Is UI still in the stone age?
The Top 8 reasons user interface design is in the stone age is more of a rant than a reasoned argument, but it's still worth reading. If UI design is in the stone age, why are there at least two sites which document known UI patterns?
- UI Patterns and Techniques (soon to be a book)
- Web/Gui/Mobile Design patterns
I think we've come a long way from the stone age-- particularly after sitting through some very impressive demos of the Windows Vista and Office 12 UIs at PDC 2005 today. But it's true that there's still much to be done.
I was struck by how aggressively Microsoft has folded web metaphors into Vista and Office-- things like the forward and back buttons, focusing on a single task per page, and the ubiquitous search box. I've talked about this before, and I'm glad to see Microsoft leading the way.
Speaking of Vista, Flowstate is a great UI blog from an ex-UI architect for Windows Vista. Prior to Vista, he worked on Money-- one of the first inductive user interfaces. Subscribed!