Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Features, iTunes, Podcasting
iTunes 7 UI: the Bad and the Ugly
With the release of iTunes 7, it looked like Apple was finally tip-toeing towards a more unified user interface for OS X. Many pundits, including myself, expect that at least some of the new elements we see in version Seven, subdued gray radio buttons and scroll bars for example, will end up in the rumored new interface for OS X 10.5 Leopard. The new interface design is a hot topic amongst users, with some despising it so much that they resort to downgrading to iTunes 6, and others praying at the Steve Jobs altar hidden in their closets behind the suit they never wear that the future of OS X will be gray.
Regardless of your opinion toward the new look, you'll probably agree that when it comes to an interface we use day in and day out, consistency is not just a nice thing to have, but crucial to keeping us users sane when switching between applications. A consistent interface is more than just applications that look alike, but the ways in which we interact with those applications. These interactions include, among other things, data entry, data access, and data manipulation.
Especially with a (mostly) consistent global user interface such as OS X, users get used to doing things a certain way. The same way your fingers know where the "x" or "t" keys are on your keyboard, the neural pathways used to access commonly used elements of a user interface are strengthened every time they are used. This builds a motor memory that is extremely useful in day to day work, but the same thing that makes our lives easier can also cause issues when something we have some to rely on in the way we use our computers changes.
Almost all the Mac users I know have at some point reached for F9-11 when working on a Windows machine, only to realize that Exposé is gone in that environment. Imagine that tonight magical elves sneak into your house and change the layout of your keyboard to DVORAK. It would drastically slow down your typing, and hinder your over-all use of the machine. According to David Malouf, Principal Product Designer and board member at the Interactive Design Association, "When using a convention that is so well grounded it is difficult for users to begin to imagine how they might use something, even with the simplest alterations. They have become accustom to the cues and signals that are learned from previous use and if there is too much similarity between the convention in the new context with that of the old context, there is little to help them to adjust to where the convention is not held to."
One would assume a design and usability conscious company such as Apple would keep this in mind when developing the software millions of people use every day. Unfortunately, with iTunes 7, the boys in Cupertino seem to have forgotten some basic rules of human computer interaction.
Lets play a little game. Open up iTunes and start playing an enhanced podcast; that is to say, one with multiple chapters. Now, try and find the chapters menu. Where'd it go?
It's likely that the next thing you do after discovering that the menu is missing from its traditional place in the toolbar would be to look around the rest of the interface. Perhaps down by the album art? Maybe it only shows up in one of the three views? Nope; I'll give you a hint: you won't find it anywhere in the iTunes window. Check the menu bar.
I know! What the hell!? When was the last time ANY application put a context sensitive menu or function in the menu bar? For that matter, when was the last time the you saw the menu bar functions of an application change other than when you updated the software. I can hope Apple has some pretty serious usability study data to back up this extremely unconventional new aspect of our user interface. That, or the iTunes team was in a crunch and brought on some temporary labor in the form of cocaine fueled chimpanzees.
After spending a few days ruminating on what could have possibly brought about this change, I'm still drawing a blank. Nothing about the new interface makes any sense to me, but maybe I'm just missing something.
I can only think of two possible explanations for this UI faux pas, and one is far scarier than the other. It's possible that Apple hired some new designers with some new (and in my opinion bad) ideas about where the iTunes interface should go in the future. If this is the case, I don't think anyone will hold this against them. The other possible explanation of the new design is that Apple has stopped caring so much about design; and this scares the crap out of me. Since the beginning Apple has placed huge importance on good user interaction in all facets of their product line. A change toward focusing more on money and less on design could be indicative of larger changes at the company we all know and love.
Almost all the Mac users I know have at some point reached for F9-11 when working on a Windows machine, only to realize that Exposé is gone in that environment. Imagine that tonight magical elves sneak into your house and change the layout of your keyboard to DVORAK. It would drastically slow down your typing, and hinder your over-all use of the machine. According to David Malouf, Principal Product Designer and board member at the Interactive Design Association, "When using a convention that is so well grounded it is difficult for users to begin to imagine how they might use something, even with the simplest alterations. They have become accustom to the cues and signals that are learned from previous use and if there is too much similarity between the convention in the new context with that of the old context, there is little to help them to adjust to where the convention is not held to."
One would assume a design and usability conscious company such as Apple would keep this in mind when developing the software millions of people use every day. Unfortunately, with iTunes 7, the boys in Cupertino seem to have forgotten some basic rules of human computer interaction.
Lets play a little game. Open up iTunes and start playing an enhanced podcast; that is to say, one with multiple chapters. Now, try and find the chapters menu. Where'd it go?
It's likely that the next thing you do after discovering that the menu is missing from its traditional place in the toolbar would be to look around the rest of the interface. Perhaps down by the album art? Maybe it only shows up in one of the three views? Nope; I'll give you a hint: you won't find it anywhere in the iTunes window. Check the menu bar.
I know! What the hell!? When was the last time ANY application put a context sensitive menu or function in the menu bar? For that matter, when was the last time the you saw the menu bar functions of an application change other than when you updated the software. I can hope Apple has some pretty serious usability study data to back up this extremely unconventional new aspect of our user interface. That, or the iTunes team was in a crunch and brought on some temporary labor in the form of cocaine fueled chimpanzees.
After spending a few days ruminating on what could have possibly brought about this change, I'm still drawing a blank. Nothing about the new interface makes any sense to me, but maybe I'm just missing something.
I can only think of two possible explanations for this UI faux pas, and one is far scarier than the other. It's possible that Apple hired some new designers with some new (and in my opinion bad) ideas about where the iTunes interface should go in the future. If this is the case, I don't think anyone will hold this against them. The other possible explanation of the new design is that Apple has stopped caring so much about design; and this scares the crap out of me. Since the beginning Apple has placed huge importance on good user interaction in all facets of their product line. A change toward focusing more on money and less on design could be indicative of larger changes at the company we all know and love.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
newswede said 10:16AM on 10-11-2006
Where did the EQ button go & why! There´s not even a key shortcut anymore! (yes I know it's still there, but it's harder to get at.)
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Alan Hoffman said 2:12PM on 10-11-2006
My thoughts exactly. Where'd the equalizer button go?!?!?!? I thought they'd deleted it before I spent some time trying to find it in the menu bar.
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nickdrj said 10:29AM on 10-11-2006
The ugly: Black eyed peas in your library
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david said 10:41AM on 10-11-2006
Here's another. Plug in your iPod and select the iPod in the left column. (In fact, you probably won't have to select it because it will be automatically selected for you.) The iPod preferences have been moved and the idea is good. At least ½ the time I plug in my iPod I want to change the prefs.
On my Nano there are three tabs - Summary, Music, Photos. I assume video iPods get a tab for movies. All this is good. But tell me why manually manage music is on the summary tab and not the music tab?
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Jedediah said 10:38AM on 10-11-2006
I never liked the iTunes7 look. The moment I updated I went a DLed a 1 of the several programs out there to change the look back to aqua. Aqua may not be my favorite either but it sure looks like it wasn't made in 5 mins.
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James Massey said 10:40AM on 10-11-2006
If missing EQs and podcast chapter menus are the worst of your worries with the inconsistency on MacOS X, then be very very grateful. Try using Home, End, Ctrl->, Cmd->, Alt->, Ctrl-E and Ctrl-A in different apps (some apple, some java, some anything else). There's nothing worse for the old neural pathways than jumping to the end of a several hundred line text file when you expect to be at the end of the line, or meanin to highligh a word and getting a whole line!
Admittedly, almost every OS has trouble with this, but I expect Apple to show the way. Steve only knows why they chose the emacs key bindings for home and end in the first place.
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Eric said 10:42AM on 10-11-2006
i completely agree with both the article and newswede's comment.
the menu bar should never ever change during normal use of an app.
and the other day, i wanted to use the eq to isolate part of a song (i rarely use the eq settings) and i took me almost a minute to find it. they could at least give us a keyboard shortcut...
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takio said 10:44AM on 10-11-2006
There's no real usability strategy going on here, i think... not for some time now. My humble opinion is that Apple was more focused on making iTunes 7 feel like a "totally new" version, with minor core changes and truckloads of eye-candy. They over-hyped coverflow (which i never use) and shuffled everything around, replacing truly useful and familiar shortcuts with buttons for hype-factor-features. In essence, little has changed, only a few welcome novelties in behaviour, like remembering view settings between listings... other things got worse, like the new "album artist" info field which broke the track order in numerous albums on my playlist.
Oh, and let's not forget that iTunes 6 and 7 don't get along with sharing playlists over a LAN... now that's just silly.
I wonder when Apple will become a branding company and start repackaging OEM stuff in overpriced fingerprint magnets.
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Michel said 10:46AM on 10-11-2006
itunes 7 is bad for ui consistency.
I use "agua itunes" to restore some aquaness to itunes 7. much more beautiful and natural to os X.
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Bill I said 10:46AM on 10-11-2006
I like the interface. There, I said it.
I much prefer the dark colors and the lack of uber-reflection/new-car shine. Aqua isn't getting any younger, and with Vista chomping at the heels of Aqua, I think it's high time Apple prove (once again) that Windows simply can't keep pace.
As for changes in the usability, I haven't noticed.
I hardly ever (read 99.999999...% of the time) skip chapters. A podcast isn't an album, it's (in effect) a radio show. It's intended to be linear (IMHO), thus I don't skip around. So I ask, how many people are really affected by this?
Your EQ button is gone? How often do you change the EQ settings? Just use the "Perfect" setting and be done with it...no need to touch the EQ ever again. ;)
Is it possible these things were removed/moved around simply because they're rarely used? Do you really need a keyboard shortcut or right-click menu for something you'll use once? Once a year?
At what point does something require easy access?
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Roberto Felgueiras said 10:52AM on 10-11-2006
I'll take the Peas over Beyonce. I love the new interface, but the eq and the contextual menu for Chapters are sorely missed. I don't have Airport express, but is the room selector in the same place too, or has it been moved as well? Here's waiting for iTunes 7.0.2.
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Joe said 10:54AM on 10-11-2006
And where did the CMD+1 shortcut go? I used to use this all the time to quickly tab to iTunes and make a quick selection change!
I've set up a trigger in Quicksilver but it never remembers the setting so I have to readd it on every system restart?
Why did they axe this hugely useful and pretty universal keyboard shortcut?
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Jon said 1:25PM on 10-11-2006
I have two problems with iTunes 7:
1. It looks scarily like the sort of app that Microsoft would make. Compare it to one of their newer apps like Windows Defender (horrible name) and you'll see exactly what I mean.
2. Buttons in the bottom right-hand corner + 30" screen = my own suicide.
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newswede said 10:55AM on 10-11-2006
Yeah, i don't change EQ that often, but now that I use Airtunes (streaming over an Airport Express) to speakers in my living room, I wanted to make an EQ setting for those (sub par) speakers. Then I can use the setting to compensate for the speakers. Good idea...we'll see if it works!
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robotcult said 10:59AM on 10-11-2006
It’s obvious: Apple is trying to lure Microsoft into copying this crappy interface, so then, when Leopard comes out, Apple will have pulled a switcharoo, and, ta-da: their real, non-sucky interface will be revealed.
Vista knockoff themes in Ubuntu look more finished and consistent than this UI.
Does anyone think that Apple would condone the abortionesque value mismatches that are going on in the single pixel strokes around the buttons? The lightest lights are too light, and the darkest darks are too dark. I mean, I know Mike Matas is just a kid, and he’s gonna want to make a good first showing, and slickness is a path to wonkyness, but there’s no excusing the complete lack of stepping back and looking at this monstrosity from a distance a day later and seeing the pure amateur chops. They aren’t serious. They can’t be.
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adam said 11:28AM on 10-11-2006
the itunes interface is a huge step forward for apple. personally i've never liked the shiny glass beads look of aqua, i find it distracting and somewhat immature, to the point where i've completely remade the gui to my liking. [url][img]http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/4320/dt100806prvdm9.png[/img][/URL]
if companies listened to consumers rants about how their product should look we'd still be driving cars with fins.
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DrWho said 11:04AM on 10-11-2006
I don't recall where the chapters menu was but I am another that much prefers the new look over the old aqua look. Aqua is done, history, sooo 10.4, along with brushed metal (I hope), microsoft have copied it, time to move on to something more grown up looking.
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mike said 3:23PM on 10-11-2006
i think the new ui is pretty good...itunes 6 was certainly nothing to drool over and i have yet to notice any functions that i commonly use that are missing
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The Jerk said 11:11AM on 10-11-2006
I love the new look (I hope Leopard looks like this!), but agree about some of the issues - the major one for me is Command-1. I also used this all the time and there is absolutely NO reason for it to be missing. I don't miss EQ, however. I set it up once for my speakers and haven't touched it since.
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Hank said 11:12AM on 10-11-2006
#1, that drives me nuts, too.
Unrelated, but related...this post may reveal more weaknesses of the upcoming Vista UI than iTunes.
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