OS X User Interface Issues
Posted on January 27, 2003
Revised on March 27, 2003
The story goes like this: When Apple bought Next, not only did they get Steve Jobs, but they got a whole new group of programmers. Unfortunately, these programmers have very little or no experience in User Interface Design, a field that was often pioneered by Apple's programmers. Some people seem to think that OS X was designed by these Next programmers. This is a problem because what differentiates the Mac OS from others is its intuitive interface.
It should also be noted, that for some unknown reason, Steve Jobs disolved the Human Interface (HI) Group (2), which, for almost two decades, guided Apple's many talented programmers in developing and refining arguably the most user-friendly computer operating system in history. The loss of this group has obviously had a big impact on OS X. As Michael Tsai puts it, "Programmers need HI experts in the same way that writers need editors." (1)
The HI problems are almost exclusively found in the Finder. This venerable OS 9 interface almost never made it into OS X: Early versions of OS X didn't have a Finder, only an application called Desktop, which has now morphed into the current Finder. Whomever designed the new Finder, whether it was Next programmers or not, completely ignored Apple's own HI guidelines.
But don't take my word for it:
Top 10 reasons why the Dock sucks, Bruce Tognazzini (one of Apple's founders)
That Finder thing and Thanksfindering, John Gruber
Welch on the Finder, Michael Tsai
About the Finder and Apple, Jeffery Zeldman
About the Finder, Nicholas Riley
About Apple's new focus on Design over Function, Steven Frank
How the Finder defeats spacial orientation, John Siracusa
References:
1 This indirect quote is from John Gruber's article
Thanksfindering
2 The official comment seems to be that
the HI Group has not been disbanded, but rather "downsized/reduced/refocused".
In practical terms, however, this might as well mean disolved, since the
group no longer has any relevance, as demonstrated by OS X's current interface.
The consensus of most of the editorial coverage of this issue seems to
be that Steve Jobs didn't consider the HI Group to be of any importance
to the future of the Mac OS.
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