Apple UI “Experimentation”
Posted February 14th, 2003 @ 01:05pm by Erik J. Barzeski
A brief retort to the ramblings of Vinay, Matt, and myself was published yesterday (TrackBacks rock). The author seems to feel that "experimentation" is good. I agree! However, the "experimentation" umbrella really can't logically cover the following cases:
- The start/end Ken Burns radio buttons in iMovie
- The metal buttons in iChat
- The use of TIFFs for checkboxes and other standard controls (like Matt discusses re: Keynote
- The "dimmed" or "inactive" appearance of the "Burn" thingy.
In each of those cases, Apple is misappropriating existing controls. That's not experimentation - that's just dangerous. You want a new control, design one that doesn't toy with the expectations of users - old and new - and one that doesn't completely fuck with the HIGs.
Donate Life
Posted 14 Feb 2003 at 1:24pm #
Ah--that was mine (I just realized that my name doesn't appear anywhere on my site! :-). I just want to stress that I agree with you guys on almost all of the specific details--you're absolutely right that consistency must be applied to the way controls themselves are used. I just wanted to make what I think is an interesting counterargument: that consistency is, perhaps, not quite as key as it once was.
Also, Re: Trackbacks: they do indeed rock! I just got mine working, so if anyone notices any problems, let me know...
Posted 14 Feb 2003 at 3:22pm #
Incidentally, you probably didn't get that far (I apologize for the length), but I said I agreed with you about the burn thingy :-).
Posted 14 Feb 2003 at 7:59pm #
ui rebuttal
posted a short rebuttal regarding the rants that matt, erik and i wrote. the author of said article feels
Posted 18 Feb 2003 at 11:21am #
Consistency Revisited
Well, there's nothing like a gentle, well-reasoned rebuttal to make one reconsider his bold public statements.