I'm going to do a few of these styles of posts in the future, as I discuss UI about various things around the world (not limited to Mac apps). One thing to keep in mind is that these are simply my opinions, and I'm not out to insult anyone. Moving on...

One thing to think about when creating an application is how the user is going to use the application (duh). But sometimes this is not so easy. You need to think about what functions are most important and what elements may confuse the user. You need to think about the flow of the application.

News readers are a dime a dozen. They're also a good first subject for this article. The two apps will be NewsMac Pro and NewsFire. Get ready to UI rumble!

NewsMac Pro

NewsMac Pro is an interesting app. Although its intentions are clearly to be a sexy newsreader, the abundance of controls and graphics make it too confusing to use daily.

At a first glance, it's not clear what every button and control does. This is a result of too many controls and not enough focus on the news.

Here are a few of the confusing elements:

1. Tabs
   You can have tabs for different "folders" of news, as well as viewing external websites. This is really pointless (they are all on the left), and you may as well view external pages in Safari. To add confusion, the close button for tabs is located on the right of each tab, opposite to Safari's left of each tab.



2. Split View
   Strangely enough the split control between the news channels and the news view has a few more functions thrown in. In addition to being a resize control, it shows current status on feeds, an unknown progress bar, a button for changing the orientation of the split view, and the number of "channels in Library". Ouch! If it wasn't for the small graphic to the very right, I wouldn't even know this was a resize control in the first place.



3. View Selection
   A control in the toolbar. Two of these options (view selected and view all) change automatically, so I'm not sure why they're included at all. The others would be better suited as columns in the list (like Mail), but then the problem of entire channels arises. In reality, channels would be better suited in the left view.

There's also a ton of preferences, and even themes for the news. In most cases, the addition of preferences and themes is the result of a lack of decision by the developer. The developer does not know what you want, so he/she leaves the choice up to you. This is no good.

In a nutshell, NewsMac Pro tries to do too many things at once without realizing what the user really wants. The application could be drastically improved by simply removing half of the features.

UI Rating: Disaster

Note: NewsMac Pro is apparently being discontinued in favor of a new, slimmer newsreader called "NewsLife". This will most likely address some of the issues listed here.


NewsFire

NewsFire was a late addition into the Mac news reader market. But it packed a surprisingly sexy and simple UI. This is one of the reasons NewsFire is among the most popular readers today.

The simple interface offers feeds on the left with the articles on the right. There are only a few buttons and controls in the main window. It is really clear what each interface element does.

One of my favorite parts is how NewsFire doesn't show items and the content at the same time. When you click on an item the right view devotes itself entirely to viewing that item. You can then use the left or right arrows to go to the next story.

Although NewsFire has quite a few preferences, most of them are arguably necessary. NewsFire has no built in support for themes either, which is a good thing.



While simple, NewsFire is very powerful and convenient for reading your news. It gets to the point, with no extra features in your face. It is clean and easy to use. A perfect example of "less is more".

UI Rating: Great

NewsFire wins this round hands down, thanks to its simplicity and ease of use. NewsMac Pro suffers from way too many features, although it makes an attempt to look nice. You could say that NewsMac Pro lives up to the "Pro" in it's name - but a complicated interface doesn't make it any more professional. Only the most common functions of an application should be kept in a main window, and the rest somewhere else (if you must have them).


Did I miss something? Do you have suggestions for future articles like this? Leave your feedback in the comments - it's much appreciated!