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Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

daringfireball.net

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Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#41

Post by glhaynes »

trotsky wrote: post #32
alsomike wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is obviously following the innovations of web app design here. People use web apps with wildly different designs all the time, and yes, there are some usability issues with that, but when consumer OSes were first being developed some decades ago, HCI researchers assumed that everything had to look exactly the same between applications or users would freak out. The web never had a single HIG, so we found out tha…

People use web apps with wildly different designs all the time because there are no UI standards and there is no basic toolkit. It's a bug, not a feature.

It's a bug, not a feature.

I'm not sure that's right... would the web have caught on and be as well-loved if everything used "system" colors and designs? Maybe you're envisioning something different, but I'm not sure where the middle ground is between the web as it exists today and a classic Windows 3.1 / Mac looking app - what would a "basic toolkit" look like beyond the HTML elements and form controls that we have?

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#42

Post by tjogin »

vamsee wrote: post #35
tjogin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a few links to Gruber criticizing the poor state of the HIG, and Apple's design decisions: http://daringfireball.net/2007/07/hockenberry_hig http://daringfireball.net/2004/10/brushed-metal http://daringfireball.net/2003/05/much_ado_about_click-throu... http://daringfireball.net/2006/08/highly_selective http://daringfireball.net/2003/02/inconsistencies http://daringfireball.net/2004/10/themes http://daringfireb…

That's like 9 articles in as many years. How many did he write in support of them? Not that there's anything wrong with it - just that I don't think I can count his writing about Apple as "objective criticism".

Articles I found mentioning HIG wherein Gruber praises Apple's design consistency: zero. Why don't you try finding some for yourself?

Like I said, this has been a pet peeve of his for years.

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#43

Post by Timothee »

I think that HIG and default UI libraries are great to give the default app a consistent and decent look and UX. It makes it possible for anyone to write an app that behaves and looks at a good enough level.

But, unique interfaces that stray away from these are just fine as long as it results in a better UI/UX. iOS apps have shown in a lot of cases that developers that care can make something that are highly customized for the better (e.g. apps from TapBots (http://tapbots.com/) or TapTapTap (http://taptaptap.com/))

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#44

Post by wtallis »

trotsky wrote: post #32
alsomike wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is obviously following the innovations of web app design here. People use web apps with wildly different designs all the time, and yes, there are some usability issues with that, but when consumer OSes were first being developed some decades ago, HCI researchers assumed that everything had to look exactly the same between applications or users would freak out. The web never had a single HIG, so we found out tha…

People use web apps with wildly different designs all the time because there are no UI standards and there is no basic toolkit. It's a bug, not a feature.

The thing is that, to the extent that it is a bug, it's a very harmless bug. The freedom to experiment and innovate with web apps has probably outweighed any harm from lack of consistency.

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#45

Post by wtallis »

microtonal wrote: post #14
Xuzz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between "ugly attempt at matching the standard controls" and "extending nicely into a different style of UI".

The average user would not be able to tell the difference between a well-adapting Qt application and a Cocoa application. We have a Qt application for searching treebanks, and when showing it to another Mac user, he replied "nice, you wrote it with Cocoa?". Twitter's (or the App Store's) deviation from the Mac look and feel, on the other hand is very noticeable. And I am not sure it is proven that we are talking abou…

Did you just show it to the Mac user, or did you let him actually sit down and use it? Qt does a great job of mimicking the look of Cocoa apps, but it doesn't always get the behavior right, and if you're going to behave differently, you ought to warn the user by looking different.

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#46

Post by hkuo »

I don't think people should look at this as an all-or-nothing debate. I think there is an importance to following an HIG as a basic guideline and stray from it as it seems appropriate or for the sake of creativity. It's when it strays too far from it when things can become problematic.

Just like with traffic laws, not coming to a full stop at a stop sign is not equal to speeding down a highway going in the opposite direction of traffic.

Apple straying and introducing a metallic patten does not equal the extent of an Adobe Air application forcing me to hit an icon button to access preferences rather than through the common menu bar location. One is aesthetic while the other is functional. And basically, one irritates me way more than the other.

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#47

Post by statictype »

gnok wrote: post #31
statictype wrote: post #18

I think the cold truth is that in the OS X era, Apple's designers have been increasingly favoring eye candy over usability and consistency. OS X certainly looks better than just about any other OS I've seen, but other things like Fitt's Law and consistency have taken a back seat.

Do you have any examples of violations of Fitts law in OS X that weren't present in OS9?

Those small traffic light buttons come to mind. The traffic light buttons are tiny and extremely difficult to acquire targets. The resize handle is another. It's not only small, often times it's right near the dock at the bottom and ao whenever you try to resize a window you end up moving over the dock. This is exacerbated by the magnification effect on the dock of it's turned on.

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#48

Post by vamsee »

tjogin wrote: post #42
vamsee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like 9 articles in as many years. How many did he write in support of them? Not that there's anything wrong with it - just that I don't think I can count his writing about Apple as "objective criticism".

Articles I found mentioning HIG wherein Gruber praises Apple's design consistency: zero. Why don't you try finding some for yourself? Like I said, this has been a pet peeve of his for years.

Hmm, was I misunderstood? I didn't mean to ask you how many articles he did supporting Apple's HIG consistency. I was just pointing out that that it's a small minority among the total articles he writes about supporting everything Apple does. At least that's my understanding. Like I said, I wouldn't really go to Gruber's blog for objective analysis, though he does make some good points. I used to enjoy his writing about Apple quite a bit a few years back. Now the blatant fanboism kinda turns me off. FWIW.

Re: Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design

#49

Post by tjogin »

vamsee wrote: post #48
tjogin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Articles I found mentioning HIG wherein Gruber praises Apple's design consistency: zero. Why don't you try finding some for yourself? Like I said, this has been a pet peeve of his for years.

Hmm, was I misunderstood? I didn't mean to ask you how many articles he did supporting Apple's HIG consistency. I was just pointing out that that it's a small minority among the total articles he writes about supporting everything Apple does. At least that's my understanding. Like I said, I wouldn't really go to Gruber's blog for objective analysis, though he does make some good points. I used to enjoy his writing ab…

I've read Gruber since he began writing Daring Fireball, I don't think he's changed much at all. I don't see how he's turned from Apple pundit to Apple fanboy, a rather peculiar thing to happen to anyone with time, really.

What has changed is that Apple's success has accelerated, exposing Apple to more customers, press and analysis. Gruber has always covered these things, but with more of it there's more to cover, and with more clueless analysts claiming things about Apple, there's more of that to dispute and ridicule.

And let's just face it, he's usually right about the significant things. That's not fanboyism, that's insight.

Besides, I don't think Gruber very often writes articles just to "support" anything (what would be the point?), usually he's trying to understand where Apple's motivations come from — why they're doing what they're doing — which is the part where most other analysts are fumbling in the dark.

Sometimes he agrees with them, but really, a lot of the time he doesn't (that usually makes for more interesting articles as well). Just writing support for a decision or strategy makes for a really boring read, what he usually does is explain the underlying reasons for it, whether he agrees with it or not.

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