Of HIG, Apple, and User-Centric Design

[Scott Rossi]

> A checkbox I can't uncheck is a surprise. I never (or at least almost
> never) encounter such beasts. Put one into your program at the very
> high risk that I will be sufficiently uncomfortable that I will go
> away. And, what is perhaps more sinister and important, I will probably
> never tell you why I went away.

Does this mean that any time you've encountered a preference group in an
application or the system that contains disabled checkboxes, you stop using
the program/system immediately and trash it?

I wonder how you get along without QuickTime (System
Preferences/QuickTime/Connection tab), non US keyboard layouts (System
Preferences/International/Input Menu Tab), the Mouse control panel (with a
trackpad), or a modem (System Preferences/Network/Modem tab)?

OK, maybe you have a T1 or DSL so you don't use a modem...

The point is, Apple is just as guilty of violating their own user guidelines
because, as has been stated on numerous occasions in many forums, the
guidelines are just that: guidelines, not laws etched in stone.  Speaking as
a more liberal UI designer, I would say that Apple's UI guidelines are a
great resource for developing effective UIs, but the bottom line for any
project (and the foundation for the guidelines in first place) is user
testing, regardless of what Apple says is good or not.  And while
"non-standard" UIs may indeed confuse or otherwise inhibit the effective use
of an application, there would be no innovation in UI development if nobody
broke "the rules".

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
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E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com