designtank

I have no way to know if it’s charged, let alone charging, just by looking at the power cable. No, I have to open the lid. And then, against my will, it auto boots. I have to go through the entire start-up process, including my IT department’s acceptance certificate, just to see how much juice is left in the battery.

For two years, I thought I was actually shutting the Macbook down on Friday afternoon. The screen would go black, I’d shut the lid and put it on a shelf, so I could use my Air to do personal stuff at my desk. I used to wonder how it could possibly be almost instantly ready to go on Monday morning when I reconnected to my monitor and opened the lid.

Turns out, it wasn’t really shutting down. Instead it was draining the battery. Not much of an issue over a weekend. A big issue when I was out on leave for three weeks. Now, the battery needs to be replaced. Which means, because Macs are no longer accessible for DIY things like swapping in RAM or putting in a battery, I have to spend a couple of hours installing Box Sync and backing up all my working files so that I can continue getting work done on a loaner for 4 plus days. I have to drive into the office and drop it off with IT, which then has to give me a loaner and send the Macbook to an Apple store. My employer has to keep several expensive Macs on hand as loaners. For a freaking battery.

And oh, now with Big Sur, no more spring-loaded folders in the sidebar. No matter how I set my preferences, sidebar folders no longer respond to hover. A one-step process now becomes two. But hey, big improvement—I can change the color of the folders from gray to a color sort-of-my-choice. How having all sidebar items the same color is a usability improvement is beyond me. I guess it’s a little better than low contrast gray.

Did I mention how I had to drop out of a video presentation with an external partner because, oops, Big Sur requires me to once again give permissions, app by app by app, to use my camera, permissions I’d already given in the previous OS. Several other coworkers had the same issue, having to drop out of presentations to change permissions and then sign back in. Not to mention, the default in Big Sur is to make sounds for every. single. action. Another online search to figure out how to disable. Why every website, social media platform, and device thinks you want notifications of every mouse click is beyond me.

It’s like having a hyper, un-housebroken puppy dumped at your door. One that doesn’t even warn you before taking a dump on your new carpet.

Graphic design degrees typically included at least one course in typography. Since digital design took over, I see far too few designers paying much attention, if any, to readability and legibility. Terms like measure, x-height, and baseline grid are seemingly part of a foreign language.

But to me, if visitors to your UX portfolio site can’t actually read your copy, I consider it a user experience fail.