Comments on: Apple: steal this design

By: Dennis Lorson

Dennis Lorson — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:53:27 +0000

Thanks for your article John; UI design has taken an important place within the development process and the UI has seen many revisions. We took a lot of cues from Aperture since it is one of the best in its kind, and solves main interaction issues by well thought out metaphors.

Wil, I understand where you’re coming from (the dialog *is* wordy), but actually it has received a lot of thought. The comparison you make is not correct:
- The semantic difference between “remove” and “delete” is subtle to nonexistent. If Apple wishes to establish a dogmatic difference that is their choice but it is not intuitive at all. I’m not a native English speaker, but per the OS X Thesaurus:
9 (Gabriel removed two words) delete, erase, rub out, cross out, …

Our target users are for a large part International English speakers, so clarity is important here. That requires avoiding subleties, even if it increases word count.

- The whole use case is different from the Address Book scenario. In AB, you remove the item and AB asks if it needs to be removed from the library or from the group only.
The dialog in Macnification offers to remove all items from the library, after having removed the group itself. An equivalent of this dialog would have no use in AB, as this is never a desired action.
The button label “Remove from Stack” would be meaningless, as the stack itself is being removed anyway.

Again, the differences are subtle but vital, and there might be better solutions to the dialog, but the one Wil suggested is not viable.

By: Deepak Nulu

Deepak Nulu — Thu, 22 May 2008 01:36:31 +0000

The Macnification and Address Book confirmation dialogs have 3 buttons, and if done “right” (not sure if this is in Apple’s HIG), can be mapped to 3 different keys:

Return: the default button (button with blue background)
Spacebar: the button with blue outline
Escape: the other button.

Escape is usually associated with “Cancel” and hence the “Cancel” button should be the “other” button mentioned above.

Return can be tied to the default button (“Remove from Group”) and Spacebar can be tied to “Delete”.

Also, when apps follow the above “rules”, I have noticed that they are laid out in the following order (left-to-right): button with blue outline, Cancel (button associated with Escape), default button. See the confirmation dialog that appears in TextEdit when you attempt to close an unsaved document.

By: John Blackburn

John Blackburn — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:51:24 +0000

Though Macnification might offer valuable features that Aperture does not, including, crucially, the ability to read image formats particular to the field, I wasn’t arguing for the value or worth of the Macnification application per se, but instead wanted to comment on how deliberately it borrowed from Apple’s work.

By: Egill

Egill — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:44:38 +0000

I agree with Steven, why would one get an app for $399 that an app on $199 does better?

By: steven

steven — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:02:31 +0000

I don’t get it… isn’t this just like a really watered down version of Aperture?

By: Wil Shipley

Wil Shipley — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:34:38 +0000

Strangely, this app may be aping Apple but they screwed up the words on that dialog — there are too many!

Address Book does it better: they should just say “Cancel”, “Delete”, and “Remove from Stack”. By drawing a distinction between “DELETE!!!!OMG!” and “remove” Apple can carry the shorthand throughout Address Book and the rest of the system — I’m removing this app from the dock, but I’m DELETING this file from my hard disk

-Wil

By: John Blackburn

John Blackburn — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:32:23 +0000

Patrick, what’s worked for me in the past has been to clarify the hidden costs of not making design a priority. If skipping design is perceived as a low- or no-cost alternative–”I skipped design and didn’t suffer at all for it!” or “Our users don’t care about that.”– it might simply be that the people making the decisions are genuinely unaware of the real costs involved. Once made aware of those costs, those decision makers can surprise with their new-found appreciation.

For instance, expensive customer support is directly and inversely related to the amount of time spent on design.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:04:57 +0000

I agree with the main point – design is important and you should use Apple’s tools so your design is consistent with the user’s expectations.

But what to do if you’re in an organization where (interface) design is not a high priority?