Sure, though in interests of full disclosure, on a large screen the menu bar is actually "a mile high, and a mile away". Still, global menu on the Mac is probably still at least a wash for all but the most expansive desktops.
With Unity, though, the global menu bar on a large desktop is "a mile high, a mile away, and invisible". You get to guess where you should be aiming.
Are you really arguing that hitting a target you can't see is easier than a target you can see?
All that said, I do prefer Unity over other options on my netbook. The savings in real estate is well worth the marginal cost in usability. I don't use the menu bar much, anyway.
That last bit is probably Unity's saving grace: most apps used by most people are no longer designed with the menus as the primary interface.
Since they're less used, it makes sense to optimize screen use by tucking them away at the top of the screen.
I wouldn't at all mind if the menu bar had an auto-hide mode, though. Actually, what I'd like is a partial auto-hide. Tuck away over to the top left, with only the window widgets and the indicators showing. I'd gain a line or two in any editor or term on the right side of the screen.
No it's not "a mile away", it's a few inches away. You're performing thought experiments instead of actually measuring, and that's a no-no. Your intuition is no good. The scientific method is. If you can prove your point that the menu bar is hard to hit because it is as far away as it is tall by a controlled experiment, then by all means, publish your work in peer reviewed journals, because a lot of professional HCI researchers will be astonished, and you will be very famous for proving something so counter-intuitive that breaks Fitts's law and flies in the face of all the other studies that have been done, and the hands-on experience of millions of Mac users.
To test your intuition (by quoting one of Tog's favorite puzzles): Name the five points on the screen that are the easiest to hit with the mouse.
It's a mile and four intervening windows all activated via focus-follows-mouse away.
On Macs, fer love of Pete, the Mile High Menu ... is on the other display.
Menus just f@cking suck anyway. I've canned my browser menus via Vimperator (on Firefox / Iceweasel). Sure, I'm a power user and I know what I want to do and I've got finger memory five miles deep (plus command completion). So suck on that teat.
Fipp's Law optimizes for one case: mouse navigation. Sure, it's nice to have a big fat landing zone, when you need it. But often you don't, and the optimization unambiguously and indisputably breaks numerous other optimizations. Which frankly I care a whole f@ck of a lot more for.
We're talking about desktop (or large laptop) displays here. For tablets and small-factor handhelds, there are other considerations. Which is why UI design is complicated and a task and disipline worthy of research and nuanced understanding.
The 1980s were 30 years ago. Go ahead and pop up a 512x342 window on your desktop. On my not-extravagant dual-head display, I can stack those up 6.5 across and three high. With window decorations.
Y'know, I credit Jobs with some good stuff, and he was nothing if not persistent in believing what he believed in. But some things really have to go.
Actually, with pie menus, it's quite easy to hit a target you can't see, because you can "mouse ahead" and be very sure of the direction you're moving, enough that you can reliably select between 8 different directions without looking at the screen. With four items it's almost impossible to make a mistake, unless you're holding the mouse sideways or upside down.
And no, I'm not arguing about Unity's invisible menu bar, or whatever it has. I haven't used Unity, and I have no plans on using Unity, because all of the X11 based Unix and Linux desktops have always sucked, and they always will.
With Unity, though, the global menu bar on a large desktop is "a mile high, a mile away, and invisible". You get to guess where you should be aiming.
Are you really arguing that hitting a target you can't see is easier than a target you can see?
All that said, I do prefer Unity over other options on my netbook. The savings in real estate is well worth the marginal cost in usability. I don't use the menu bar much, anyway.
That last bit is probably Unity's saving grace: most apps used by most people are no longer designed with the menus as the primary interface.
Since they're less used, it makes sense to optimize screen use by tucking them away at the top of the screen.
I wouldn't at all mind if the menu bar had an auto-hide mode, though. Actually, what I'd like is a partial auto-hide. Tuck away over to the top left, with only the window widgets and the indicators showing. I'd gain a line or two in any editor or term on the right side of the screen.