Comments on: What Makes UI Good?

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:02:53 +0000

Assuming that quote/anecdote is correct, we're talking about decisions made about 25 years ago. There couldn't have been many users to survey, at least those with any GUI experience.

Which begs the question, if you're aiming for transformational, do you want input, or do you just go with your gut?

Design is hard because it is art, and as such, is based in opinion more than function. Plus, you can rarely throw away the old paradigms and start fresh, like the Mac team did.

I think aiming for the average user works pretty well b/c it's a larger addressable market, and average users are more likely to give up and dismiss what they perceive to be a poorly designed product. Power users will figure out stuff on their own; that's why they're power users.

I don't envy designers

By: Misha Vaughan

Misha Vaughan — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:58:40 +0000

Hey Jake,

As always an interesting read!

I would actually argue that the problem you faced in finding and using the power user features was due to dropping half of the user experience ball. Good UI is both art and science...Apple's got the art part for sure.

Based on the quote you provide above "Rather than survey a bunch of users on every decision..." ... sounds like the may have just skipped talking to a user constituency (this would be the science part) - power users.

It is completely possible to design both for novice or occasional users + power users at the same time. The profession calls is progressive disclosure - showing you only what you need to know, but allowing you to easily discover the power feature components.

That's just my $.02. (maybe that should Euros?)

- Misha

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:41:48 +0000

Yeah, I'm aware of all that, including su, which I do occasionally on both machines when necessary. Windows started following the same scheme years ago too, i.e. requiring administrator privileges to install.

You probably know what a pain it is to login to XP as "Administrator", at least on the Home Edition, hidden by default and all with a blank password if I remember correctly.

So, the logic is common: abstract the power stuff as much as possible so if need be, troubleshooters can use the uber account. Crappy thing is once default passwords get in the wild and you don't change the uber account's password, you're basically hoping for the best, not preparing for the worst.

By: John Flack

John Flack — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:17:21 +0000

I'm not a Mac owner or a regular user of Macs, but my son and one of the project managers I work for have Macs that I have to troubleshoot occasionally. Like the default configuration of Ubuntu, Macs want you to do most of your system administration through your non-privileged user id. Well, not totally non-privileged, but the main user of the machine should have the privilege you need. To execute commands as root, you just preface the command with “sudo”. You will be prompted to confirm with your password. You can continue to issue “sudo” commands for a period of time without giving the password again. If you MUST actually login as root, you can use “sudo passwd root” to change root's password.

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:21:57 +0000

Thanks for the clarification. I guess either way, it's still a commercial spin-off of an Open Source O/S, right?

Any comments on the UI points?

By: Mitch

Mitch — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:50:29 +0000

Mac OS is not based on Linux. It is based on a Mach kernel and a set of BSD userspace programs running with Apple's user interface on top. Mac OS *is* a Unix, but Unix != Linux.