Notification center icon now missing in my Big Sur menubar

[DanL]

I just got a new M1 iMac with Big Sur, and the notification center in the menubar, which always was shown as three horizontal lines on top of each other at the far right end of my menubar, is gone. The right side of my menubar now looks like this.

Now, I can always call up my notifications by clicking on the date/time, and that works OK, but I find it odd that those three horizontal lines are gone. Has the menubar icon for notifications been eliminated entirely in Big Sur? No great loss, but I was just wondering if you could turn it on.

 

[maw_walker]

Good question, I just noticed that too. I can’t find a setting either. I did a quick read up on the UI changes and it looks like the way it is now is the way it works (clicking on the date). Maybe someone else can share insight.

 

[DanL]

In fact, if you look at the Big Sur instructions for Notifications, they specifically say that the way to see them is to click on the date. So they just quietly scrapped the three bars. No big deal, but it's good to know.

 

[Nukeban]

So they just quietly scrapped the three bars.

I always wonder, was any benefit provided by introducing this confusion? I don't know the answer in this case.

I coded web interfaces for 20 years, and when I changed some part of an interface I knew I'd be confusing somebody, and so I'd ask myself, what am I giving them in return?

You've probably seen this too. You go to some site you use regularly and they've changed everything around, requiring you to learn the site all over again. As you master the new interface you realize it doesn't provide any added benefit, it's just different for the sake of being different.

 

[DanL]

Well said. You'd think they could just announce this and say, "Hey, we decided it just wasn't needed!", but again what we have is just a mysterious disappearance. What are they giving us in return? Um, maybe a few millimeters of menubar?

 

[Nukeban]

I don't know what, if anything, they are providing in return in this particular case. It could easily be something of value that we just don't recognize. Or maybe not. I really have no idea.

I'm more interested in the general principle which this case MAY illustrate. Say I have a website used by a million people a day. I make some change which confuses 1% of the users. It takes each confused user 10 minutes to figure out the change. If I've done the math right, I just imposed a 1666 man hour burden on my users.

This burden could be justified, or not, depending on the particular situation.

As a retired programmer, I know how easy it is to get caught up in the creative flow and start making all kinds of changes just because it's creatively satisfying. I'm really arguing with my former self who used to make this mistake too often.