T’was the Design of Apple
(inspired by A Visit from St. Nicholas)
T’was four nights before Christmas, when in the Chen house
Mother Chen made the choice: to hell with the mouse!
She went off to Best Buy in the hopes that once there
She could test, buy, and come home with a new MacBook Air.
“Apple’s the best!” friends and coworkers said,
While visions of great usability danced in her head.
And mamma in her PJ’s, and I dressed in mine,
Had just settled at the dining table to bring the MacBook online.
When on turned the screen without so much as a clatter,
Mom gave a “tsk” — so I asked, “Ma, what’s the matter?”
I glanced at the desktop (a move that was smart)
And realized: as ex-Windows users, we had no clue where to start.
A large landscape background — beautiful indeed,
But how about labels for icons? That’s what we need!
Without them, we don’t really know where to find
The “increase text size” option; or are we just blind?
We tried going through settings in the hopes of seeing some order,
Or some method of categorizing! A filter! A sorter!
Instead we were faced with four rows of “stuff”,
Ma asked, “Is there a method to this madness or are the row colors just fluff?”
Five minutes passed before we’d had enough,
And opened Safari for an experience equally rough.
We tried a quick Google search — and lo, what a sight!
“Where is the scrollbar?! Why aren’t the window buttons on the top right?!”
Confused and befuddled, we tried minimizing the screen,
What happened next was something we’d both never seen:
A greyed out “minimize” button that refused to shrink
The Safari window as we had expected — as you, too, would probably think!
After Googling the answer on my Windows PC,
We minimized Safari— albeit rather unhappily.
“Let’s change the desktop wallpaper!” I told Ma for a kick.
…and then imagine our faces when we couldn’t right-click.
While the majority of mousepads (read: on non-Apple devices)
Maintain consistency in that a right-click always suffices,
Apple uses two-finger clicks on the touchpad’s top-center.
Was this a “distinguishing” move, or usability proven by an experimenter?
And finally — Ma was to the point of tearing out her hair —
She pointed at the keyboard: “What’s the COMMAND button doing there?”
If other computers use CONTROL to copy and paste,
Isn’t adding that button both redundant and a waste?
We sat there a while longer and continued to whine,
Then finally concluded: it’s not just us — it’s Apple’s design.
It’s pretty, no doubt! But more than beauty, we yearn
For an interface that’s simple and easy to learn.
We sat there a while longer and continued to whine,
Then finally concluded: it’s not just us — it’s Apple’s design.
Mom sprang for her keys with the MacBook in hand,
To return the laptop at BestBuy, not originally as planned.
But I heard her exclaim, ‘ere she drove out of sight,
“Be more thoughtful in your designs, and to all a good-night!”
