Leopard Design Changes - My Observations
Last Friday the new Mac OS Leopard came out and was met with criticism from some, and praise from others. There are a few things I wish they hadn’t changed, but over all there are many new features that are useful. A few of the design related changes I’ve noticed are listed below along with my observations about them.
1. The Dock - The dock didn’t change much, but the parts that were changed, weren’t changed for the better, in my opinion. The blue orbs indicating a running program are harder to see than the previous black triangles. Also, the “ledge” that the program icons rest on now only comes up half way behind the icons instead of all the way. This reduces the amount of contrast between the icon and the background. These changes reduce the over all readability of the dock.
2. Stacks - Stacks is a new feature, and a helpful one. Stacks allows you easy access to downloads, programs, and documents. It makes navigating to these items much easier.
3. Preview - Preview works in two ways. One is Icon Preview. It displays the icon of a file as a miniature version of the real file. You can also press the spacebar while an icon is selected and it will bring up a preview window of what the file looks like. This is extremely helpful for text and PDF files. It’s no longer necessary to open a file to view its contents.
4. Spaces - Spaces allows you to have various desktops running at once. This could be good for organizing types of programs, differentiating between work and home, or just to reduce clutter. I haven’t had the need to use this yet, but I think it will be a great tool in the future.
5. Dashboard - Dashboard still works the same way, but has one new feature that I really enjoy: Web Clips. You just “clip” a portion of a Web site and it will display that part of the site on the Dashboard. I’ve been using this for Web cams. I clipped a Web cam of Waikiki, Hawaii and put it on my Dashboard. Now when I need a short break, I can check in on Waikiki beach and watch the surfers!
6. Coverflow - Coverflow is a feature I haven’t used a lot either, but I know a lot of people who think it’s great. It uses the same concept that iTunes has been using for a while, which allows you to flip through files quickly while previewing the contents.
These are the main design and usability changes that have stuck out to me. Feel free to agree or disagree, or leave your other observations in the comments!
