Small things: Volume button on macOS Monterey
I recently updated my Mac to the latest version of Mac to macOS Monterey. Among the loads of big changes that Apple highlighted in their event, there have been a few subtle changes that have popped up throughout the Os. Among these plethoras of subtle changes is one of the most overlooked changes (that’s my assumption) is what Apple has done with their volume feature on Macs with touch bar.
There has been a decent amount of skepticism and criticism on the usability of touch bars in the post-2016 MacBooks. Some people think that they were a huge untapped potential while others thought that it was just an inconvenience and a bad design choice. I fall in the former category, where I feel that there was so much potential to harness the potential of a touch bar on a laptop. But none of the third-party or even the native apps of Mac tapped fully into. I often work with Premiere Pro to edit my vlogs. In recent months I have come to use Pages and the Preview a lot too, but in none of these use cases have I found myself sub-consciously tapping on the touch-bar options. In contrast, whenever I have tried to use the touch-bar on these apps I have just felt frustrated and opted to do it using my touchpad/mouse. One can’t complain about third-party apps not utilizing the potential of the touch bar when Apple hasn’t themselves perfected it on their native apps.
So when I updated to the latest version of macOS I was treated to a surprise, when I found out that the touch bar no longer is dynamic with the app you are using. Rather it has been designed to mimic the physical buttons that were a fan favorite in the pre-2016 Macs and which have made a comeback in the recent installments. One of the more subtle changes among these permanent touch bar buttons is the change in how the volume buttons work.
The older version of the volume button was a slider where you had to slide the slider to set your volume button. Apple being a maestro of design and great user experience made a ghastly choice of building a button where you think the user is informed enough to judge the volume by making an approximation on a slider. I feel sliders are one of the vaguest forms of information input. You never are sure what the exact value that you have set using a slider. To top it off Apple never provide good feedback to let the user see or know what the current volume was when one was changing the volume. So it was all a guessing game for a user.
The new interface is much more informative and easier for a user. The volume high and low buttons are marked using a good choice of icons. And tapping on them does exactly what a user expects. It lowers or increases the volume one step at a time. One can see similar changes on the brightness buttons and keyboard backlighting options too. I don’t know why Apple chose to do what they did, but I am just happy they reverted back
So what are some takeaways from this?
1. Even a customer-centric and design-obsessed company like Apple can get user experience wrong.
2. Sliders aren’t the best option for information input by a user
3. User feedback is an essential part of making a product better:
A lot of times product managers let their ego cloud their thinking and they blame the user for not using the product right. As Don Norman famously said in his book (I am rephrasing), “Users are not stupid, it's your fault for designing a feature in a non-user friendly way”.
4. Reverting to an older more loved version of your app isn’t always a step back in the product, it can be a step forward too.
5. Customer empathy is the only way forward for even huge companies like Apple.
The more we product managers listen to our customers the better experiences we can build for them and the better our product performs in a market
I am an aspiring product manager, who is currently studying as a grad student at Carnegie Mellon University as a Masters in Information Systems Management (Business Intelligence and Data Analytics). I love building and discussing products and would love to connect with you if you would feel like you could pick my brains or would wanna guide me in this vast field of product management. So hit me up!
Do leave your comments about small things in products you love that changed your experience about that product!
