Seriously, Safari?

When a company as normally mindful of user experience as Apple violates usability principles, it can be more shocking than encountering the same error in software where one's expectations were low to begin with.

Installing the Safari 4 beta this morning, I completed the installation process and was confronted by this dialog box:

The idea of restarting my entire computer to install a single application is very Windows-like (I thought one reason for running a UNIX variant like Mac OS was to avoid this), but normally, not a big deal, since I can just delay that action for later.

Unlike most Mac OS X installations that do require restart, however, there was no option to "Restart Later." Still, never fear, there's always the trusty red button to close the dialog box. I pressed it, and voilà:

A nice zero efficiency sub-dialog telling me in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to close this main dialog box without accepting the only choice presented, namely, restart.

Since I'm in the middle of doing my work right now, going through all my open applications to check save states, closing everything, restarting the entire computer and trying to get back to my previous work state is not something I'm inclined to do. As a result, I have no choice but to leave that dialog box open, and Safari in mid-install, until such time as which I am ready to take 10-15 minutes out of my workday to go through that process.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

At least it's not as bad as the equivalent Windows experience, succintly conveyed by the Reddit article: F*** You Microsoft ... "Restart Later" means I will restart it whenever the F*** I WANT

The madness must stop.

Some shows are bigger than others

Fear the Boot speculated recently about the length of TV shows and the number of commercials networks are inserting per episode. While talking about Hulu, and the relative unobtrusiveness of the three minutes or so of commercials that are included per hour, they wondered aloud if shows did indeed have less commercials "back in the day."

I wondered that as well. On a recent trip to Baltimore, I had occasion to watch broadcast television for what must have been the first time in several months. Not for the first time, I was struck by how annoying it was to be interrupted every few minutes by a massive block of advertising. Was I just getting spoiled by Hulu, Netflix, and DVDs, or were commercials really fewer and farther between in my youth?

Thanks to the very media I now consume, the answer was easy to come by. I pulled out a DVD of Taxi - the second season from 1978. Each "half hour" show was 24 1/2 minutes long. Over at Hulu, I checked in on Newhart - also 24 1/2 to 25 minutes per episode.

Then I checked current shows like The Office, The Daily Show, My Name Is Earl, and Family Guy. All of these "half hour" shows were significantly shorter. The longest was 22 minutes, most were about 21:45, and some were as short as 20 minutes and 45 seconds. That's 8-9 minutes of commercials per half hour! It's no wonder that, with an ad-to-content ratio of 1 ad minute for every 2 minutes of entertainment, people just don't much feel like watching broadcast TV anymore.

When we were kids watching TV, one minute of advertising would get you five minutes of show. Now you get just two minutes. I wonder how much longer "old TV" has to live.

Appropriate language

I understand - marketers trying to write "hip" and "young" has been around since the invention of the teenager, sometime in the 1950s. I wonder, though - would Skittles have had any less success with their site if they hadn't tried to write their legal copy as if their audience were composed of extras from the cast of Saved by the Bell?

Pearls before swine

There's an excellent article at WIRED this week, "Why Do E-Books Look So Ugly?"

In it, the author points out the role of typography and design in traditional book publishing, and shines a light on the hidden craft that goes into designing a book so well that it seems as if it weren't designed at all.

She shows why it is pleasant and enjoyable to read a book once it has been typeset, designed and printed, as opposed to the subtle dissonance that comes from trying to read something that has not. The article continues with a superb quote from typeface designer Mark Simonson:

“Different typefaces are like like having different actors in play or different voices in an audio book,” Simonson says. “The variations in typeface influence the personality of the book. Sticking to one font is much like having the same actor play all the different parts.”

And after all of that explanation, hoi polloi jump in with their comments, beginning with:

Thanks, for the info, more and varied fonts is important to the books and to stimulate the brain, something we need to push Amazon with. I wonder if there could be an automatic random font mode?

Someday, I will find a Firefox extension that allows me to strip reader comments from every page on the web.

Lightful - what's next after the GUI?

I just got the tapes from my talk at this year's BIL conference, and here's the video (click to watch, you'll be taken to a new window):

It's about the beginnings of an open-source system, not just a software or hardware project. We're still using the WIMP paradigm that was created in the 1970s, and I want to bring the best user experience minds I can find together to define the next stage in UI evolution.

Lightful (that's what I'm calling the project) is all about building a system - software and hardware both - that is centered around usability first and foremost. My eight principles are posted at lightful.org, which is also where the project will be housed and maintained.

Lightful.org has been laying fallow since BIL, a situation I plan to rectify very soon. I suppose waiting for the video gave me an excuse to delay, but now that excuse has been taken away from me, it's time to get a move on.

Here's to some good arguments about usability and moving past WIMP.