The Daydream Blog

During Steve Job’s WWDC 07 Keynote one of the biggest cheers from the live audience was for the announcement that all windows in Mac OS X Leopard would have the same theme. Muted grey windows may seem quite a strange thing to get excited about. In fact it was just the latest twist in a long running saga about Apple’s User Interface design that started with the introduction of the brushed metal theme in QuickTime Player 4.

The introduction of brushed metal kicked off a long debate about Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) a document aimed at developers to ensure consistent user interfaces. Brushed Metal broke a lot of the tenets of the HIG and despite being a set of guidelines the HIG has all too often been taken as a inviolable rule-book. Apple continued to flout the HIG using brushed metal indiscriminately, custom controls in the iLife and Pro applications, Unified and Polished Metal window themes and HUD windows.

Many Windows and ex-Windows users may be surprised by all the fuss as variations in user interface design are common on Windows. Flouting the HIG strikes at the heart of Mac zealots’ belief that their platform is easier to use as the HIG itself claims to “provide Mac OS X users with a consistent visual and behavioral experience across applications and the operating system”. Browse through any book on design and there will be a chapter on the principle of consistency. The theory goes that if Mac applications are consistent they will be more familiar for users and therefore easier to use.

Mac Community Reaction

Some have pressed Apple to abandon their custom themes and return to the consistency advocated by the HIG. Despite Steve Job’s announcement, the genie is out of the bottle and it seems clear that Apple will continue to innovate and experiment with user interface design.

Others have suggested that Apple should update the HIG to reflect the changing face of UI design. However the ever changing recommendations for the use of Brushed Metal in the HIG show how this is an unsatisfactory approach. Similarly it can be seen that no sensible definition would allow Apple’s use of Coverflow in iTunes to be used in Leopard’s Finder, let alone OmniGroup’s OmniDazzle or GarageSale other than use it where appropriate and if it looks good.

A group of developers have decided not to wait for Apple to update the HIG and have decided to create their own “Indie HIG“. As well as suffering from being a moving target, like Apple’s own HIG, the Indie HIG simply documents current user interface trends. With a wiki format, it lacks the driving force of a visionary in the mould of Jobs, Jonathan Ive or even Mike Matas. It compounds these problems by codifying changing trends as rules.

However the feeling that has most widely taken hold is that proposed by John Gruber at last year’s C4 conference, that the “HIG is dead”. His supporters now believe that developers should just accept that the current state of HIG bending Mac applications should act as the documentation for the current de facto HIG.

Of course there are many that feel that the HIG is far from dead, or that for some it is still necessary. In many ways they are correct. Large sections of the HIG do not relate to the look and feel of individual elements and continue to be used consistently by Apple and other third parties. Spacing and grouping of controls, the colour and font pickers, international and accessibility are all covered in the HIG and are still followed by any good application. However this really glosses over the fact that the appearance, the themes of current Mac applications now vary immensely.

So even after Steve’s Leopard announcement, the debate continues to rage on and there is no consensus on the future of the HIG. Climate change and Grand Unified Theories seem less controversial.

Getting Back to Basics

So if the HIG is indeed dead what of the goal of ease of use through consistency? More fundamentally does consistency between all applications really mean better ease of use?

Put another way does it make much sense for the user interface for an Instant Messaging Client to be completely consistent with a Media Library, Network Monitor or a Professional Video Editor? Common sense suggests not. So why does Apple’s HIG propose this and why do so many in the community feel that it is so important?

The roots go back to the introduction of the Mac, at a time when computers were difficult to use; strange alien devices for many people. The Mac changed all of that, creating a more familiar environment for computer users and consistency was part of making computers; new devices to most; easier to learn to use.

A fundamental part of this ease of use was the Mac’s Desktop metaphor. Data is stored in files which themselves are stored in folders whereas all other operating systems of the time used the phrase directory. Files are disposed of the in the Trash. The Desktop was the cluttered unfiled part of your work environment but where files were easy to get access to. The Notepad and Calculator Desktop Ornaments remained consistent with that metaphor. All this created a familiar environment for office workers who were the original target market for the Mac. In this age of commodity computers and Apple’s lack of presence in the enterprise, it is easy to forget that two decades ago, Apple’s computers were enterprise focused business machines.

Over time, unfortunately, “ease of learning to use” has become “ease of use” and “consistency with a metaphor” has become “consistency” for its own sake.

In addition the market for the Mac has changed fundamentally. Computers are no longer strange devices that only the select few have access to. Computers don’t just sit on office desks but permeate our lives, running our TV’s and mobile phones as well as having a prominent position in our homes. For many a file is only known as data stored on a computer. Not least of all because computer documents have replaced physical ones.

In every day life, to simply change the volume on a device we may use a knob, a slider, a thumb dial, a pair of buttons or a rocker switch. Each of our five remote controls at home will have a different appearance for the volume control. There is no uproar demanding that all TV remotes be created equal. So if we can handle varied buttons in real life, we do not need them to be homogenised on our computers. Sometimes we should give our users more credit and understand why so many incorrect passwords are due to the Caps Lock key; a non user centric design rather than stupid users or a lack of consistency.

Unfortunately the Desktop metaphor has become stretched beyond credulity. Ever felt uneasy dragging a floppy disc icon the Trash to eject it? Ever wonder why iChat or iTunes has a File menu? What file? Or wonder why you have to keep saving your work? Well quite possibly the answer is no. Because humans have a much better ability to learn than computers and we have learnt to cope with these quirks of the computer environment. Our children who may never see a real filing cabinet with drop in folders will never question these anomalies as they will be so familiar with computers from a young age. Can you imagine a child of tomorrow asking “Where is the Any Key?” or running the mouse on the monitor screen or using the CD-ROM tray as a cup holder?

The need for consistency between all applications appears to be an outdated notion or one that has simply been misconstrued from being consistent with a particular metaphor.

Everything King Metaphorus Touches Turns to Gold

So the user base has changed and is more adaptable that we give credit for, the exclusive Desktop metaphor no longer makes sense and we’ve lost sight of what we were trying to be consistent with in the first place.

If ease of use is our goal and familiarity is a key part of this equation, then it follows that where possible, applications should relate to a real world experience. Delicious Library for example uses a bookshelf metaphor for the library and a supermarket bar code scanner metaphor that carries through to its icon. With this in mind it is easy to appreciate why Delicious Library has won multiple Apple Design despite completely ignoring the HIG. DL is consistent with a metaphor that is appropriate for its market and uses it to make computers more approachable and fun to use, and hence easier to use. It is not just about looking good; it is about human centric design.

If Apple does indeed rewrite the HIG they should extoll the use of metaphors rather than consistency. If it does not, developers should ask whether their applications consistently make use of an appropriate metaphor, if at all. Critics should review which of The Delicious Generation applications are really just style over substance and which have abandoned the HIG in favour of a more appropriate metaphor.

The HIG is dead. Long live the metaphor.