Today I had cause to get out my old #Acorn #RISCOS 3 Style Guide to demonstrate that the fundamentals of good #UX can date back well over 30 years - same with the #Apple #HIG.
I need to find a modern equivalent that clearly shows the basics for an "intro to usability" post. Most #designSystems seem overly focused on their components, rather than the principles of a good WIMP system.
@marioguzman How things have changed:
“If you do include icons in your menus, include them only for menu items for which they add significant value; don't include them for every menu item. A menu that includes too many icons (or poorly designed ones) can appear cluttered and be hard to read.”
— Using Icons in Menus, Apple HIG 2005-2009
The OG Macintosh Determinate and Indeterminate Progress Bars were fucking *chef's kiss*
remember when all #macos apps weren't electron and you could drag text like in the #HIG ? #usability
Delightful little apps from Honghao Zhang, in shiny Mac OS X Tiger design: Lickable Menu Bar and Say No To Notch.
Finally enough room for all menu bar icons, in exchange for just 30 vertical pixels.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lickable-menu-bar/id6444217677?mt=12
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/say-no-to-notch/id1639306886?mt=12
Apple's #HIG would tell you (or used to at least) to not use bottom bars in your Mac apps... but apps suffer from usability if Bottom Bars are a good fit for them yet omitted…
I really don't like how bottom bars, title bars, and accessory were basically all merged into the toolbar -- especially when full height sidebars and inspector sidebars now eat so much into their horizontal space too. Everything fighting for room.
Here's more info on them...
https://marioaguzman.github.io/design/toolbarguidelines/#BottomBars
“… it’s liquid, one of the design goals was when you saw it you wanted to lick it” 💦
http://interface.free.fr/Archives/AquaHIGuidelines.pdf (Aqua Human Interface Guidelines, 2002)
https://youtu.be/eOAcAxiZ3qE?t=4670 (Macworld 2000 Aqua UI introduction by Steve Jobs)
https://youtu.be/ItjrcNYxDaA?t=111 (WWDC 2001 Session 130 Aqua Icon Design by Imran Chaudhri)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxRu7wXTyOY&list=PLHdJq8rPdozCEG9m73NTDxpcY1F6e1sPV (WWDC 2001 Sessions on Mac OS X, Aqua UI and System Architecture)
https://hypercritical.co/2015/04/15/os-x-reviewed ( @siracusa OS X Reviews)
https://github.com/jonsterling/AquaUI
AquaUI is a love letter to the Macintosh of the Aqua era—with its uncompromising attention to detail, futuristic design, and “lickable” visual style.
I saw some #Mac app screenshot posted earlier today with a drop down menu.
Immediately saw everything wrong & goes against the Mac #HIG.
Dividers in menus are only to group related menu items into sections. Do not use a divider in between every item. No dividers period if all your menu items are related to one another.
Section titles shouldn’t exist if you only have one section.
Menu item titles should be concise and definitely not be too word especially with a second-line subtitle.
I have added a new article to my own #HIG for Mac apps: Toolbar Guidelines.
This article goes over how to design, organize, and use built-in #NSToolbar & #NSToolbarItem objects and their features.
It also goes over system behaviors when toolbars are mixed with Sidebars, Inspectors, & multi-content layouts!
As a bonus, it also goes over bottom bars & accessory bars. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Great resource for UX researchers and retro historians.
Cool to see UI docs pre-desktop publishing that aren't published books.
For any person who wants to do some layouts on macOS and maybe wants some guidance or examples… I made my own guidelines that are actually concrete. None of this stuff that leaves too much for the imagination that you stray away from making your app feel truly #Macintosh. I haven’t finished everything about #macOS #UX design but here’s a start at least.
Does #MicrosoftWord really require cloud account/connection for its autosave feature?
It's 2024, we have fast, spacious SSDs. Pick any #HIG out there and it will tell you to store app state seamlessly in the background. Requiring user to constantly click 💾 or lose data is borderline sadistic. I get the "upsell" idea, but both Windows and Office are paid products in their own right.
User has already paid you, the file is sitting there on the disk, just update it ffs.
A notch-less or pill-less iPhone is on Apple's Human Interface Guidelines 🤔
#Apple #HIG #iPhone #iOS #iOSDev #TipKit
I forgot I never uploaded the #AppleNewton 2.0 HIG PDF to this folder either. I just added it for both iCloud & Dropbox. :)
Over the years, I have scoured the internet for various versions of the Mac HIG PDFs. Here is my collection so far.
Some neat ones include HIGs for Mac OS 8 & a preliminary Mac OS X version from the Public Beta.
These HIGs contain general desktop guidelines that still apply today & that you can't find in the modern HIG.
Please retoot! Everyone should read these.
iCloud: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/03elmPnR30gJQkCs-7pkmNoeA#Macintosh_HIG_Collection
#Mac #HIG #Macintosh #UIUX #UserExperience #macOS #MacHIG #MacOSX
Meet the Human Interface Guidelines in Korean:
https://developer.apple.com/kr/design/human-interface-guidelines
In my experience, the Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) have deteriorated in the last few years. Not only in terms of consistency but also in the way the components are presented. The HIG used to be very visual and descriptive. This is no longer the case.
App design is still a core competence for all UX and UI designers. So I created an overview of the most common iOS components for my students. Might also be interesting for this community!
Thanks to @frankrausch
