To be honest, I'd like to see the usability testing that 3rd party Mac
developers do, because I'm fairly sure it is not that much! I'm a Mac
user, and many applications 'look' nice, but don't necessarily behave
nicely. Mac developers either design their own UIs (Which is the same
as Windows' programmers designing UIs. Just owning a Mac doesn't
automatically give us taste) or hire an 'Interface Designer' to do the
work. However, on many well known Mac 'Interface Designer' websites, I
never see any information concerning usability testing or interaction
design, so it appears that they are merely designing the interface in
Photoshop, making sure it just looks pretty!
Also, a lot of the top iPhone applications have been developed and
designed by Mac software houses, and they are some of the most
appalling pieces of software ever. Heck, some can't even handle a
phone call interruption?! It's a fricking phone, and software can't
handle interruptions properly!
On 30 May 2009, at 22:04, David Drucker wrote:
It's hardly elitist to say that a software company needs to address
the population that they are selling to. Macs may make up 10% of the
browsing population, but they probably are nearing 50% of the design
world (where for a long time, they held over that number).
But even if they are less than those numbers, Designers usually also
have good taste, so therefore they don't base their decisions of
what tools to use solely on 'the largest market'. So, call me/us
elitist. Frankly, in this context, that's a compliment.
Seriously, name-calling is not helpful here. From what I saw, the
software looked pretty ugly to me. The clumsy tabbed Project panel
was a classic example of bad Windows software design (putting
everything into tree outlines at the left of the screen because
that's the way File Manager did so in Win 3.1). The fact that it
looks like a programmers IDE makes me suspect that the product was
not developed by designers (even if it is for them).
Worse still, the documents it appeared to produce looked even more
tasteless and ugly. The Banking Application example suffered from
poor design choices all over the place (badly designed tables, an
unclear affordance for the collapsed panel, etc.).
I suspect that this is really a package for programmers who have
been forced to do the Design work a designer would do. That's why
it's for Windows only, and that's why the software itself is
designed like a programming environment. That's why some of us look
at it and get a bit nauseous.
Don't they realize that Mac users employ GUI design tools as well
(and probably in disproportionate numbers)?
I'm sorry, but I just can't let this comment stand.
What exactly is the problem of choosing the single largest market and
building a product to address it? It doesn't support linux either, or
3270 display terminals for that matter.
I find the comments on this thread to be absurdly elitist. Less than
a week ago, we were discussing how pencil and paper are a fine medium
for wireframing. But a simple app that looks like it lets you throw
together ideas quickly and easily, and transport them in small,
effective packages is crap? What exactly is the problem here?
Is there some rule that professionals must restrict themselves to
"blessed" tools? What about those of us who think those tools suck?
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