What's the consensus on the appearance of Yosemite vs. El Capitan and earlier?

[KALLT]

Except people do not just rely on text. Other visual cues should be accounted for, e.g. the thumbnails in System Preferences, the 'usual' position of the setting you want to go into (memory), etc.

True, but Apple also toned those down over the years and relied more and more on text. The sidebar of Finder, for instance, used to have coloured icons. Now they are all grey and fairly indistinctive when looking at a glance. Same with iTunes (see above).

The text in El Capitan is not illegible to most people, but if you indeed have legibility issues I know you are not making it up and Apple don't think you're lying as well. That's why there are Accessibility settings.

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But don’t you agree that the text is more legible that way with that contrast? Why not use the slightly darker text colour as the default? I can not imagine that anyone would complain about it if that was the default text colour from the beginning. Apple is always so uncompromising when it comes to these settings. Want more legibility? Well, let’s screw up all translucent interfaces and buttons while were at it.

 

[hamis92]

True, but Apple also toned those down over the years and relied more and more on text. The sidebar of Finder, for instance, used to have coloured icons. Now they are all grey and fairly indistinctive when looking at a glance. Same with iTunes (see above).



But don’t agree that the text is more legible that way with that contrast? Why not use the slightly darker text colour as the default? Apple is always so uncompromising when it comes to these settings. Want more legibility? Well, let’s screw up all translucent interfaces and buttons while were at it.

Agreed. Why is it that these particular accessibility settings weren't there before? Because the UI used to be always legible as is. That's not the case anymore.

 

[KALLT]

Agreed. Why is it that these particular accessibility settings weren't there before? Because the UI used to be always legible as is. That's not the case anymore.

Exactly. To be honest, I find it a bit offensive to put basic interface affordances into a panel called Accessibility. I’m in my twenties, I don’t wear glasses and have good sight, but even I have to admit that the fonts are sometimes too small, the contrast too low, the components less distinctive due to the overuse of text instead of iconography and colour and the interface more eye-straining as a result.

It is infuriating sometimes that I need to spend a split-second more just to be sure that I read it correctly or don’t click on the wrong item in the sidebar. It is simple: a good contrast ratio is a necessity for human interface design, like it always was a necessity for book printing. When Apple decides to remove all other visual cues that allow people who are more susceptible to colour and shapes rather than text, and can distinguish these components much quicker otherwise, then adding a low contrast and an indistinctive typeface at low font sizes makes it even more burdensome. It’s really this fine-tuning and usability baseline that I miss about Yosemite.

 

[hojx]

True, but Apple also toned those down over the years and relied more and more on text. The sidebar of Finder, for instance, used to have coloured icons. Now they are all grey and fairly indistinctive when looking at a glance. Same with iTunes (see above).

But don’t you agree that the text is more legible that way with that contrast? Why not use the slightly darker text colour as the default? I can not imagine that anyone would complain about it if that was the default text colour from the beginning. Apple is always so uncompromising when it comes to these settings. Want more legibility? Well, let’s screw up all translucent interfaces and buttons while were at it.

Exactly. To be honest, I find it a bit offensive to put basic interface affordances into a panel called Accessibility. I’m in my twenties, I don’t wear glasses and have good sight, but even I have to admit that the fonts are sometimes too small, the contrast too low, the components less distinctive due to the overuse of text instead of iconography and colour and the interface more eye-straining as a result.

It is infuriating sometimes that I need to spend a split-second more just to be sure that I read it correctly or don’t click on the wrong item in the sidebar. It is simple: a good contrast ratio is a necessity for human interface design, like it always was a necessity for book printing. When Apple decides to remove all other visual cues that allow people who are more susceptible to colour and shapes rather than text, and can distinguish these components much quicker otherwise, then adding a low contrast and an indistinctive typeface at low font sizes makes it even more burdensome. It’s really this fine-tuning and usability baseline that I miss about Yosemite.

I can't confirm, but I find the current finder's sidebar to be more clearer than Lion/Mountain Lion/Maverick's sidebar. The previous one was kind of a grey icon on grey background… The current iteration is at least a dark grey on an off-white background.

While I do agree that there could be more work & slight tweaks done in general, I can only guess why certain design decisions may have been made. For one, having a higher contrast black-on-white (e.g. in the case of the Finder sidebar after Increase Contrast as above) everywhere will make things very jarring when you have many windows open.
I suppose this is why again in the case of Finder, the text of your files on the right side are darker than that of the sidebar, because you are more likely to be focusing on managing your files than repeatedly switching between your favourite/devices/tags in your sidebar. There should be a sense of hierarchy.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

After spending more time with El Capitan I must admit, it looks a lot better than Yosemite. I really can't put my finger on it but it just seems to look sharper and clearer. I still don't think it looks great, but at least it seem somewhat more tolerable.

Is this my imagination? Did they put something in Yosemite to blur the appearance of the user interface? It just seems so annoying to look at it IMHO.

Maybe it is the font.

 

[redheeler]

The fonts, to me are clearer

The new font does look nice, I'm using it on Yosemite as well.

The idiotic, overly aggressive translucency seems toned down

I haven't noticed a difference.

One caveat: Display preferences are now "dummified." You can't really configure anything with your display. Apparently Apple is targeting the IQ less than 70 crowd. If you're a photographer or you need to be able to configure your monitor for exact color profiles, say bye-bye to Mac OS X! I guess the focus of Apple is to make everything as stupid as possible.

I haven't noticed a difference, except the new "Ambient light compensation" option and a bunch of new color profiles for photographers.

 

[redheeler]

After spending more time with El Capitan I must admit, it looks a lot better than Yosemite. I really can't put my finger on it but it just seems to look sharper and clearer. I still don't think it looks great, but at least it seem somewhat more tolerable.

Is this my imagination? Did they put something in Yosemite to blur the appearance of the user interface? It just seems so annoying to look at it IMHO.

My guess is the typeface. It really does a lot.

I'm guessing this also played a part (see if you can spot the differences):

Anyone know whether El Cap is bringing back shadows at the top of windows? Here's a Yosemite screenshot to demonstrate the issue:
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See above. It's the same as Yosemite.

 

[vista980622]

Or in fact, your opinion is not the only one and people who enjoy the new design language (the vast majority, stats would suggest) are not simply making decisions without 'reasoning and logic'.

Never said mine is the only one.
Sharing different ideas - That's what forums are for.

 

[vista980622]

Except people do not just rely on text. Other visual cues should be accounted for, e.g. the thumbnails in System Preferences, the 'usual' position of the setting you want to go into (memory), etc.

The text in El Capitan is not illegible to most people, but if you indeed have legibility issues I know you are not making it up and Apple don't think you're lying as well. That's why there are Accessibility settings.

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Then witness the Dock turning to stark white.
Nope thanks.

 

[BradHatter]

I look at those stop light window controls and all I can think to myself is a four year old girl filling in a set of circles with colored pencils.

 

[redheeler]

I look at those stop light window controls and all I can think to myself is a four year old girl filling in a set of circles with colored pencils.

Hey, they don't look so bad on Retina. But, if you must, look up ThemeEngine.

Actually, it's nice to have a touch of Aqua back in OS X.

 

[redheeler]

Then witness the Dock turning to stark white.
Nope thanks.

You know there is a dark mode for the Dock, right?

 

[vista980622]

You know there is a dark mode for the Dock, right?

I do... That's actually what I do now.

But it also turns spotlight results and menu bars into black on white.
White on black text in spotlight results, especially, is quite difficult to read.

 

[aevan]

Yes, the Yosemite UI refresh has generated some discussion. As does any 'big' change. People complaining about 'lost ideals', how 'everything was better earlier', and threatening to quit. Sorry, but I don't take these things to seriously anymore, I have observed this pattern with ANY change, not matter if we are talking about software, hardware, politics, literature, music, anything. Some people are just reactionary in their nature. Also, much has been said about statistics in regards to the thread you talk about, and the fact that the majority of content there was written by a dozen of very active (and aggressive) users.

Excellent point.

 

[navaira]

I dislike flat design altogether, but seeing as Apple, Google and Microsoft all embraced it, and Linux doesn't run most of the software I am using, there isn't much I can do really (other than downgrade to Mavericks).

 

[xmichaelp]

To comment on some of your observations: I didn't notice any noteworthy difference in appearance of the controls between 10.10 and 10.11. In fact, I am now looking at both side by side and they seem identical. However, I also noticed that the translucency is less pronounced in 10.11. Does seem a bit more classy, but I can't say that I was ever bothered by it on 10.10.

Can anyone confirm if the translucency is tones down? Maybe side by side comparisons? I didn't notice any change personally.

 

[xmichaelp]

After spending more time with El Capitan I must admit, it looks a lot better than Yosemite. I really can't put my finger on it but it just seems to look sharper and clearer. I still don't think it looks great, but at least it seem somewhat more tolerable.

Is this my imagination? Did they put something in Yosemite to blur the appearance of the user interface? It just seems so annoying to look at it IMHO.

Placebo.

The font is the only thing I can think that is definitely clearer.

 

[navaira]

I definitely prefer the new font. Other than that I have a hard time seeing any differences, even when people post side-by-side comparisons.

 

[deviant]

What are you talking about... Canned tuna is awesome!

 

[ZVH]

There are slight 3D effects that help the appearance in my opinion. The buttons are outlined and now look clearer. More importantly, at least for my system, it doesn't look as washed out on El Capitan as it does on Yosemite. The glaring white seems reduced. The changes are subtle but they make a difference.

 

[TheBSDGuy]

There are slight 3D effects that help the appearance in my opinion. The buttons are outlined and now look clearer. More importantly, at least for my system, it doesn't look as washed out on El Capitan as it does on Yosemite. The glaring white seems reduced. The changes are subtle but they make a difference.

That's NOT your imagination. I took a display profile from Yosemite and copied it to El Capitan, and the appearance is night and day. In Yosemite the entire display looked washed out. Black text appeared as gray, gray or a shade of gray looked like it was middle gray, and there was an annoying washed out appearance. This isn't appearing in El Capitan. Maybe it's just an oddity with my monitor, but for me it's like a night and day difference. The subtle 3D effects are a definite improvement.

My main complaint would be that they ought to make that stupid translucency configurable, maybe with a slider level or something. Another "bug" as far as I'm concerned is that the same 3D effects used in some of the buttons are also used in text input fields. Anyone familiar with the history of GUI design knows that the entire purpose of the 3D effects around buttons was to separate an controls (buttons) from input fields (text fields). Now the text fields have the same 3D effects as the buttons.

Jony Ive is still in training.

 

[zhenya]

I am liking the new font and the general look of El Capitan over Yosemite. I wonder if some of the difference of opinion is the equipment we are using it on? The new font looks perfectly suited to the retina screens, whereas going back to Yosemite the font looks a bit too heavy for how sharp the screen is.

 

[navaira]

I have a non-retina screen and I love the new font. It really made my life easier. I am not using PB5 as my working system, haven't encountered any errors, and boy it's FAST when it's not running from a very old HDD. I kept a Yosemite partition in case things explode, but so far, so good. I'm only afraid to switch Time Machine on, because once I do THAT, there's no return.

As for non-font differences, erm, I don't see them. Even when people put screenshots up for comparison I have to really squint to notice anything. I didn't fiddle with color profiles, maybe that's the problem (or lack of it).

 

[redheeler]

I do... That's actually what I do now.

But it also turns spotlight results and menu bars into black on white.
White on black text in spotlight results, especially, is quite difficult to read.

You can turn just the Dock dark using cDock.

I am liking the new font and the general look of El Capitan over Yosemite. I wonder if some of the difference of opinion is the equipment we are using it on? The new font looks perfectly suited to the retina screens, whereas going back to Yosemite the font looks a bit too heavy for how sharp the screen is.

I think the new font looks better on both Retina and non-Retina. It really is an improvement over Helvetica Neue.

 

[vista980622]

Except people do not just rely on text. Other visual cues should be accounted for, e.g. the thumbnails in System Preferences, the 'usual' position of the setting you want to go into (memory), etc.

The text in El Capitan is not illegible to most people, but if you indeed have legibility issues I know you are not making it up and Apple don't think you're lying as well. That's why there are Accessibility settings.

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This makes texts more legible, but it feels like an afterthought and is not exact pretty to look at.
The previous design is natural and perfect for people who prefer bolder, darker text.