design amnesia

Like many (most?) Mac users, I keep my frequently-used applications arranged in my Dock in a logical and easily-remembered order; but a few months ago, my Mac stopped remembering that order and began to display those apps randomly. At first I thought they were displayed with the most recently opened on top — I keep my Dock on the side of the screen — but nope, it’s random. When that happened, I would patiently re-arrange the apps according to my habit and preference, and they’d stay that way for a day or two or three; but eventually, they’d randomize themselves again. (Yes, I have tried all the fixes suggested on various message boards. No dice.) It has happened often enough that I’ve given up on restoring my preferred order: I am now trying to retrain my mind to pretend that I don’t have a Dock, and to navigate between apps by command-tab and by search.

Now, one might think that the obvious thing to do is to upgrade to Tahoe, and I have been mulling that possibility over … but then I read this post by Howard Oakley. Oakley is one of the very best writers about the Mac — experienced, capable of going deep into the technical weeds but also capable of writing clearly and vividly about the typical user’s experience with the Mac. His post convinces me to stick with Sequioia … well, forever, maybe. But only because I can’t go further back. Oakley features a screenshot from the Mac circa 2014 and all I can think is: I would pay real serious money to make the computer look like that again. It was simply and objectively a better design: easy on the eyes, enjoyable to look at, and characterized by readily distinguishable kinds and units of information.

Relatedly: Not long ago I happened across some interviews with Guillermo del Toro and was struck — as I have always been struck when reading or listening to interviews with him — by how thoughtful and perceptive he is. And I thought: Then how can he not see how terrible his Frankenstein looks? Why did he think those CGI wolves, for instance, were acceptable? The wargs in The Lord of the Rings, made a quarter-century ago, look better.

This question in turn had me thinking about this short video essay by Patrick Tomasso in which he shows some brief clips from David Fincher’s Se7en and makes the provocative comment that no one today — not even David Fincher — knows how to make a movie that looks like that. (Maybe nobody knows how to make those wargs either.)

I’m wondering whether in movies and UI design alike we’re afflicted by supposedly creative people who suffer from design amnesia: they’ve forgotten what good design looks like. They’ve become so focused on trying new tricks that they have lost the frame of reference that knowledge of past art gives us. I’m not talking about mere imitations of past styles — something like Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, which is fun to look at but is also essentially a pastiche of Hollywood films from the Second World War era.

So what am I talking about? Well, a good example would be one of the very finest films of this century, Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days. In some key respects the movie is a tribute to Wenders’s cinematic idol, Yasujiro Ozu. Wenders employs Ozu’s favored 1.33-1 aspect ratio; he uses silence and stillness in Ozu-like ways; like Ozu, he is interested in people whom most of us don’t notice. All that duly acknowledged, this movie is not pastiche: Wenders’s camera moves much more freely than an Ozu camera ever does; he employs music much more intentionally and emphatically than Ozu ever did; he uses close-ups frequently and to great effect. What Ozu’s distinctive style provides is that invaluable frame of reference that enriches and intensifies Wenders’s cinematic grammar.

T. S. Eliot famously said that “Tradition … cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.” Perfect Days is a great movie in part because Wenders has performed that great labor. It’s an example that even UI designers could profit from.