I'm not sure I agree Scott. You've only got to look at the mess that is iTunes 7, Mail and the Finder to know that this 'make it up as we go along' approach is dodgy. The Mac is far from descending into the mess that is Windows, sure, but the more Apple flouts it's own guidelines, the more of a quagmire it becomes.
Frankly, most end users don't even know or care what the human interface documents say. They want it to look nice and they want it to fit in with the rest of their experience.
Yikes. This is the attitude on Windows. Problem is, everyone has their own idea of what 'looks nice'. I see people using all manor of awful Windows skins and customizations, and as we move towards to thin-client/web apps, the lack of standard HCI is only making things worse.
When you don't have a consistent standard, and developers who enforce that standard, pretty soon everyone starts to do their own thing. They think their apps look great. The result for the end-user?
by Dan Price — Oct 23
Frankly, most end users don't even know or care what the human interface documents say. They want it to look nice and they want it to fit in with the rest of their experience.
Yikes. This is the attitude on Windows. Problem is, everyone has their own idea of what 'looks nice'. I see people using all manor of awful Windows skins and customizations, and as we move towards to thin-client/web apps, the lack of standard HCI is only making things worse.
When you don't have a consistent standard, and developers who enforce that standard, pretty soon everyone starts to do their own thing. They think their apps look great. The result for the end-user?
Windows.