Paul Miller, on The Verge:
My problem with many modern UIs is that they never get past the telling phase. They’re always dressing up their various functions with glows and bevels and curves, and in the process they somehow become overbearing to my senses. “Did you know you can click this? Don’t forget there’s a save button over here! Let me walk you to your control panel.” Imagine a car that verbally explains all of its various knobs and levers the first time you get into the car. Wonderful, right? Now imagine that car explaining all of these various functions every single time you get in the car for the next five years, until you finally snap and drive it off a cliff.
I’ve never been bothered by the animation of a window minimizing into the Dock, but the new UI of Address Book drives me bonkers. Not only is it ugly, but worse, it is far less usable. There is surely a market for a “Address Book Pro” that harkens to the app of yesteryear and allows us to manage our contacts once again.