Riccardo Mori

‘Sticky’ locations

This is something I forgot to add in my previous entry. Let’s look at this figure once more:

Previously, I wrote:

Another change I’ve noticed is that, if you look at the sidebar, you can’t see other Macs with file sharing turned on that are present on the same network. In previous Mac OS versions they would usually appear in the area marked as (4). If you click on Network in the Locations section, then you can see them and connect to them; and once you’re connected to one or more of them and you mount one or more volumes, then you’ll be able to see the Mac’s name in Locations (3).

What happens next is something you may find handy or annoying — it depends on how you use your Mac. After disconnecting from a Mac on your network, that Mac’s name remains listed in the Locations section, and (at least for now) there doesn’t seem to be a way to remove it from the sidebar. In the figure, you see that I’m currently connected to Richard-XV. When I eject it, Richard-XV stays there. 

For how I navigate windows on my Macs, this is rather annoying. I’ve already selected Richard-XV by mistake on two separate occasions, when I actually wanted to select the MacBook Pro’s main volume XIII. And every time I selected Richard-XV, the MacBook Pro reopened the connection to the other Mac. It’s a small annoyance, which I suspect can worsen as one connects and then disconnects from multiple Macs/network volumes.

At least, in previous Mac OS versions, computers on the same network with file sharing turned on would appear in a separate Shared section, much easier to locate (or avoid) when needed.

Folder icons

In these logbook notes on the beta of Big Sur, I’ve generally refrained from remarking on specific icon designs because I’m assuming that nothing is definitive at this stage, and things may change over time. In the figure above, thanks to Dropbox, you can see both the old and the newer folder icon design. There was nothing wrong with the old, but I was always left wanting a bit more contrast. Folder icons in Big Sur have that contrast, maybe even too much of it. Still, I kind of like them.

Speaking of contrast…

Here’s a screenshot of the Finder’s File menu:

Visually, the biggest change compared with previous Mac OS versions is that now the command shortcuts are grey instead of black. I get why Apple made this change — to give prominence to the menu command, to the text — but to my eyes this also has the side-effect of tricking me into thinking that the command shortcut isn’t active. 

Perhaps it’s because it is the same colour as other inactive menu commands, or the fact that the background colour of the menu pane is now a light grey, further reducing the contrast, but the first impression I get when I invoke this menu is, Lots of these menu items have corresponding shortcuts, but they’re currently disabled. I reckon it’s quite subjective. Still, worth mentioning.

In general, as I’ve already pointed out since the WWDC 2020, Big Sur’s UI could use more contrast, and another area that seems to have regressed in this regard is how menu names are highlighted in the menu bar. This is with the default transparency setting:

The Finder menu name has an excessively subtle highlight, in my opinion. (Note that when you hover over the various menu commands, they’re normally highlighted, just like before Big Sur.)

If we enable Reduce transparency in System Preferences → Accessibility → Display, the highlighting is back, almost starkly so.

Notification Centre and widgets

I find it odd that you now invoke Notification Centre by clicking on the clock, instead of a dedicated menu extra like before. I also think that, on Mac OS, merging Today view and Notifications while having these bigger, redesigned widgets taking up considerable space in Notification Centre isn’t an improvement over the previous design. Here’s a screenshot of the entirety of the Desktop on my retina 13-inch MacBook Pro with Notification Centre showing one notification and four widgets. Yeah, the available visible space before having to scroll is almost over.

And three of the widgets are set to Small size. In the older design, widgets were more compact, and even if you couldn’t have two of them side by side, their use of the limited space of Notification Centre’s pane was more efficient and more information-rich.

What I’m seeing with these bigger widgets is something like, Let’s cram the old Dashboard concept into Notification Centre and it feels a bit silly, to be honest. This kind of widget design is certainly better employed on iOS and iPadOS — it makes more sense and it blends better with those operating systems’ respective user interfaces.

Previous logbook entries

• Introduction
• (1) Installation, the menu bar, first impressions
• (2) Control Centre
• (3) New beta, Finder windows

A couple of days ago, after a bit of a delay due to work, I was prepared to continue with my Big Sur logbook entries, but meanwhile Apple released a new beta, so that further delayed me. Before installing it, I took screenshots of all the System Preferences panes — it seemed an important place to focus my attention on, a place where changes and updates are very likely to happen. I forgot to take screenshots of Finder windows, though; but, going from memory, there doesn’t seem to be any noticeable change in their UI between the first and the second public beta. 

Or should I say between Beta 4 and Beta 5, since apparently the latest beta version I’ve downloaded is Beta 5:

It was another chunky update, at 7.15 GB, and the first time I downloaded it, the download aborted and I got an error. Since I was trying to download it as soon as I learnt there was an update available, I figured that maybe Apple servers were busy and slow, so I postponed the operation. The day after, the download was very fast and completed successfully. The installation, on the other hand, took longer than the previous beta — around 50–55 minutes. The stage that took very long to complete was the Preparing Mac OS Big Sur Beta 5… just after download and before restarting the Mac. The progress bar appeared stuck for a while. But in these cases I usually let the Mac be, and sure enough things went smoothly, eventually.

Finder windows

This was the entry I meant to write before updating to Beta 5. My initial observations remain unchanged.

Let’s take a standard Finder window. I’ve set my viewing preferences just like on my production Macs running High Sierra (Sidebar, Path bar, and Status bar are visible; Toolbar is in “Icon Only” view; and the only customisation to the standard Toolbar is the addition of the Path and Dropbox buttons).

Finder window in Big Sur

As a general observation, I’d say that, now that I’m seeing this new UI in person, it bothers me less than when I saw it revealed at the WWDC 2020. I’m not entirely okay with it either, but now that I’m looking at it more attentively on a Mac I have before me, there are also little details I can appreciate.

For starters, I like the use of this unified symbol library Apple is developing. The new sidebar icons appear slightly smaller than their counterparts in previous Mac OS versions, but they’re nonetheless recognisable. I also like the colour differentiation between the icons in the ‘drives and devices’ section (Locations) and the icons in the Favourites section. The former remain dark grey, while the latter take the colour you specified in System Preferences → General → Accent colour.

The new design of the upper part of the Finder window — with the loss of a proper title area, the semaphore buttons that now are visually part of the sidebar (1), and the title that is now part of the toolbar (2) — is a mixed bag. Like other parts of the redesigned Big Sur user interface, it’s not that bad if you just look at it or interact with it superficially. But the more you stare at it and ponder, the more you find annoyances.

The new toolbar (2), for example, suffers from the same spacing problems as the menu bar. There is simply too much padding between icons. If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll see that I chose a somewhat typical window width, at least for a 13-inch display. But the toolbar is not entirely visible. If I want to make all the buttons visible, and avoid too much title truncation, I have to stretch the window to a size that (again, on a 13-inch display) takes up 95% of the screen’s width, leaving just enough Desktop space on the right side to see the drive icons.

With the ‘old style’ (pre-Big Sur) of Finder windows UI, this kind of spacing issue is absent, of course. On my 11-inch MacBook Air, I can have a Finder window that is less than half the whole screen’s width, and still see all the toolbar buttons, including Search, which on previous Mac OS versions is a whole text field instead of an expandable control.

Finder window in High Sierra

Another peculiar thing worth mentioning is what happens when you choose to view the toolbar as “Icon and Text” (Finder → View → Customise Toolbar → Show: Icon and Text). In previous Mac OS versions (High Sierra in the picture below), since the toolbar extends across the whole window, when you choose to show icons and text for the toolbar buttons, the size of the buttons remains the same, and labels are placed beneath them. Finder windows become a little taller, but not wider, and you don’t lose anything usability-wise: no button disappears or gets reduced to accommodate the text beneath:

Toolbar: Icon Only view (High Sierra)

Toolbar: Icon and Text view (High Sierra)

In Big Sur, something interesting happens: to accommodate the labels beneath the buttons, the buttons become noticeably smaller, and one peculiar side-effect of this change is that you get to see more controls. In the picture below you can see that, after switching to Icon and Text view, the Action control becomes visible. While we’re here, also please note how unpleasantly crowded the left side becomes with the appearance of the “Back/Forward” text beneath the [<] and [>] buttons.

Toolbar: Icon Only view (Big Sur)

Toolbar: Icon and Text view (Big Sur)

I’m sure that, as you’re reading these notes, you may think I like splitting hairs and that I’m being unnecessarily fastidious. But making me aware of the finer details is something Apple itself has done over the years. This Finder window design, while superficially pretty, doesn’t feel completely thought out or optimised for different cases. It’s the same thing as the menu bar: there is a lot of wasted space between controls, and it seems designed to look good only in the best case scenario: relatively big retina screens (16-inch and above).

Look again at how smaller the toolbar controls become once we choose to display the labels beneath them. The targets become smaller too, and on a 13-inch retina screen you already have to pay attention whenever you want to click to select them. Imagine doing that on a 13-inch or an 11-inch non-retina screen. Add to this the poor contrast of the controls themselves, and you end up with quite a blurry and unpleasant interface. Finder window toolbars in Big Sur seems to be really optimised for an “Icon Only” setting.

And again, the new design of Finder windows in Big Sur seems to favour bigger screens with retina resolution even with regard to window management. To be able to see all your toolbar controls you have to widen each window to a considerable degree. On smaller screens windows end up taking more space than before, thus cluttering the Desktop unnecessarily and making simple drag & drop of files between windows more awkward.

Other minor details

Let’s get back to this figure:

Another change I’ve noticed is that, if you look at the sidebar, you can’t see other Macs with file sharing turned on that are present on the same network. In previous Mac OS versions they would usually appear in the area marked as (4). If you click on Network in the Locations section, then you can see them and connect to them; and once you’re connected to one or more of them and you mount one or more volumes, then you’ll be able to see the Mac’s name in Locations (3). I hope this is just temporary and that the old behaviour is restored, as it’s more efficient and practical (you see which Macs are available on the Network and you can connect to them with fewer clicks).

Another UI element I hope is just temporary is the big, dark handle to adjust icon size in Finder windows, located at the bottom right corner (5). It looks a bit cartoonish and I feel it attracts more attention than it should. Compare it with the more understated counterpart in previous Mac OS versions (see the High Sierra Finder windows screenshots above).

As a final note, I’d like to point out how small the difference between active and inactive windows has become under Big Sur. In contrast with previous Mac OS versions, now a window in active state (i.e. in focus) has a lighter appearance than an inactive window in the background. Overall, though, I think there’s enough differentiation to avoid confusion: the title bars/toolbars of inactive windows are very grey and low-contrast; the semaphore buttons in the top left corner lose their colour; and even the accented icons in the sidebar turn into a less vibrant hue compared with the active window’s sidebar icons.

Wrapping up

As I said above, the overall impression I’m having about Big Sur’s user interface is that it’s a mixed bag. From what I’ve seen so far, there are nice touches here and there, interspersed by oversights and even regressions (the largely inefficient use of space between controls and menus, both in the Mac’s menu bar and in the toolbar design within Finder windows). It seems that now how it looks (to stubbornly achieve a unified Mac OS/iPadOS interface) is more important than how it works.

Previous logbook entries

• Introduction
• (1) Installation, the menu bar, first impressions
• (2) Control Centre

Now that I’ve shared my perplexities regarding the menu bar, let’s just… stay with the menu bar a bit more. One of the new features of Big Sur that was touted in the preview at the WWDC 2020 is Control Centre. Clearly taken from iOS, on Mac OS it serves the very same purpose: to provide a series of shortcuts to the most used settings, all in one convenient place. Here it is in its default configuration on my MacBook Pro:

First impression: why not? I don’t particularly dislike it, and it kind of makes sense. Those are all useful controls to have handy.

From a usability standpoint, here’s what I’ve noticed. On previous versions of Mac OS, not having something like Control Centre available, users would populate the menu bar with the controls they need and use most. Let’s just take three examples: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Volume. These three menu extras provide both access to the respective settings and instant information on their current state. You can immediately see whether Bluetooth is on or off. You can see whether Wi-Fi is turned on or off, and see whether the Mac is connected to a wireless network and the intensity of the signal. And you can have an approximate idea of the system volume level by looking at the Volume icon.

When you click on these controls and bring down their respective menus, you get additional information and additional control:

• Bluetooth: you can turn it off/on immediately; you can select a previously paired device and connect to it; you can open Bluetooth preferences.
• Wi-Fi: you can turn Wi-Fi off/on immediately, connect to another network with a click on its name, plus access other options like create a network or open Network preferences.
• Volume/Sound: you can adjust the volume, change the output device, access the Sound preference pane.

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Volume menus in previous Mac OS versions (High Sierra pictured here)

I know this is pretty much self-evident, but bear with me. If you combine the information provided by these three menu bar icons, with the level of control their respective menus give you, you end up with a pretty efficient way of dealing with their status and settings. It’s all quite immediate and a couple of clicks away.

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Volume menus in Mac OS Big Sur (beta)

Now in Big Sur, their function hasn’t changed. They behave the same way. Their look has been refreshed, but they work exactly like before. The only difference is that, due to the UI redesign, now it takes you one click more to turn e.g. Bluetooth or Wi-Fi off and on. Before, you clicked on their icon and just moved the mouse on the Turn Bluetooth Off/On or Turn Wi-Fi Off/On menu command. Now you have to click on their icon and then click on their on/off switch. I know this is incredibly subtle and the delay in the corresponding action is only a fraction of a second higher, but still, it feels unnecessary; it feels like something clearly designed for touch interaction that was simply copied and pasted on a desktop paradigm driven by a mouse or trackpad.

There’s another interesting detail to note, in my opinion. Given the excessive spacing introduced between menu bar elements (both between icons and — something I failed to point out in the previous logbook entry — menu names), what you’re tempted to do is remove the separate Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Volume controls, and just use Control Centre. And this is both a practical and impractical solution. Practical because, well, you have multiple controls all in one place. Impractical because, by removing the single controls from the menu bar, you lose the ability to know about their state at all times. To see whether Bluetooth or Wi-Fi are turned on, you have to click on the Control Centre icon. To access their additional features you have to click on the annoyingly tiny light-grey arrow near each control (by the way, the arrow appears on mouseover, it’s not always visible).

And here is where things slow down more noticeably and get a bit more awkward. Before Big Sur, if I just wanted to switch networks, I would pull down the Wi-Fi menu from the Wi-Fi control on the menu bar, and select the other network. One click, one scroll of the menu, and selection. In Big Sur — provided you only want to use Control Centre in the menu bar — the same operation takes three clicks, one scroll of the menu, and finally the selection:

• You first click on the Control Centre icon;
• You carefully position the mouse to make the grey arrow appear (otherwise your click will just turn Wi-Fi off);
• A second click, and you enter Wi-Fi settings;
• If the network you want to switch to is among the Preferred Networks, then you just select it here;
• If not, you have to click a third time on Other Networks and finally scroll down the list and select the network you want.

Yes, you get a prettier interface, but that’s pretty much what you get. For now, Control Centre on the Mac feels simultaneously handy and awkward. You have faster access to multiple controls, but slower access to each control’s finer settings.

Previous logbook entries

• Introduction
• (1) Installation, the menu bar, first impressions