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Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

cs.uml.edu

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Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#21

Post by cosmic_cheese »

jimmaswell wrote: post #16
mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

How is KDE like that? If you don't go out of your way to change options, you aren't "bombarded" with anything, it just works.

Can only speak for myself but the problem is that with KDE there's always stuff I need to go in and change because I don't like the defaults, and then I fall into a rabbit hole of endless tweaking from which it's difficult to escape because no matter how much time I spend I can never get it to be just right.

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#22

Post by relium »

mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

The best book I've ever read on the topic was the classic Mac OS Human Interface Guidelines. I still recommend them even though some of the specifics are out-of-date.

https://dev.os9.ca/techpubs/mac/pdf/HIGuidelines.pdf

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#23

Post by cosmic_cheese »

weezing wrote: post #3
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #2

I still miss my palm treo, the stylus, and physical keyboard. 20 plus years later and I still cannot use an apple pencil on my iphone... >:(

It puzzles me why there is no proper stylus for an iPhone considering how big some versions are.

Typical smartphone aspect ratios are too awkward to be great for use with a stylus in my opinion, and is exacerbated by bezels having been all but eliminated.

If I were to design a smartphone for stylus use, I think it'd look something like an iPad mini, with its squarish ratio and thicker bezels, shrunken down by ~20%.

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#24

Post by mghackerlady »

jimmaswell wrote: post #16
mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

How is KDE like that? If you don't go out of your way to change options, you aren't "bombarded" with anything, it just works.

The wealth of things in the KDE settings are things people will likely never change or are things that can be tweaked but don't necessarily need to be. For example, let's look at GNOMEs settings app. It has menus and options for all the things that the average user needs (network settings, mouse and display options, etc.) but leaves out, for example, things that people need to change for specific workflows (like the option to have focus follow the mouse). A settings app should let the user set things needed for the functions of a computer to work properly while separating deeper level customization for those who want it.

I think emacs does a very good job at this. You can configure most of the settings people need to be productive in a text editor from the menu bar while leaving the extremely rich customization of emacs to the options menu and elisp config files

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#25

Post by mghackerlady »

relium wrote: post #22
mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

The best book I've ever read on the topic was the classic Mac OS Human Interface Guidelines. I still recommend them even though some of the specifics are out-of-date. https://dev.os9.ca/techpubs/mac/pdf/HIGuidelines.pdf

It's on my list as well. I really appreciate the MacOS handles progressive disclosure, something most environments either get wrong or misunderstand (caugh caugh GNOME caugh caugh)

ETA: One thing I forgot to mention is how playful MacOS was (and to an extent still is). They recognised that the easiest way to learn something is by messing with it and seeing what happens. It also caused it to be very approachable through what I like to call 'professional unprofessionalism'. It wasn't afraid to use silly metaphors or graphics to get a point across without crossing the line into seeming out of place in a work environment or feeling infantilising

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#26

Post by RGamma »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #10
mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

I'll be keeping an eye out for your DE. For a long time now, the Linux desktop space as a whole has been rather uninspired in my opinion. A few interesting ideas have surfaced within it but failed to become popular for one reason or another, making for a rather stale environment. That's not to say that it needs to be in constant flux or to be full of radical ideas. If anything, it'd be nice to see more DEs settle int…

IMHO if you can afford some setup time just skipping the DE entirely is still the best option. My i3wm setup plus some scripts and services was super lean and efficient. Still buried it for reasons I can't remember, switched distro too, but when I find the time I'm eager to create a tiling WM, wayland native UI on NixOS again.

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#27

Post by cpeterso »

mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

If you haven't already, check out Microsoft's "The Windows® 95 User Interface: A Case Study in Usability Engineering" report summarizing some of the Windows 95 designers' user research:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/238386.238611

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#28

Post by lunar_rover »

jimmaswell wrote: post #16
mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

How is KDE like that? If you don't go out of your way to change options, you aren't "bombarded" with anything, it just works.

It's quality issue from my experience. Nobody ever bothered with polishing the defaults and the "option bombardment" is really bad incoherent design instead of having too many things.

I remember spending hours customising the KDE 5 task bar clock, trying to correct the padding. Eventually I gave up customising it and switched to GNOME.

KDE app customisation is also a mess compared to something like foobar2000.

Re: Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

#30

Post by hypercube33 »

mghackerlady wrote: post #4

I'm adding this to my repertoire of HIGs to study for a new desktop environment project I'm working on. I'm trying to synthesize the best parts of every computer interaction method, primarily focusing on desktops but looking at mobile designs as well. There are 2 principle reasons for this project: 1. UNIX desktops objectively suck compared to their Mac and Windows cousins, either being too complex to learn and bomba…

If you're looking at Windows peak was like Win2000
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