I just want to say that I am really jazzed about these reviews from this round’s judges. I had a friend IM me apologizing about how the judges had “harshed my mellow” and thoughtfully offered to arrange for them to “go away” (in the Sopranos sense of the word). While not exactly glowing, I actually totally dug that they took the time to point out the benefits and caveats of implementing Ground Control–many of which are exactly what I’ve been wrestling with in developing this idea as far as it has gone.
As a designer, I’m used to having people gush over how cool something looks, sometimes, I might even get a rare, “I’m not really wild about it” reaction (at least my selective memory tells me it’s rare), but rarely (in the truest sense of the word) do I get to enjoy honest critique from other designers that I look up to, especially in the field of UI design which is not my core discipline. So these are pearls of wisdom indeed.
And with that, I’ll now attempt to defend my idea by commenting on their comments:
Josh Keay (Monkey Business Labs) - Designers:
Now, perhaps I’m a bit biased, as a rather widget centric guy, though I just don’t see the advantage of this over using the Dashboard. I think the way that widgets disappear when you’re not working with them is their biggest advantage - the last thing I need is a second dock to clutter up my screen! That said, you’ve made this rather pretty looking. There’s a caveat though! All your screenshots show this semi-transparent appearance, which is really sexy when you put it over a photograph or a nice desktop picture, though looks terrible when you have it over text or a web browsing window, in addition to being very hard to read… And of course everyone would want to theme this and add their own modules.
My response: I’m sure Josh regularly works in multiple programs and needs access to his Address Book and Mail, etc. I’m sure he doesn’t use a Widget before he would just open his Address Book or check and send emails. I’ve long ago given up on the Dashboard as a productivity enhancer (like about a month after I upgraded to 10.4 and had eight weather widgets checking weather). Even on a dual 2.7 G5, the initial launch of Dashboard was too long to be of nothing more than a casual use. Now maybe I’m one of the occasional wierdos that likes to see that much weather going on at once (I have winery clients and I like to see weather conditions in various wine regions–especially during harvest crush). So, any productivity widgets that are out there are lost on me and judging by the many comments I’ve received from the forums, I’m not the only one that thinks so. Again, that ties into one of the taglines that I use, “Like Dashboard…except it’s not in the trunk.” As for disappearing, GC is easily kept hidden until bidden by hotkey too. As for being transparent over other objects, that is a valid concern. Obviously, the opacity should be user-defined in prefs and I think you have an existing standard set in the Apple Pro app palettes–I don’t see it as too big of an issue.
Bill Bart (The Skins Factory) - Designers:
Now this is both simultaneously interesting and frightening. Half of me loves the idea and knows it would help me get infinitely more done, the other half almost shudders thinking about the amount of work involved to develop the interface for this thing. Russell has presented us with a concept that is essentially an OS within an OS. Unfortunately, it would need to be approached this way in terms of graphics implementation in order to facilitate end-user skinning and module development by third parties. Dashboard utilizes entirely freeform entities to present its functionalities, so the visual inconsistencies and lack of integration from widget to widget are irrelevant. On the flip side, GC presents us with a continuous visually integrated control surface - this is in fact its key selling-point. Maintaining the lab-perfect look shown here would require the development of a substantial library of graphics covering a wide range interface elements so that I, as a developer, could create any module I might imagine and be confident that not only would it look like part of the default GC interface, but that it would also comply with any user-applied skin. When one considers the sheer number of control and display possibilities that would need to be covered in order to present the incoming developer with the near-limitless development possibilities Dashboard currently provides, that’s where things get daunting. I would imagine that this approach, while friendly to module developers, might also present a deterrence to skin developers due to the sheer scale of the task of designing graphics for each and every element and associated state. One alternative might be to build in (and therefor allow skinning for) only the most common UI elements (buttons, tabs, radios, checks, sliders, scrolls, frames and text entries). In this case a visual style guide would need to be developed to aid in the development of unique UI elements from scratch - however, there would be no assurances that these resulting original graphics would integrate well with every skin. A compelling concept but a challenging one to be sure.
My response: I’m with Bill on 99% of his comments here. As I have been doing some rough mockups of preference panes, I have come to realize how much it will take to pull this app off. But, I don’t think that it is inherently any more difficult than any of the other MDA finalists entries — with the possible exception of Cookbook (I think Michael’s almost finished with it anyways — he even has a “Download Now” button on his new website) ;). I think Bill’s suggestion for allowing just the common UI elements open for skinning would be a decent solution. That said, I’m not sure that it would be an overly-daunting task — I would think that it would be sufficiently challenging for the better skin designers to want to take a whack at it, and as a consequence, it might lessen the skin pool, but I think it would be populated by the best looking skins by the best designers — making it a very cool addition to any heavily modded desktop theme. Thanks Bill for your insightful feedback — this is what I’ve been looking for.
Piotr Gajos (Inventive) - Designers:
I’ve had a really hard time understanding what’s going on with the hype about this idea. Needless to say I don’t like it but I have no idea why people are so excited about concept which has been available in Linux and Windows for years. Also it has so many features that I’m afraid it might become a resource hog. I prefer smaller apps, precisely designed for one-two purposes. It’s very difficult to polish your product and maintain it’s usability if it does so much. Ground Control tries to tie so many apps and functions within one interface, that it looks like an attempt to build a user interface above user interface provided by the operating system. Not meta-UI, but a redundant repetition of what you already have in OS X.
Plus this huge, blue horizontal bar taking up space reserved for dock really reminds me of Windows. Maybe if it looked different, was less obtrusive, it would grow on me. At this point I can’t think of a way to improve it. In my opinion it needs a radical change of approach, maybe even paradigm shift - to something which rather remains hidden and pops up when needed, than something that takes up precious screen space and steals focus from what you actually should be doing.
My response: This one I’ll try to handle in bite-size pieces. I’m jazzed to have Piotr comment on Ground Control because I love the work that he has done. Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, but it’s kind of like the kid who misbehaves to get attention of any kind–at least I’m getting it. ;) Although I do like the comment, “…I have no idea why people are excited about a concept…” It shows that people are excited about GC — even if it has its critics. Thanks Piotr.
Resource hog issue: This is an extremely valid point and one that I admit, needs further developer comment on — I can’t satisfactorily answer this. I do know that Apple has built in shared frameworks for Mail and Address Book and others that are available to other apps. It is my hope that many of the features that I have listed will be able to take advantage of these existing frameworks provided by Apple and reduce that overhead. The iPhoto Module though, has always been a concern of mine, and I am hoping that it can be handled in a similar way to iLife’s media browser.
Smaller apps preference issue: I prefer smaller apps too. Do I have a choice with Photoshop? InDesign? Dreamweaver? Final Cut Pro? As far as one-two purposes, GC is basically seeking to create an environment where multiple one-two purpose functions exist at beckon call while you’re running the big guns.
Huge blue horizontal bar issue: Actually, it’s a black bar that is tinting a blue background. It would complementarily tint whatever color background it hovers over. Non-issue.
The old tried and true, “It reminds me of Windows start/sidebar” issue: This is usually stated by people who have such a strong pro-Apple, anti-Microsoft or anything that isn’t Apple bias. How hard is it for people (Mac users) to admit that Redmond might have identified a productive way to work? I don’t think they’ve pulled it off well either, but just because it reminds someone of Windows shouldn’t automatically shut your brain off to evaluate if this is a viable productivity enhancing solution. Eek, it uses a mouse–just like Windows! Personally, I think that this mentality is so strong at Apple, that that is why we have today’s wimpy Dock and the dysfunctional Dashboard. Apple has tried so hard not to create something that looks like Windows, that they have willingly crippled their own OS at least in this aspect. I know some might find that statement extreme, but it is exactly what will help safeguard this app from Wil Shipley’s earlier fears that Apple will just fold the functions of GC into a future version of the OS. Well, I highly doubt it and until then, we need to get work done and there are only so many sides of your screen to work with. Unless Apple has an additional dimension generator hidden in Leopard, I’m afraid the best and only real estate to use is on the bottom and sides of the screen. Other than that commonality, I don’t see how people get hung up over how GC reminds them of Windows.
Less obtrusive paradigm shift issue: With this comment I’m more disappointed that Piotr doesn’t seem to have visited the website or my blog posts and is making an erroneous statement here — even though I do have a copy point that states, “Unobtrusively Accessible — Ground Control is a flexible environment allowing it to either stay hidden until summoned by a hotkey or hotspot or it can remain on the desktop giving constant visual feedback.” I’m wondering if he actually looked at what I’ve clearly spelled out, if he would make the same comment. It’s kind of like saying to Apple, gee, that iPod idea might be cool if it like could store a bunch of songs and pictures and videos and like have a really slick, easy to use interface–then I might just buy one.
But, to Piotr’s credit, it did get me thinking of an even more, unobtrusive mode than the full bar, and that is a half-height mode that is not entirely minimized, but has a smaller icon and a more minimal text feedback area, but I’m going to hold off on developing that idea further unless I get a flood of comments calling for that.
Austin Sarner (AppZapper) - Development Team:
I hadn’t taken a good look at Ground Control’s potential until recently. My initial reaction to a Dashboard replacement can only be described as lukewarm — that said, after seeing the mockups, my opinion has been swayed significantly. It is clear that Russel has this app thought out from the ground up. If the plug in API is simple enough (or, hell, if there is a simple IDE bundled with it), then I think this could be real killer. I don’t use Dashboard, but I want to… and I would if it didn’t suck, so maybe this can fill my needs.
My response: This is music to my ears. Thanks Austin!
John Casasanta (iClip) - Development Team:
Ground Control’s still my favorite entry. It’s too bad that it took the “WTF o’ the Week™” for this round. Kevin came out with an amazing video mockup for Hijack, and I was hoping for big responses from other leading contestants. So how did Russell respond?? In true conservative fashion, he did so by…selling T-Shirts!?
So Ground Control still has my support and I’m hoping that it’s built-up enough momentum from last week to stick around until the next round. I have faith that Russell will get back on track soon and continue to refine his idea and pimp it out like he did last round.
My response: Ouch!™ While I can’t promise anything close to Kevin’s pants-wetting video, don’t worry — there is more in store for Ground Control provided we make it through this round!
