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“Origins of the Apple human interface” lecture – an annotated transcription

morrick.me

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Re: “Origins of the Apple human interface” lecture – an annotated transcription

#3

Post by jedberg »

If you’re interested in Apple UX design, check out this blog [0] from Apple’s first HCI engineer.

This one [1] is one of my favorites, about the MacOS dock when it was first released.

[0] https://www.asktog.com/

[1] https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html

Re: “Origins of the Apple human interface” lecture – an annotated transcription

#5

Post by amatecha »

Another great link if you're interested in Apple's design insights: "Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines" , from 1995 or so. I keep a copy on my desk at work as it's a great conversation piece and full of fascinating HCI insights.

You can download a PDF here: http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf :)

One of my favorite details that seems to be frequently overlooked in modern times is the ellipsis on menu items to indicate that further user input is required (see "The Ellipsis Character in Menus" in Chapter 4). Lots of software follows this pattern, but a surprising amount of software _doesn't_!

Re: “Origins of the Apple human interface” lecture – an annotated transcription

#6

Post by dreamcompiler »

jedberg wrote: post #3

If you’re interested in Apple UX design, check out this blog [0] from Apple’s first HCI engineer. This one [1] is one of my favorites, about the MacOS dock when it was first released. [0] https://www.asktog.com/ [1] https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html

I still despise the Dock. I even figured out how to hack it to make it invisible so I could use DragThing instead. Over time those hacks stopped working and DragThing ceased to exist (or at least I think it did) so now I just live with the stupid Dock. Thanks Apple.

Re: “Origins of the Apple human interface” lecture – an annotated transcription

#9

Post by saagarjha »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #6
jedberg wrote: post #3

If you’re interested in Apple UX design, check out this blog [0] from Apple’s first HCI engineer. This one [1] is one of my favorites, about the MacOS dock when it was first released. [0] https://www.asktog.com/ [1] https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html

I still despise the Dock. I even figured out how to hack it to make it invisible so I could use DragThing instead. Over time those hacks stopped working and DragThing ceased to exist (or at least I think it did) so now I just live with the stupid Dock. Thanks Apple.

Dock does a lot more than just the part you can see at the bottom of the screen, so you're not going to be able to truly get rid of it without breaking pretty much everything to do with Spaces and Launchpad along with it. Perhaps you could set it to auto-hide and only show after an extremely long delay?
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