Anyway like I said, I’m mostly just nitpicking. Most of them could be resolved with just a bit more feedback, particularly in relation to where I am in the application or what I’m looking at.

NNW does have the double tick as Mark All As Read, but they do describe what it does. You’ve turned off the descriptions, but at least they were there in the first place so you could learn it without inadvertently marking ALL your feed items as read (which is what I did and triggered this all in the first place, it was annoying when I was on the train). That’s hugely different from just ticking a single item in Outlook. I appreciate you knew what it meant, but I don’t think it’s meaning is nearly as ubiquitous say as a ‘+’ to add something, or the refresh button in a browser, or the button to forward something in pretty much every iPhone application.

In fairness to Reeder, I’m not sure what I expected the fucking button to do, on hindsight it couldn’t have done much else. I associate ticks with getting good test scores in Primary school so they make me happy.

Apart from that I agree that it’s okay to make the user to experiment when they can’t do anything destructive. I just thought it wasn’t entirely clear (being an RSS n00B, comparatively) what some things where doing. Admittedly, it did not help that I had read an item, left it, swiped to my starred items and then swiped back to have it still there – right at the time I decided to figure out what it does.

You don’t proof your comments do you? Because I don’t and while I always regret it when I read it over don’t feel like changing. You always have a structure I lack.

The Tick

I did guess at what the tick meant, but probably equally through process of elimination as anything else. But in its defence: in NNW for Mac, the tick icon does “mark as read”, and in general “ticking” signifies to me “done with this”. If I tick something in Outlook or a to-do list I expect it to at least become de-emphasised, if not disappear outright.

Dots

Dots totally mean “unread”. In iTunes, on iPods (including the iPod app on the iPhone), in Byline, etc. I can see one on my Mac’s screen right now (Tweetie). If there’s one thing I really really disagree with you on its this bit.

Three Lines

Agreed completely. Again, I knew what it was because there was nothing else it could possibly be. But given that elsewhere in the interface an empty dot = unread, as you pointed out, I’d rather they’d used that consistently.

Icons v. Text

After installing any Mac app, after reading what the toolbar icons do and looking at the other available ones are, I then turn the descriptions off. I prefer icons to text. In this case, the tick aside, discovering what they do is painless and non-destructive, so I have no problem with it at all. And once I’ve gotten past the 20 or so seconds it takes me to work out what they do, I’m very glad to have a mostly textless interface–especially since it’s an app with a lot of words in it which I’ll actually want to read.

Swiping and Scrolling

In a small defence to the whole swipe thing, I’d offer the timid point that there’s no swipe actions as far as I can see; just horizontal scrolling available in some areas. Which is consistent with the horizontal order of the star/unread/read toolbar at the bottom, but since it can’t possibly be consistent across the interface, I don’t think it’s worth having as it clearly just confuses and makes you look for it when it isn’t there. Irritating!

Apparently in v1.2, right swiping toggles read/unread and left swiping toggles starred/unstarred. If they marry these directions with the horizontal layout of the bottom toolbar as this seems to imply they do, then I quite like the extra functionality over Byline’s right-to-read, left-to-unread option.

A cheap shot at Byline

I still like Byline a lot, but if we’re talking non-semantic buttons, how about the one at the top with the interweaving arrows that means “toggle between group by feed and order by date”? Being able to tap between an RSS logo and a clock in Reeder makes that much clearer to me. Even if…

The icon for Google Reader’s “Share” feature is the same as the standard RSS logo

Annoying yes. But not anyone’s fault but Google’s. In Reeder’s defense, they did try to differentiate by making the central dot darker on the “Share” button, perhaps to indicate that the icon in this case had an “active” state that had not yet been triggered.

I am trying to like Reeder, but it’s interface isn’t as immediately intuitive as other applications I’ve used. I’m sure how how a big tick means “Mark All As Read” – I should not have to click on that button to find out what it does. It also isn’t immediately obvious what icons for the three different “sheets” are. I know a star means my starred items, but what does a dot have to do with anything? I am still not entirely sure what the different between the “dot” is and the “three lines” icon is (everything?) – they look identical for some of my feeds.

Whether you think I am being stupid or not, there should probably be some feedback about some of these things mean. At least the solid dot for an unread item is explicitly labelled and reinforced throughout the UI – the hollow dot for archived items is also explained, but not the three lines.

Also swiping the screen in some instances will switch between these sheets, and in others. it doesn’t – you have to actually tap the button.

These are not deal breakers, but it’s behaviour I have to relearn which I resent when there are things that break what I felt where reasonably strong conventions. The whole UI suffers because of their apparent desire to use a couple cute little icons that have little semantic meaning.

Anyway I want to like it, I do. Just from a UI perspective I think it might even come last, frankly. Parts of it are excellent but parts of it are kind of sucky. I even disagree it looks the nicest but I can’t fault anyone for thinking otherwise. From a speed and functionality point of view I agree it’s better.

I could go on nitpicking the interface, but I think I’ll stop since it is not particularly interesting.

Here ends my messy and unstructured rant.