Brighter and Flatter UI Elements Yosemite's lighter UIĪll UI elements have been updated to match the general brighter and flatter design direction. It affects UI elements on translucent backgrounds by absorbing color from content that’s underneath. Vibrancy goes hand in hand with translucency. The effect doesn't only make the background shine through in a transparent and blurred way, it also modifies the colors underneath to make them appear less muddy. Translucency can be used in the app's sidebar, toolbar and overlays. Translucent and Vibrant UI elementsĭepth as a design principle is achieved with the new translucency and vibrancy features, together with subtle gradients and shadows as already used before across the app interface. Apple encourages you to take out everything that isn't necessary and only adds visual clutter.
#Os x yosemite app free
Apple Human Interface Design Guidelinesĭoes depicting a real-world object help users understand the virtual version? Does the addition of realism enhance both understanding and usability? Feel free to modify a real-world depiction if it helps to enhance the user's understanding. Think of your app icon as your calling card, and spend the resources necessary to ensure that it makes the right impression on users. Picking the right icon style for your app depends on what represents your app best. Graphical icons live inside a round shape and feature a strong icon with a consistent emboss effect. Why the tilted angle you might ask? Apple is using the icon tilt for quite a while now to make app icons easier distinguishable from documents or folders. The new realistic icon look is simplified and features the same light sources, perspective, and rendering.Īdditionally, a consistent angle of 9° is used when depicting tilted app icons like Contacts or Calendar. Realistic Icons are used by Preview, Mail, Photo Booth and others. Yosemite introduces two basic icon styles along with a couple of guiding principles: Over the past years, app icons diverged and started to look very different and inconsistent. Simplified and Consistent App Icons Yosemite App IconsĪnother major step towards simplicity and consistency is taken by simplifying and systemizing App Icon Styles. Helvetica Neue already sneaked in before Yosemite in apps like Notes, iTunes, and iPhoto, so using it as the new default system font is only consequent. However you might feel about Helvetica Neue, changing the system font at least emphasizes how serious Apple is about becoming "simpler" and more consistent across its own platforms and inside the system itself. It works well in big sizes, but it can be really weak in small sizes. Especially in smaller sizes on non-retina displays Helvetica Neue has its weaknesses.ĭespite its grand reputation, Helvetica can’t do everything. There have been lots of articles and discussions about whether changing the system font to Helvetica Neue was a good idea. New System Fontįor the first time since OS X was released Apple changed the System font from a slightly ornamental Lucida Grande to a simpler and rather geometric Helvetica Neue with less variation and ornamentation. Yosemite yet marks another shift in paradigms.Īpple now emphasizes Simplicity, Consistency and Depth to give users a content-focused experience.
#Os x yosemite app mac os
Over the last couple of years Apple made three major UI releases: Mac OS Panther, Leopard and Lion.
#Os x yosemite app mac os x
Yosemite Core Design Changesīefore one starts to redesign a Mac OS X app for Yosemite it's important to get into the new design paradigms introduced by Apple. By now, more than 80% of all Tower users are running on Yosemite - which underlines the necessity of adapting Tower as much as possible to the latest OS X release. Mac OS X Yosemite is publicly available since October 16, 2014, and has been well received generally. When we had our first look at Yosemite back in 2014 it became clear to us that Tower would have to undergo a general visual update.