On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 19:32:10 +0100, Le_Forgeron wrote:

>> That's certainly true.  I do wonder how much user acceptance testing
>> they did on their designs.  Most companies cut that corner when
>> designing a new UI.
>> 
> Back in the old days, Apple, Microsoft and even the Unix consortium
> (well CDE) (no linux yet) all had rules books about their GUI
> (specifying such thing as: "Quit" menu entry must be in at bottom of
> first menu entry which must be named "File", and tiny details like all
> the classical-to-be short-cut ). Of course the three did not used the
> same rules, and it was rather recommendations than hard-coded rules.

Well, yes, and those UI design guides still exist (I was actually 
recently doing some work and needed to know the names of certain controls 
in Safari, and ran across the Apple guidelines.

> It was a time of desktop and things were simple. Then Microsoft moved to
> portable computer, then mobile phone and tablet, and then just forget
> about the diversity of input devices (desktop have a mouse, portable
> have a track-sensitive-device that is used to emulate a mouse, tablet
> and phone have no mouse, but a full sensitive screen...), and the latest
> bad move from Microsoft was: same GUI wherever you are (marketing ok:
> user thinks it already know one when on the other; technically
> brain-dead: I have not a 26 inches touch screen for my desktop, and
> still no mouse on the mobile phone!)

Well, yes, but they do actually have guidelines laid out in the Microsoft 
Manual of Style for words used, and I know they also have a UI design 
guide.  The challenge is coming up with words for "click" when "tap" also 
is valid.

One of the rather frustrating bits of terminology has to do with multi-
select.  If you have items that are highlighted (ie, they don't have 
checkboxes next to them), if you want to describe the act of "ensuring 
all items are deselected," the MS Manual of Style says "never use 
'deselected'".  To make things worse, "unselected" is also not allowed.  
"Cleared" is the word that is *supposed* to be used, but that applies to 
checkboxes and not a multi-select list (like a file list).

"Ensure no items are selected" is what I had to phrase it as to meet the 
guidelines.  It actually isn't awkward in context, but getting there was 
weird.

> For an historical evolution, look at the border of the windows: from
> dead simple in 3 (at best one or two pixels), it went 3D-like/bevel in
> 95, and goes even further till XP. Then Vista/7 went with transparency
> and other 3D round effect... to drop them dead, back to not even
> decorated window in latest version (which is ok on mobile phone, as
> every pixel is a rare resources, but not on desktop).
> 
> Same with the logo of the OS: b&w in 3, floating curve in 95...more 3D
> in later and just ugly 4 rectangles showing a cross in latest.

Yep.

Jim

Post a reply to this message