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Independent Human Interface Guidelines
An anonymous reader alerts us to the IndieHIG Wiki, which is an independent effort to pick up the ball that Apple has dropped on human interface guidelines (can you spell FTFF?). From the wiki: "The IndieHIG project is an initiative created out of the necessity to document the new look and feel aspects of the Mac OS X experience, outside of the supervision of Apple itself. The project is not intended to replace, but rather to supplement the somewhat dated Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). There are many instances of Apple using new and experimental interface styles, spurring developers to emulate these styles in their own applications. Unfortunately, because Apple provides neither guidelines nor code for developers to work with, the implementation of these interface styles and features by third parties can be lopsided and directionless. The IndieHIG intends to change this by providing a comprehensive set of guidelines governing the use and appearance of new, undocumented interface elements so that their implementation by third party developers adheres to the unwritten standards that Apple has set."
As in the auto industry, placement of standard controls in the user interface make everyone comfortable enough with the technology to promote universal usage. How they connect, their feel etc. leaves everyone a bit of leeway to play with the design, but there are those first moments when you immerse yourself into a technology where you neither want nor need to think about how to begin. The initial controls should be familiar to all.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Why would they let the Human Interface Guidelines langush? The consistency of the experience in using a Mac is a big plus. But, given the number of inconsistencies that have crept into OSX the past few versions, it's completely obvious to see it hasn't been a priority to them.
Guess someone has to pickup where Apple leaves off, it's just too bad that Apple is so set in not continuing all those years of solid UI studies they funded and documented themselves.
Human Interface Guidelines have been languishing for far too long at Apple (basically since OS 9 if not a little before).
This is sorely needed for the OS X platform, and Microsoft, all of the Linux Manager projects and the web as a whole could stand to take a few notes.
I'm not saying that this site is not needed in the UI community at large, but it seriously needs some work and input from designers. Probably the most useful entry is the "UI Elements to Avoid". Unfortunately, their number 1 avoidance is to avoid "Brushed Metal". However, the majority of their examples throughout the wiki make use of the Brushed Metal theme in all of their positive examples.
Can anyone explain how both KDE and Gnome have been working for years with the entire open source development world supporting them and they can't make anything even remotely close to the polish and UI level of this
I'm going to state the obvious and get flamed for it: "bazaar-style" open source works for developing things developers want, and not so well for developing things they don't personally care about. Since novice users are--almost by definition--not developers, UIs suitable for novices don't get developed very quickly. Various Linux distros are finally catching up, but that's only because you're starting to see more corporate/organized interest in open source development. "Scratching an itch" just doesn't work as a motivation for developing a polished UI, except for that rare developer with an overriding sense of aesthetic responsibility.
This isn't intended as a slight against FOSS developers--I've developed Open Source software my self (and not done a very good job on the interface because I didn't need it to be polished)--just an observation that people are most likely to volunteer their time to do things that interest them personally.
If the rumors are true, new unified interface standards will be debuted with Leopard. I think we may well see major developments on that front. There's a new unified grey theme that is going to replace Metal. Resolution independence is another big item, and we know that's coming. Hopefully Leopard will be the release to fix most, if not all, of the minor UI inconsistencies found in Apple's applications, which will in turn spur developers to follow suit.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
When you start applying them as though they were cold, autistic rules, you start degrading usability. Emerson said it better than I ever could, but I will say this: Judicious use of dissimilar UI paradigms can emphasize the aspects of your application that are dissimilar to others, the aspects that need special attention from the user. Not everything should be treated the same.
That said, there are plenty of amazingly talented programmers who turn out to be rather shitty UI designers. While guidelines like the Mac OS X HIG are most useful in the hands of designers who already know what they're doing, I suppose as a cheat sheet for coders who have nowhere else to seek advice, they're better than nothing.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
While I'm sure that Gnome and KDE developers can get something out of HIG docs, I'm sure they already are! As a user of both Gnome and MacOS Tiger, I think that Gnome is in many ways _more_ consistent!
On my Mac, Finder, Address Book, and iCal are brushed metal, whereas Mail and iTunes are uniform grey. Preview is different again. What the hell?!? Over the last 3 years, MacOS has become _less_ consistent, whereas Gnome has become much more so.
So you don't like the default colours on Ubuntu - change them. It's very easy to do, even for newbies - personally I find them refreshing from the over-pervasive blueness of most desktops, but you can make it blue if you want!
I'm not saying Gnome is perfect (I haven't used KDE much for a while) - I doubt anyone would say that - but it's certainly not as inferior as you're making out.
Where you see inconsistency, I see useful visual cues. Regular windows are for single documents. Brushed metal is for utilities and goal-directed tools. There are gray areas that demand individual judgment, of course, but the general guideline is there.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
On my Mac, Finder, Address Book, and iCal are brushed metal, whereas Mail and iTunes are uniform grey. Preview is different again. What the hell?!? Over the last 3 years, MacOS has become _less_ consistent, whereas Gnome has become much more so.
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Duh. That's the entire point of this story... independent Apple fans are attempting to document Apple's horrible slide into UI mediocrity so third-party apps can at least be consistent with the system, since Apple doesn't feel the need to actually document any of these stupid themes on their own. This is the kind of thing that makes people remember the unstable, quirky Mac OS 7 with tears forming in their eyes... Apple used to give half-a-shit, they don't anymore.
I'm not saying Gnome is perfect (I haven't used KDE much for a while) - I doubt anyone would say that - but it's certainly not as inferior as you're making out.
Welcome to my favorite screenshots:
http://schend.net/images/screenshots/gaim_2_is_ug
http://schend.net/images/screenshots/gaim_2_is_bu
GAIM is a GNOME app, is it not? It's so hideous, it makes Microsoft's Luna theme look beautiful by comparison. You seriously think that competes even slightly with what Apple's putting out? Even the crummy stuff Apple's put out recently?
(BTW, your example about changing colors is particularly apt, since you can see that GNOME apps on Windows completely and utterly ignore the Windows theme and do their own thing.)
Comment of the year
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If you think this colour looks like poop, you should visit your optometrist.
Or your proctologist.
Microsoft has had design and UI guidelines out forever. An awful lot of 'developers' do not know, or fail to heed..but they've been out there.
Yeah, they've been on display in the bottom of a locked file cabinet in a disused lavatory in the unlit sub-basement of an abandoned garden shed on the outskirts of the Redmond campus for years!
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The thing that bugs me about both Mac OS X's Aqua (and MS Windows) is how the window manager seems to have so little authority over the windows it manages.
On SGI IRIX's 4Dwm, for example, if I use the window manager to minimise a window (by clicking on the minimise button, for example), it damn well minimises, no matter what state the window's application is in.
Why is Aqua's (and MS Windows's) window manager such a wimp? They have no authority over their windows at all. What kind of manager is that?
Max.
Well, for one, users do react better to a UI that's visually appealing (but non-invasive). Although I personally think that Apple's Mail.app shown in the grandparent post violates this principle, OS X on a whole conforms to it pretty well.
As far as "amateurish UI element spacing and layouts", I refer you to this KDE Print Settins dialogue. Although the screenshot's somewhat dated (2004), I came across a similar dialogue this past week when using my University's linux cluster. Although the font configuration doesn't appear to have been borked like in the screenshot I linked to, the element spacing was the same, despite the smaller fonts (ie. huge window, small fonts).
There are a few examples of good UIs on KDE/GTK apps, but for the most part, they tend to look very sloppy. Win32 apps tend to look neutral and professional. OS X apps are a bit more flashy, but are on a similar level of "neatness".
I would doubt that it's even an issue with "open-sourceness". Adium, a (free) GAIM-based multi-platform IM client for OS X has what is easily one of the best UIs I've seen on an application regardless of license or platform.
Another complaint I have is that FOSS GUIs tend to rely a lot on toolbars and icons. Although this isn't necessarily a terrible thing in and of itself, It is more often than not the case that WAY too many icons are presented, and that the design of said icons gives very few visual cues as to the function of the button. Konqueror is a terrible offender of this crime. Although virtually every other browser on the planet gets by just fine with 4 or 5 buttons in the toolbar, Konqueror somehow feels that it's perfectly acceptable to put 17 buttons in the default toolbar.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Another complaint I have is that FOSS GUIs tend to rely a lot on toolbars and icons. Although this isn't necessarily a terrible thing in and of itself
Actually it is. There is a UI principle: "a word is worth a thousand pictures." Icons are only useful if you already know them by sight and/or their meaning is painfully obvious, and even then only when there isn't too much visual clutter from a bunch of other icons around them making the user have to hunt for the particular one they want. The need for "Tooltips" is a clear sign of a bad UI. It always seemed to me that the MacOS got this, while Microsoft didn't. It's ironic that Apple which popularized icons as a UI element has always used them much more sparingly than Microsoft. It's as though Microsoft coming in later to the game said: "So they want pictures do they... well! We'll give them pictures out the yazoo" without ever fulling understanding the point of those "pictures".