now experimenting with software like the DragThing to be an app launcher and a shortcut to folders/docs. I use Expose and cmd-tab for window switching.
Personally, I think the Windows task bar is a more productive, powerful tool compared to the dock. Although the Dock breaths Apple's philisophy (less is more), I think the Dock is in fact "less is less".
No offense dude but I shudder to think about the usability of your applications if you like the windblows taskbar. The Dock isn't much better but the taskbar just stinks unless you have a larger monitor.
I think Tog is more wrong than he is right. He's old school and is prone to freaking out about fitz law and other stuff. I think Apple has regressed their UI. I think they should continue to evolve the Dock without stepping on Dragthing too much.
There's likely to be a better way of switching apps but no one has really presented the solution that is head and shoulders above the rest. Good luck..maybe you'll be that person.
[B]No offense dude but I shudder to think about the usability of your applications if you like the windblows taskbar. The Dock isn't much better but the taskbar just stinks unless you have a larger monitor.
Well, that is funny...You seem to link the usability of my applications (which you never ever looked at in your life) with a personal opinion on the Windows taskbar/Dock.
The fact you call it "Windblows taskbar" makes me think you seem to have a lack of objectivity on the "Windows / MacOS" subject.
I think Tog is more wrong than he is right. He's old school and is prone to freaking out about fitz law and other stuff. I think Apple has regressed their UI. I think they should continue to evolve the Dock without stepping on Dragthing too much.
I agree on the fact that people shouldn't be looking at certain design laws too much; it blocks creativity.
There's likely to be a better way of switching apps but no one has really presented the solution that is head and shoulders above the rest. Good luck..maybe you'll be that person.
Thanks. Perhaps the answer lies in some kind of new hardware device...
With the Dock: if you want something, click on it. You can hardly get simpler than that. The implementation can use some refinement, but the basic philosophy is clear as a bell and also the most newbie-friendly widget I've seen yet. Combined with the application switcher (command-tab) and Exposé I haven't found anything particularly lacking.
The best thing Apple could do, IMO, is publish a task switching framework, port the Dock to it, and then publish an SDK. People with particular needs or desires could then teach the Dock some new tricks.
As it is, though, I think the Dock is basically there: The user shouldn't have to say more than "I want that," and the system should do the work of figuring out what's involved in answering the request. That's the real reason for virtual memory, preemptive multitasking, protected memory, etc. With all those guards in place, you can automate system management to a considerable degree, and let the user concentrate on what they want to get done.
Originally posted by Amorph
With the Dock: if you want something, click on it. You can hardly get simpler than that. The implementation can use some refinement, but the basic philosophy is clear as a bell and also the most newbie-friendly widget I've seen yet. Combined with the application switcher (command-tab) and Exposé I haven't found anything particularly lacking.
Not particularly lacking in any specific thing, but lacking nonetheless IMO. I have four basic criticisms against it:
1) it is not as powerful as it could be, ie. information density is low, and you basically can't customize any information the Dock delivers you.
2) it muddles different kinds of things, documents, windows, apps, and in the process I think all suffer, some more than others.
3) it doesn't scale well. It does not let you organize masses of things and does not offer you any adjustment in what you can see.
4) now this goes really far beyond the Dock, but I think documents, data and workspaces should play the center stage. Now the focus, of the OS and consequently of the Dock, is on applications and windows. I'm thinking applications consisting of user-interchangeable components. I'm thinking of many applications and utilities merging into a single entity whose sole purpose is to minimize any distraction from outside the tasks you wish to perform. In this environment an application centric Dock would be as out of place as a penguin in Sahara.
The best thing Apple could do, IMO, is publish a task switching framework, port the Dock to it, and then publish an SDK. People with particular needs or desires could then teach the Dock some new tricks.
This is sufficient to answer my criticisms 1-3. The default Dock is okay until you want more power. Then a third party total replacement would really hit the spot.
I don't think it was ever intended as a window switcher, something that the task bar is meant to address. Instead, it is most suited to a launcher or storage spot for often but perhaps not regularly used items.
Unfortunately, the eye-candy, while having done wonders for making OS X seem high tech to the public, causes users to use the dock in a non-optimal manner. Minimizing windows looks 'cool' but is often used too frequently by unskilled users. It isn't intended as a window switching tool, but as a a window long-term storage tool. Also, magnification makes it hard to hit a target on the dock. In general, most users would benefit from no magnification, even if it meant putting fewer things in the dock. The dock isn't intended for numerous, tiny, minimized windows to be accessed on a regular basis. People end up using it this way probably because they learned the minimize interaction technique first due to the glitz factor. Switching between numerous minimized windows technically works... but so does hauling lumber in a porche coup.
Information density? I've seen this bandied about, probably tog's fault. I think information density is a red-herring in interface design. Higher density is not better. Lower density is not better. Complaints about low information density are strange. Perhaps what they mean to say is that there is a way for the dock to display additional information without increasing cognitive loads on users. Status badges could be useful. But this argument is more about WHERE in the interface to put alerts and information. It has little to do with density and much more to do with the location/accessibility of information.
This isn't to say that I think the dock is perfect.
I think the separator should be eliminated and that windows should be placed to the right of their application icon. Users frequently have difficulty understanding which side of the seperator they must drag objects to. Instead, why not generalize the interaction technique. Put an object in the dock. Click on it to make it appear. The user doesn't benefit enough from the distinction between apps, folders, and documents. Perhaps a translucent-gray rounded-rectangle background could be used to group minimized windows with their application.
It isn't intended as a window switching tool, but as a a window long-term storage tool.
But wouldn't you agree a window switching tool is essential for a productive environment, where you have 10 applications running, and you have to switch all the time? E.g web-development, where you refresh your browser to see changes, copy-paste material from application to application?
Perhaps you are right about the Dock being intended as a window long-term storage tool, but in that case, there still is no window switching tool on MacOS.
And, I think it also tries to be a window switching tool. Why else does the Dock expand with a new icon when you open a document? If it is a long-term window storage tool, I'd expect to drag and drop icons onto/from the Dock to "store them".
Expose doesn't do the job for constant window switching; it causes an headache if you contantly need to use it. It is a perfect tool if you want to observe which windows are open (helictopter view) but it isn't made for intensive use (e.g web development).
The Windows taskbar allows both long term window storage:
1. Pane with little icons start an application (+ icon "show desktop")
2. Active open windows, in Windows XP grouped by their parent application.
It gives a lot of "functionality per pixel", and highly configurable without being bloated.
One problem, how would your "Dock" know which media elements are related to eachother?
Originally posted by dacloo
wouldn't you agree a window switching tool is essential for a productive environment
Definitely. Although I think that many users try to force the dock to be their window switcher when in fact a different work flow would be easier AND more efficient.
I too have done web development, along with many other tasks that require a higher than typical number of windows. In these use scenarios, I've found that there does seem to be potential for improvement in Apple's UI offerings. But at the same time, forcing the dock to overcome the system's shortcomings is not the best course of attack.
Using the dock as a window manager is perhaps the course of least resistance as it is the most readily apparent method. Less obvious methods are still a bit cumbersome, but less so than using the dock as a window switcher.
I think expose was apple's solution for the dock's lack of suitability for window switching. Using the hide command, and minimized windows, it is easy to get the window count down to an amount where expose is intuitive and efficient. Chances are, if you have more windows than can easily be handled by expose, that you don't need some of those windows to be visible.
Expose, cmd-tab, and cmd-~ are your friend. If your tasks are too complex for easy window management, then the dock certainly isn't intended to be the solution. The problem isn't with the dock, but with the lack of a window switcher that is capable of handling a gazillion windows.
The dock is not a window switcher!
(Edit: Ok ok, I admit to using the dock to bring ALL windows in an application forward. But for this, it is well suited.)
Originally posted by Gon
1) it is not as powerful as it could be, ie. information density is low, and you basically can't customize any information the Dock delivers you.
Counterpoint: Its task is simple and clear (low information density done right) and its behavior is consistent. If you've used one Dock, you've used them all.
Re: Dock magnification (which another poster brought up) isn't that off by default? The default settings are what matter here.
2) it muddles different kinds of things, documents, windows, apps, and in the process I think all suffer, some more than others.
One person's muddling is another person's abstraction. If you want something, click on it.
3) it doesn't scale well. It does not let you organize masses of things and does not offer you any adjustment in what you can see.
Generally, you can choose between a solution that scales up well, and a solution that scales down well. The Dock scales down well, which makes it much more attractive as a default system widget. Anyone who needs a Dock-like widget that can perform hundreds of tricks probably had ten shareware enhancements to their OS 9 or Linux box, and lo! the same sorts of enhancements are available for OS X! Better that than confronting "the rest of us" with some overcomplicated thing. Choice is not necessarily good. It can be maddening and confusing when all you want is easy access to this one simple thing...
4) now this goes really far beyond the Dock, but I think documents, data and workspaces should play the center stage. Now the focus, of the OS and consequently of the Dock, is on applications and windows.
You can't consider the Dock in a vacuum. It works with Command-Tab, and Exposé, and Command-~, and even Apple's array of widescreen (aka, "two page") displays.
I'm thinking applications consisting of user-interchangeable components. I'm thinking of many applications and utilities merging into a single entity whose sole purpose is to minimize any distraction from outside the tasks you wish to perform. In this environment an application centric Dock would be as out of place as a penguin in Sahara.
Good luck getting Adobe, MS, Quark, Avid etc. on board. This is largely out of Apple's hands. What they can do—and largely, what they have done—is make drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste extremely robust and flexible between apps, provided Services, and other little things to minimize the degree to which every app is an island. The Dock has very little to do with that. It's just a place where you put things that you'd like to be able to refer to with one click.
I think the dock needs more sophisticated pop-up functionality. One of the great things about the dock is the ability to put a folder in it, and then right click/control click/click & hold to reveal the contents of that folder. It gives the dock, which already has great visual functionality, more of the Windows Taskbar-type functionality of driving down into directories. It's the best of both.
But I would like to see "smart" folders that could be put in the dock - I bet it would be possible with Tiger. You could have recent documents there, for example, or all documents related to a particular project.
As it stands now though, it's just not very useful for throwing in lots of documents because they're too hard to distinguish visually.