Comments on: iCal: Basic flaws in user interface

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 21:01:03 +0000

I didn’t say that the workflow was necessarily obtuse, but that it results in some very non-intuitive visual behaviour, with the field in the drawer not being in sync. I don’t see what would be confusing about having the field updated as you type. To use a comparison, in Word you can have two windows or two panes in a window showing the same section of a document at the same time. If you type text in one, the text appears as you type in the corresponding location in the other pane/window.

Same thing in the Finder if you have two different windows showing the contents of the same folder. When you create a folder in one of the windows, the folder immediately appears in the other one as well.

Nothing confusing about this. If Apple was to give us two simultaneous views of the same thing, then these two views need to be kept in sync.

By: soosy

soosy — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 20:11:36 +0000

Regarding the first part of your post, the workflow isn’t that obtuse:
- Type in the event name and hit return/enter or click elsewhere to enter the text (like any standard text field).
- Type in the event name and hit tab to continue entering event details.

Although it’s a little strange to “jump” into the detail view by hitting tab, it’s nice to be able to do that via the keyboard, and I can’t think of a more appropriate key. (Well, maybe just return/enter could….)

You argue that the large Event Title in the drawer should be selected and change with the text in the calendar box. I think that could potentially be confusing for the user to see two separate objects being selected and edited at the same time. I suppose both text fields could update as you type, and there is an option for that in Cocoa Bindings, but two active selections in two parts of the interface strikes me as weird.

The thing that bothers me most about Apple’s new interfaces is that they are non-standard (not defined in GUI guidelines) and that they aren’t made available for developers to use. I think they’d be more consistent if they were. I also think they should update and evolve them with OS version and NOT on an app by app release basis.

By: gerryleonidas

gerryleonidas — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:50:56 +0000

Good start. I look forward to the instalments on the lack of per-hour / day / week background customisability (lunchtime, or weekend, anyone?); the mess of dragging events to / from the To-Do list; the time-display clunk; the lack of complex rules and numbering options for repeated events; the daft “auto-sorting” and the inconsistency in drag-resizing of day events; the lack of an option to display notes within events; the lack of an acceptable way to add a link from an event to a file on your disk (and vice versa); and the simply astonishing “Show X hours in a day” preference.

By: Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » User interface flaws in iCal

Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » User interface flaws in iCal — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 23:37:17 +0000

[...] At Betalogue, Pierre Igot offers a demolition job on iCal’s user interface. [...]