Ratatouille

[G+_George Kozi]

Originally shared by George Kozi

 

Ratatouille

 

I don't own anything Apple, but I want them to do well. We all gain when the companies that want to sell us stuff are keeping each other sharp and slightly stressed. So I have an indirect vested interest in Apple's success. That's why I'm posting this.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a designer. However, I have eyes, a functioning brain and an active opinion generator.

 

This is the front shop window of an Apple product... this is what people see, so I have to say that there are a couple of big, and several smaller problems with it:

 

A) Distraction

B) Inconsistency

C) Staleness

 

The smaller problems I shall enumerate below fit in either A, or B, and the summum adds up to C (my last math teacher would be utterly amazed that I was able to produce that sentence).

 

1) The background should be backround.  This one isn't, for the following reasons.

-it has two layers (cloud and stars)

-it brings the eye to the lower right corner, because it is lighter there.

- the stars are closer to us than the clouds (irritating!)

 

So, when you look at this front shop window, the first thing you see is the background, not the control layer (icons). You are looking through the icons layer, and see the background image that has no role whatsoever. If you want to do something on your apple device, you have to focus back your attention to what's on top.

 

2) all the relevant information (battery, time, connectivity) is relegated to a very thin black bar at the top. This is hard to see, and the information on it is spread out over its entire length. Your eye has to travel that thin road from left to right.... the whole thin road...

 

3) there are several styles of icons presented to you on the same screen... all jumbled up. Is this the new Apple Ratatouille style? We have grayish icons, colored icons, slightly skeuomorphic icons, extremely skeuomorphic icons, cartoonish icons, icons that remind you of road signage, icons that love to be in a frame, Icons that hate to be in a frame, etc, et mamy many cetera's... as I said: ratatouille.

 

4) that gray control area at the bottom.. Why is it semi transparent? When we use the controls, do we want to know what's underneath on the (for the lack of a better word) desktop?

 

5) look at the two sliders on the left. the upper one is shorter than the lower one. (Irritating)

 

6) the upper slider has the same little sign on both sides... so... you are watching the progress from one thing to the same thing?

 

7) the two buttons on the right (archive and photos) look too wide. You know that they made them that way just  to be the same width as the slider below them... an admirable intention... an unfortunate result.

 

In conclusion: Well... I so hope this is just a diversion maneuver clever Apple threw at us, and that the real thing is way better. I really do, because what |I see on this screen reminds me of a cheap coupon flyer the 99 cents store used to put in my mailbox in the 90's.

[G+_George Kozi]

Robert Carrasco good. As I said, I want them to succeed.