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> HIG (human interface guidelines) studies, which is something no other vendor has bothered themselves with. Many platforms (including KDE and Gnome) have UI d

> HIG (human interface guidelines) studies, which is something no other vendor has bothered themselves with. Many platforms (including KDE and Gnome) have UI design guidelines. https://usabilitygeek.com/usability-user-experience-user-interface-guidelines-companies-2016/ https://usabilitygeek.com/usability-user-experience-user-int... lists some.

moistly 5y ago
Writing a guideline is not quite the same as investing several million in the development and testing of proven-effective design. Back in the day Apple did the right thing and rigorously tested its design hypotheses: there was a specific, fact-based reason behind each important gui design choice beyond “it looks good.” I say back in the day, because IMO Apple no longer makes purposeful UI design choices. For instance, the iOS browser window-closer in the shrunken-windows view of open tabs, has its close button on the right. Every other close button is on the left. Apple has lost the f’ing plot.
- Someone 5y ago
  Sun did tons of research on Gnome usability. Microsoft did tons of research on MS Office, for example to design the ribbon. I also am not sure having that iOS button on the top right is bad. It’s inconsistent, yes, but when that screen opens, your finger is at the top right of the screen. Putting them in the top right corner moves them closest to your finger. I don’t know whether it is, but Fitt’s law predicts that’s the better choice.
  - moistly 5y ago
    I predict that my left thumb is closest to the top left window, which was the one I was viewing and thus most likely to want to close; and that the two-finger action of tapping the top-right show-mini-windows/topish-left close-window buttons - like it used to be — is a better Fitt. I’m confident that this latest UI change was someone’s busywork. Gotta look like your doing something. Thx for correction re: Gnome & ribbon.
  - throwaway82652 5y ago
    The Sun research is pretty outdated, that was probably around 20 years ago that happened. I don't think any of it is relevant anymore. There are still ongoing user studies happening in GNOME and KDE. It's probably not anywhere near as rigorous as at Apple, and I doubt you can easily assign a dollar value to it, but it does happen.
Normille 5y ago
> HIG (human interface guidelines) studies, which is something no other vendor has bothered themselves with. Let's not forget that Apple's HIG brought us 'column view' in the Finder, where icons actually slide away from your mouse, when you click on them... Or Preview where, if you select 100 PDFs and double click on them, will now open them as 100 separate documents, rather than as 'pages' within a single document, as used to be the case... or Quicktime [and Preview?] where you sometimes move a document with a conventional open/save dialogue but sometimes have to do it through a popup, accessed by clicking the name in the window titlebar. Yes, OSX is a hundred times more consistent than any Linux distro --which often feel like the UI was designed by several separate teams who never met or compared notes-- but it's not without its own piss-poor design decisions.

moistly 5y ago

Writing a guideline is not quite the same as investing several million in the development and testing of proven-effective design. Back in the day Apple did the right thing and rigorously tested its design hypotheses: there was a specific, fact-based reason behind each important gui design choice beyond “it looks good.” I say back in the day, because IMO Apple no longer makes purposeful UI design choices. For instance, the iOS browser window-closer in the shrunken-windows view of open tabs, has its close button on the right. Every other close button is on the left. Apple has lost the f’ing plot.

Someone 5y ago
Sun did tons of research on Gnome usability. Microsoft did tons of research on MS Office, for example to design the ribbon. I also am not sure having that iOS button on the top right is bad. It’s inconsistent, yes, but when that screen opens, your finger is at the top right of the screen. Putting them in the top right corner moves them closest to your finger. I don’t know whether it is, but Fitt’s law predicts that’s the better choice.
- moistly 5y ago
  I predict that my left thumb is closest to the top left window, which was the one I was viewing and thus most likely to want to close; and that the two-finger action of tapping the top-right show-mini-windows/topish-left close-window buttons - like it used to be — is a better Fitt. I’m confident that this latest UI change was someone’s busywork. Gotta look like your doing something. Thx for correction re: Gnome & ribbon.
- throwaway82652 5y ago
  The Sun research is pretty outdated, that was probably around 20 years ago that happened. I don't think any of it is relevant anymore. There are still ongoing user studies happening in GNOME and KDE. It's probably not anywhere near as rigorous as at Apple, and I doubt you can easily assign a dollar value to it, but it does happen.

Normille 5y ago

> HIG (human interface guidelines) studies, which is something no other vendor has bothered themselves with. Let's not forget that Apple's HIG brought us 'column view' in the Finder, where icons actually slide away from your mouse, when you click on them... Or Preview where, if you select 100 PDFs and double click on them, will now open them as 100 separate documents, rather than as 'pages' within a single document, as used to be the case... or Quicktime [and Preview?] where you sometimes move a document with a conventional open/save dialogue but sometimes have to do it through a popup, accessed by clicking the name in the window titlebar. Yes, OSX is a hundred times more consistent than any Linux distro --which often feel like the UI was designed by several separate teams who never met or compared notes-- but it's not without its own piss-poor design decisions.