The problem is not the introduction of glass as an element of the visual design language. If used as the Dock background alone, it would be totally fine! But because someone said “UI should get out of the way” and no one challenged it—instead of content literally being the focus, Apple has to intentionally put content *out of focus* (blurring) to make the glass elements visible. They have to put a gradient behind the glass so you can see it. That should’ve been the “oh, it doesn’t work” moment.

@louie I have never once gotten the impression that anyone on Alan Dye’s UI team uses serious pro tool apps. They love making beautiful looking things, not solving difficult UI problems with clever solutions. And I suspect when confronted with difficult UI problems, they say “Shut up with that nerd stuff.”

@gruber @louie You’ve got it. Human interface is about how it works, not what it looks like, and focusing overmuch on the look doesn’t just do users a disservice, it perverts the application frameworks themselves. The existence of NSVisualEffectView is an abomination.

@eschaton pardon but how it looks is very important. People love to pluck out the Steve Jobs “design is how it works” but forget he said “design isn’t just how it looks” first.