Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]

Post by mghackerlady » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

internet101010 wrote: post #69

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…

Not sure if you have experimented with it yet but COSMIC is a DE made by System76 (creators of Pop!_OS) and manages to get pretty close to what I have been seeking, which is essentially MacOS with tiling. They basically gave up on GNOME and built it in Rust from scratch. Still a few major things like HDR missing but overall it's solid. You get the tiling without the config that comes with Hyprland, with the added opt…

Post by vostrocity » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

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 I still recommend them even though some of the specifics are out-of-date.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

Post by aidenn0 » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 1:34 AM UTC

felixding wrote: post #70

I can’t recommend another excellent free ebook enough: Zen of Palm. It accurately describes the key differences between designing for desktop and mobile, which explains why PalmOS was so much easier to use than the various Windows-based mobile formats from Microsoft at the time. I even wrote a whole blog series about this book two decades ago ( https://dingyu.me/blog/zen-of-palm-1 ). I switched from a Dell Pocket PC…

Post by rationalist » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #65

sam1714 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they should. There are fundamental differences in hardware and capability between 1992 and 2026. The most immediate are pull-down menus at the top of the screen. They work good on a 9 inch screen, they are awful with 27 inch displays. Another related change are modal dialog boxes. When you have a 9 inch screen you're fundamentally looking at one document in one app at a time. When you got 2 27's that's not true an…

I'm assuming/hoping those original guidelines would have prevented the window resizing frustration we have now, along with the other usability downgrades in the support of eyecandy. https://noheger.at/blog/2026/01/11/the-struggle-of-resizing-...

Post by nofriend » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 3:13 AM UTC

lateforwork wrote: post #78

Palm OS does not get enough credit as the progenitor of modern handheld experience, including especially iOS. iOS shares many similarities with Palm OS, such as the home screen layout of app icons, the use of full-screen apps without windowing, the absence of an explicit "quit" action, no exposed file system (obvious today, but bold back in those days), a single hardware button to return "home", and so on. What iOS a…