Design

Why most people should buy a Macintosh rather than a Windows PC

Written and compiled April 2000

Updated September 2005

Why this site....?
( introduction)

Design

Cost

Ease of use

Installation and troubleshooting

Extending your computer

Reliability and Security

Laptops and Working across platforms

What schools should do

Where Windows is better than the Mac

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Design

GUI Design
The Mac OS has a superior and more user friendly GUI: graphic user interface - what the user sees on the screen and the way the user finds her/his way round the computer. Apple developed a spatially-oriented Finder in contrast to the “filing cabinet” / browser interface of Windows95/98/NT. Most users find the former more intuitive because it is more "what you see is what you get" (or WYSIWYG in geek talk). Apple has worked on improving the Mac GUI: each major revision of the OS has contained GUI enhancements for the ordinary user (eg. application switching with 8.1, support for multiple users/ security/more ergonomically placed scrolling controls with 9 and "Aqua" and dock with "X" - ie. OS ten released by Apple in March 2001).

Apple brings many useful innovations to the GUI long before Windows. (see also Ease of use from this site). This from the Mac Observer: "A patent granted to Apple January 25th, 2000 appears to reveal that Apple had a multiyear head start on Microsoft for Spotlight, the company's search technology that will be released later this year in Tiger. Many had seen Spotlight as a quickly developed, me-too technology intended to compete with Microsoft's long-delayed Longhorn update to Windows, but the patent application shows that Apple began working on the technology in January of 2000, years before Longhorn was announced." Direct link to the US Patent and Trademark Office

The Windows GUI is virtually the same as it was in 1995 when it was introduced, except for the browser interface of 98. Microsoft, at their own admission, have not made any improvements to the GUI of Windows: "The visual style of Microsoft Windows has been pretty much unchanged since Windows 95" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/winxpintro.htm- accessed 17.2.01).

Use of screen space: on the Mac there is a single tool bar always situated at the top of the screen where users can easily access commands using the mouse. Because Windows uses the Application/Document (or parent/child) concept of arranging windows the work space is cramped and potentially confusing (even for the experienced user) with multiple tool bars sometimes controlling the same document. Windows also puts important target areas for the mouse quite close together (eg. minimise, maximise, close/exit) and makes them relatively small, making them harder to "hit". Users can easily make the wrong choice often necessitating relaunching an application when the intention was only to close the child document. Keyboard strokes to achieve the same action are also confusing: ALT-F4 closes the Application window (parent) and CTRL-F4 closes the document window (child). Windows doesn't have a global menu bar - it has multiple menus. This causes users to have to slow down their mousing as they approach the menu to ensure that they hit the menu right on. The Mac OS has never had this problem, because menus have always been placed at the edges of the screen, so if you mouse to the edge, you know you'll be able to click on a menu.

On the Mac there can be no confusion between closing and quitting when using the mouse because of the distance between the activation boxes and the single menu bar.This has been partly negated by having the close/crop/minimise buttons together in Mac OSX. And the CmdQ and CmdW for quitting and window closing using the keyboard are too close together (on Mac Classic).

See this discussion for the origin of current use of modifier key.

The design and usability of the Control Strip - which can be opened / hidden with a single click is also much superior to the "tray" on the end of the Windows task bar and further demonstrates better use of screen space.

The Mac GUI adapts to the user who can keep aliases of frequently used files/documents/applications the way he/she finds most efficient either in the Apple menu or in desktop folders or in pop-up windows or in Apple menu aliases (as well as other customisation methods). While the Task bar and Start menu are partly customisable, users cannot customise the Windows interface (see the seven different ways of accessing files and folders on the Mac under Ease of Use). The benefits of the Task bar are lost if the user has more than five or six windows/tasks operating at the same time. To quote Microsoft again: "We wanted to address the problem [in a forthcoming version of Windows] of finite space on the task bar, with buttons getting smaller and smaller as more windows are open. We've all faced the problem of task bar buttons that are so small as to be next to useless." (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/winxpintro.htm- accessed 17.2.01). Apple has taken the concept of the task bar and done it properly in OSX (the first time that the Mac has had a "task bar"; and one of the few times that Apple has "borrowed" an idea from Microsoft). Go to the MacKido site which has a timeline showing how Microsoft has routinely "borrowed" Apple innovations.

Apple's Jobs: Microsoft and Dell copy us but won't beat the iPod 'Time to stop doing Bill Gates favours' (September 2005)

Keyboard Design
The Mac OS uses the Cmd key as its main modifier key (it is in the same physical location as the Windows Alt key). Thus a Mac user can access all main commands without changing hand/finger position and without having to take one hand off the mouse. On the other hand Windows uses the Ctrl key as its main modifier. The user has to use very awkward finger movements and hand positioning to cut, copy, paste, save, switch applications and so on. To cut/copy and paste a document from one application to another is much more ergonomically efficient on a Mac.

Windows does have more accessibility options on the keyboard which the Mac lacks eg. sounds to indicate the caps lock being activated / deactivated.

Mouse Control
While not strictly an OS issue, the Mac mouse is more sensitive and able to select text in word processing applications more efficiently than Windows. In the latter text selection with the mouse will often give you the whole word/paragraph/page, making the user resort to the shift/arrow method of selection.

The Mac gives more meaningful error messages. View the Interface Hall of Fame (from Isys Information Architects at http://www.iarchitect.com/new.htm) for real examples of bewildering information given to computer users: see how almost all of them apply to Windows.

For more detailed information on design issues go to the MacKido site (www.mackido.com) and to AskTog (www.asktog.com/menus/designMenu.html).