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."

What a jumbled mess of a site

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Maybe KDE & Gnome Folk Will Read...

[wall0159]

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.

Re:Dumb mistake, Apple

[RustNeverSleeps]

No, actually this behavior is not new to the latest version of iPhoto and it is specifically covered in Apples (now dated) Human Interface Guidelines. Quoting from the HIG [apple.com]:

"In most cases, applications that are not document-based should quit when the main window is closed. For Example, System Preferences quits if the user closes the window. If an application continues to perform some function when the main window is closed, however, it may be appropriate to leave it running when the main window is closed. For example, iTunes continues to play when the user closes the main window."

As iPhoto is not document based nor does it do anything with the main window closed, it should (and does) quit when you close the main window. That said, I agree that there are some inconsistencies that Apple should fix in OS X and Apple first-party applications, just that the example you gave is not one of them.

Re:Dumb mistake, Apple

[kinabrew]

The normal behavior of the resize(+) button is to make the window just large enough to view all of the content in the window. Clicking that button again would resize the window to its original size.

In programs where the display of the content depends on the size of the window, that button resizes the window between two sizes that the user can set.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Microsoft's User Interface Guidelines

[AaronBrethorst]

You mean these guidelines? [microsoft.com]. They pretty easy to find; searching for "Vista Ux Guidelines" will do the trick for you.

Re:Aqua's a wimp.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

I don't know about Aqua, but Windows doesn't have a window manager. There is no window manager process, the window is handled by the application process. If the application process is busy, the window - including the minimize button - doesn't respond.

Re:Maybe KDE & Gnome Folk Will Read...

[despisethesun]

Just for the record, the "Ubuntu looks like poo!" arguments stem from earlier releases for which the theme was very brown. I thought it looked ok, but it wouldn't have been my first choice.

Re:UI standards wouldn't hurt

[drsmithy]

Computer programs do not all have the same function.

Most computer programs have a common set of identical functionality. Some examples are manipulating windows (resizing, closing, etc), manipulating files (open, save, etc), manipulating text (copy, paste, etc), online help, changing settings.

It is a significant boost to productivity, learnability and ease of use when these common types of functionality are presented in a consistent and predictable fashion.

Further, there are a number of general UI principles - like Fitt's Law - that can also be used (where applicable), regardless of specific implementation.