Unbelievable how bad the latest version of Pages looks against the oldest in the example. The "chrome" part - the buttons without labels, I have no idea what most of them would do and just glancing at them gives me a headache.
Unbelievable how bad the latest version of Pages looks against the oldest in the example. The "chrome" part - the buttons without labels, I have no idea what most of them would do and just glancing at them gives me a headache.
It's still impressing how the entire chrome can be collapsed into a single background bit of information, indicating a presence that may be attended to for interaction. In contrast, the newer interfaces seem to be made to reduce the attention span anyone may apply to the content. (It's really stress inducing.)
I'll say. It really shows what we have lost. I deeply miss old OS X.
It can be good to reduce chrome and focus on content, and have minimal UI's but there's a limit. Your UI still has to be discoverable, and intuitive. With everything hidden away it's unfriendly, particularly for new users.
Sure, but why can't we have both? Sensible, usable defaults for new users, configurable views for everyone else. I'd like a version of Pages where I can turn off the toolbar, turn off the title bar, fullscreen the remaining window and focus purely on the document. That really shouldn't be difficult.
Absolutely. It's totally doable. But Apple is swinging a bit too far into the minimal aesthetic right now.
It would be extremely easy to have both. Tab to hide/show chrome and controls. The Affinity software does this, and it's intuitive and works flawlessly.
I presume the difficult question there, would be what you would expect users to do to engage with that mechanism on iOS (since many Apple first-party apps, e.g. Notes, are now designed once to run on macOS + iPadOS + iOS as essentially a single [responsive] UI.)
I don't understand how decreasing the contrast between content and chrome helps you "focus" on content. The older design screenshot has better content clarity than the current design.