Trying to decipher tiny icons which would replace the ‘pix, flix…’ can actually cause more cognitive overloading than the simple text. I’ve squeezed in “audio” so at least that is spelled out.

I agree on the icon thing — that way lies MS Office. However, on the off chance you’re still reading this, how about “Gallery” instead of “pix & flix”?

A good UI is, as many have pointed out, not just functional, but it’s also how you get people to want to use your application. It attracts the eye. It invites you to reach out and play. A bad UI that you have to “play with for a while to understand” is none of that. It is something to be endured. The UI is the first impression anyone has of an application, and it becomes the daily impression people have of the application. Were people to take it more seriously, you’d have fewer tech support calls by people asking “How do i…”

Lest you think I single Stone out for bad UI, let me say that he is hardly the worst offender in the Macintosh Universe. The Adobe Acrobat team is kicking Stone’s ASS in the field of Bad UI. Indeed, Acrobat may be the poster child for how not do do UI. Andy’s UI designs are…well - intentioned, but they show he’s not a UI designer. Adobe Acrobat shows that the Acrobat team hates its users, and wants them to stop using the product. It’s the only justification I can come up with for the UI. There’s not a single part of it that isn’t crap. There isn’t a word that I know which can adequately define just how…ghastly the Acrobat UI. Whomever approved that design should have to work with it forever, on a slow Mac with randomly failing RAM. Also note that I use Acrobat almost daily, and while it has a ton of functionality, the fact that the UI is so shamefully bad makes every minute of that use akin to being nibbled to death by baby ducks. So we can dispense with the idea that what looks like a bad UI will magically become a good UI if you subject yourself to it long enough. Planning on Stockholm Syndrome should not be a guiding principle of UI design.

As far as the rest goes…People, it’s only the Intarweb. Relax

Okay, so one minor point. JCR compared me to Dvorak, and that’s not really accurate. Dvorak gets paid to write outrageous shit that jacks hitcounts. He cares, and very deeply, about his readers, which is why he pisses them off. Because it gets him more readers, which gets him more money. I don’t get paid for bynkii.com, so me being a Dvorak has no material benefit whatsoever. Dvorak is very deliberately manipulating people like JCR into hating him,

But what remains - and I’m not referring to Daniel who has been gracious - certain bloggers will always be perceived as rude, arrogant and spiteful.

Can you clarify that? Seems you meant “… what remains will always be perceived as rude, arrogant and spiteful by certain bloggers …” but just the “certain bloggers will always be perceived as rude, arrogant and spiteful” part is more grammatically correct when taken out of context by itself.

The good news is that this laundry list of what bothers Daniel is trivial to fix, for the most part.

I appreciate Daniel’s ‘deep linting’ of the UI - and I’ve definitely made that Instant Effects Popup thinner first thing ;-). Trying to decipher tiny icons which would replace the ‘pix, flix…’ can actually cause more cognitive overloading than the simple text. I’ve squeezed in “audio” so at least that is spelled out.

So in the end of the day, I can continue to improve the GUI. But what remains - and I’m not referring to Daniel who has been gracious - certain bloggers will always be perceived as rude, arrogant and spiteful.

Yes ^^;

Kudos for providing some very clear examples.

Now your post goes from a general call to good UI design, to clearly articulating UI problems in Stone’s app and thereby illustrating the urgent need for developers to pay attention to good UI design.

Whereas the initial version of this post prodded one into thinking about good UI design, the updated version shoves you off a cliff.

Very nice. ~