[besson3c]

It appears as if the UI changes in Tiger have polarized some people - some people like them, some people hate them. The new Mail UI is a great example of this.

The study of Human Computer Interaction Design (HCID) deals with user-centered design, and design of "user experiences". HCI specialists are trained to conduct effective and productive usability testing and to understand how to design for the needs of a given population.

Does anybody know whether Apple actually conducts usability testing with people outside of the company, and how diverse these people are in technological savvyness? I have no doubt that Apple has some in-house HCI specialists and usability test subjects, but since Apple is so secretive about their products I wonder if they actually bring in outsiders to conduct usability testing?

I wonder if *we* are Apple's usability testers, and we help steer the direction of the UI with our feedback filtered through Apple's design teams?

There is no unbreakable rule in design theory that states that consistency must be maintained at any cost. Consistency allows designers to leverage on a user's familiarity with an interface, but if there is good reason to break this consistency, sometimes this can be for the best. People have been bitching about consistency and the aesthetic appeal of the new interface, but this does not necessarily equate to bad design (although it is certainly a factor). Many of the design decisions in Tiger can probably be well justified by Apple's design teams. I can't explain a few of them, I'm not necessarily defending them...

I wonder if some of this inconsistency is in response to some of us users? For instance, the layout of the new Mail app is very much like Outlook, perhaps designed to leverage the familiarity Windows users have with Outlook.

My questions/conversation starters:

1) Does Apple do out-of-house usability testing with a diverse range of users?
2) Is the answer to this first question no, and do you think Apple is simply responding to its fragmented users as best as it can?

[Chuckit]

It's well-known that Apple used to have an entire team of experts devoted to testing and developing the HIG (run by the infamous Bruce Tognazzini), and that Steve decided this group was unnecessary and thus disbanded it several years ago.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

It's well-known that Apple used to have an entire team of experts devoted to testing and developing the HIG (run by the infamous Bruce Tognazzini), and that Steve decided this group was unnecessary and thus disbanded it several years ago.

Was the team filled with experts who were the usability subjects, or were they simply experts that conducted usability tests on samples of the general public?

[Chuckit]

They actually conducted tests on focus groups. You can see this if you read the stuff they've written. Like when OS X first came out, Tog was discussing the close widget, and he said they had considered making it red in OS 7 (by the same association with a stoplight), but their tests found that people were actually drawn to red controls.

[kiskynet]

During a Q/A Session discussing Aqua at WWDC 2001 the engineers their mentioned that they didn't do external usability testing

What I imagine they do though is a lot of internal review and testing which probably polarises opinion internally as much as it does with us end users. What's interesting though is that it seems that for example the Mail engineers get a fair amount of autonomy over their decision. I think the diversity is a 'good thing' that allows experimentation and invention which we Mac users get to do the real world testing on.

Personally I like the approach, I prefer it this way, I enjoy getting to see and play with this stuff before it's been rejected by a focus group of 'computer users' and we end up with UI and functionality designed by consensus.

I'd like to know though who gets a final say on what does and doesn't go out the door is it Bertrand Serlet, Avie, Steve - maybe they just trust the engineering teams to get on with it and do it right.

[kiskynet]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

They actually conducted tests on focus groups. You can see this if you read the stuff they've written. Like when OS X first came out, Tog was discussing the close widget, and he said they had considered making it red in OS 7 (by the same association with a stoplight), but their tests found that people were actually drawn to red controls.

I think this is why Steve probably dropped the HIG team. I imagine they got to this point where they were only stifling change through a slavish devotion to testing and subjecting everything to feedback from focus groups.

By this time people knew what a GUI was and knew how they expected it to work, either like Mac OS or Windows. Anything that changed the way things were done was probably rejected simply for being different. If the HIG team as it was were still around OS X would probably look a lot like OS 9

[eggman]

Originally Posted by kiskynet

I think this is why Steve probably dropped the HIG team. I imagine they got to this point where they were only stifling change through a slavish devotion to testing and subjecting everything to feedback from focus groups.

By this time people knew what a GUI was and knew how they expected it to work, either like Mac OS or Windows. Anything that changed the way things were done was probably rejected simply for being different. If the HIG team as it was were still around OS X would probably look a lot like OS 9

I can't tell you how much I disagree with this sentiment.

First of all, I'm a great believer over gathering as much empirical data as possible to help inform any decision-making process.

Secondly, I've worked with human factors engineers and the state of the art is constantly moving forward... and their thinking is often years beyond what most users - and most software engineers - would expect. After all, they think about these issues constantly... and they're no less creative than those in other software design and development disciplines.

[mitchell_pgh]

I know that they do usability testing outside of Infinity Loop.
I also know that they look for feedback from a) the users b) the developers c) employees etc.

[Zimphire]

I wouldn't mind if Apple took the unified look and used it in place of brushed metal.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Zimphire

I wouldn't mind if Apple took the unified look and used it in place of brushed metal.

That would be a very bad idea.

Aqua (which is also unified) has different guidelines for widget placement. A properly done brushed app can look very good, if not better than an Aqua app. A few examples of this are Delicious Library and NewsFire. A brushed app is meant to be used for utility programs. If used properly again, it can look extremely professional and attractive.

One problem with brushed metal is a lot of developers deal with it just like it's Aqua. Aqua has a lot of different margins from brushed metal. In some cases, a brushed app may not even have any margins on the left and right of the window.

The other problem is Aqua widgets look horrid on brushed windows. 10.4 fixes this by adding standardized "flat" brushed buttons and such. NewsFire already makes good use of flat buttons. Another problem is that by default brushed applications do not use tableview borders and such. Those have to be hardcoded. Again, an example of this is in NewsFire.

Brushed metal, when used correctly, looks great. I have an app I'm coding right now which I could never see moving to Aqua. A unified look wouldn't fit it either, because it has no toolbar. The unified look also only affects the toolbar, it doesn't change the rest of the look of an Aqua app. Apple has done some hardcoding in some of there apps to do gradient backgrounds, or in the case of mail, they just cover up the background completely.

[goMac]

Double Post... Move along...

[Judge_Fire]

Only insecure/over-arrogant designers and engineers don't test on normal people.

And that shows.

J

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by kiskynet

I think this is why Steve probably dropped the HIG team. I imagine they got to this point where they were only stifling change through a slavish devotion to testing and subjecting everything to feedback from focus groups.

By this time people knew what a GUI was and knew how they expected it to work, either like Mac OS or Windows. Anything that changed the way things were done was probably rejected simply for being different. If the HIG team as it was were still around OS X would probably look a lot like OS 9

So in essence, you feel that innovation is good not because it makes things better (which would be proved by focus testing and seeing how principles actually work), but simply because it's new?

[MrForgetable]

personally, i like mail.app's gui much more than the one I had in panther. much cleaner.