I mean, there’s some decent design principles behind it. For one, it just takes up space only once rather than for each window individually.
But much more importantly, it makes use of an implication of Fitts’s Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts’s_law#Implications_for_UI_design
TL;DR: Because you can slam your mouse cursor against the top of the screen, you can’t miss the menu vertically. It’s like an infinitely tall button. This makes it fast for users to move their cursor there.
Having said that, this macOS design is from a time when the mouse and navigation menus were the primary user interaction method, which they’re not anymore. So, yeah, that’s why it was designed like that, but I doubt they’d expend this much effort to design it like that again.
I work on macOS 90% of the time. It’s super well design, but it gets worse with each release. The security options are way too intrusive. Gnome is much more intuitive these days.
I was about to agree on the macOS part, but Gnome is really terrible in terms of UX. They are good at eye candy and unfortunately don’t seem to know the difference between a pretty and a good UI.
This is just wishful thinking. macOS is the GOAT of UI/UX.
Okay. Explain the global menu, then. Why would I want the menu at the top of the screen, always, instead of attached to the top of the window?
I mean, there’s some decent design principles behind it. For one, it just takes up space only once rather than for each window individually.
But much more importantly, it makes use of an implication of Fitts’s Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts’s_law#Implications_for_UI_design
TL;DR: Because you can slam your mouse cursor against the top of the screen, you can’t miss the menu vertically. It’s like an infinitely tall button. This makes it fast for users to move their cursor there.
Having said that, this macOS design is from a time when the mouse and navigation menus were the primary user interaction method, which they’re not anymore. So, yeah, that’s why it was designed like that, but I doubt they’d expend this much effort to design it like that again.
I don’t have any issues with mouse precision, so having to navigate that extra distance every time is a pain in the ass.
I work on macOS 90% of the time. It’s super well design, but it gets worse with each release. The security options are way too intrusive. Gnome is much more intuitive these days.
I was about to agree on the macOS part, but Gnome is really terrible in terms of UX. They are good at eye candy and unfortunately don’t seem to know the difference between a pretty and a good UI.
Why is it so terrible with multiple monitors then?
It was pretty bad last time I used it