Uniformity, Conformity, Style and the UI
I just watched an interesting talk by John Gruber titled “The Gap Theory of UI Design” that he gave at Webstock ’11. The video can be found on vimeo. Since they don’t allow embedding I’ve linked. He goes over some good points, mostly regarding the idea of uniformity of look versus consistency and how they are not the same thing. Two points really jump out though. The first is that people want something that looks cool, the second thing he touches on briefly, even though he doesn’t call it that is the POLA principle.
POLA is an acronym for Principle of Least Astonishment. This is, to me, the most important factor of any UI design. It’s a pretty simple idea – any changes you make should be the least surprising for the user in question. My sense from looking at his presentation and how Apple has treated things like the HIG, the look of their OS, and the direction is has taken has shown a strong commitment to this principle. What Gruber points out, rightly, is that while things can look different they can still be consistent in how they behave. We have that in clothing. To use his example the button placement on a mens shirt.
The issue of designing versus styling really hit home over the weekend. In my web browsing I’ve noticed more and more the “Landing Strip” style of web design. It is mostly prevalent with template driven systems but I see it a lot of other places. What do I mean? It is not taking into account screen width possiblities when designing. I run on a widescreen monitor. My windows, as a result, tend to be wider versus longer. When I go to a page that is one huge, narrow strip it can be jarring to say the least.
This first screenshot is this blog. It suffers from this to a degree but the color and look makes it less jarring. I do need to work on this though.
This seconds screenshot is a great example of the landing strip. Note how on a wider monitor the whole thing feels a little squished. This is my WoW guild website. It is built with one of the hosting company templates. If I had the time I’d work on something much, much better.
The key to making this not happen is designing a resolution independent web. What is resolution independence? To quote the wiki -
In computing, resolution independence is the concept that elements on a computer screen can be drawn at sizes independent from the pixel grid.
This can be difficult, but is important to avoid the landing strip effect, it also is important to prevent what I call “The dead acres of whitespace” and the squished look on smaller displays. I think the idea of responsive design might be a good way to deal with this. At least that is what I’ve been looking at. I hope UI designers, especially web ones, take this principle and idea to heart. To paraphrase Guber quote “Design is how it works, Style is how it looks.” He is not the only one that marks this difference though. I’ve linked some other docs which talk about this. Some resources I’ve been looking I’ve listed below. While it is very difficult, I do think it is possible to create a web page that is resolution independent.
This is Why iOS is the Platform to Develop for
Horace Dediu of Asymco has a quick article outlining the payout to developers and labels from apple on the respective stores. All the talk about Apple being evil to developers contradicts the reality. A lot of people forget tht the majority of developers are not in it for the politics, t hey are not in it to make a statement. They code to make a living to feed themselves and their family. Most also love what they do as well.
Although the music suppliers received in aggregate much more than developers, the iTunes store has been open much longer. When comparing sales acceleration, the App store is ramping faster having paid out $2 billion in 31 months vs. 34 months for the first $2 billion paid out for music.
The interesting tidbit is that the App Stores seem to be growing faster than the media store. There could be a number of reasons why. I suspect though it is mostly because media has so many outlets to get the same content for from physical media to other download sites. Apps though have a limited distribution method in the case of iOS there is only one way to go. As a result you lack the dilution you see for media.
This is both good and bad for the developer. It’s great because your audience is easier to reach since there is only one outlet. It’s bad because the market gets really crowded.Can Apple be a pita to deal with? Sure. But the rewards far outweigh the annoyance factor it seems.
iPhone 3GS now $49
Looks like Apple dropped the price of the iPhone 3GS to $49 USD to match ATT. If there is a Verizon iPhone will they have the 3GS for cheap too? I doubt it but makes one wonder about the coming competition. A good thing for all.
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