Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
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Monday, March 29, 2004
16:39 - Oh, for God's sake, Microsoft... http://www.thinksecret.com/news/msnmessenger4.html	(top)
Oh, boy! We can all look forward to a new version of MSN Messenger for Mac this summer! Or, for those of us who just can't stand the wait, a beta has leaked out. Joy! Note with clasped fingers clutched reverentially under the chin the fact that Microsoft has apparently still not grasped what the "Aqua" color scheme is about, not even three years into Mac OS X's released life. You know how most competent third-party Mac app developers are capable of developing apps with icons that blend in perfectly with the OS X color scheme and icon design standards, with a perfectly balanced mixture of colorful and subdued, of realistic and stylized? Well, these subtleties have still managed to evade Microsoft, whose esteemed visual designers have seen fit to people their app's blue-horizontal-pinstriped toolbar (first seen circa WMP 7 for Mac, and since then redesigned by the WMP team, which someone should tell these guys about) with little blue translucent Duplo men. Or perhaps it's the aliens from the "Don't Drink the Emperor" episode of Futurama. Don't ask me where these guys draw their inspiration. (Said WMP, by the way, like the RealOne player, doesn't bother using the standard Mac UI toolkits; the widgets in these apps are proprietary lookalike versions, so WMP 7 still looks like a Jaguar app even if you run it under Panther. Big bulging window control buttons. Stark title-bar pinstripes. It's like a time capsule!) I have the distinct impression, when looking at Microsoft's Mac app design, that their designers have something of an inflated sense of "getting it". In other words, they stop listening as soon as they think they've grasped the essence of something, and then they run with it-- even if their impression is totally bonkers wrong. "Okay," says the Apple guy running the visual design seminar at One Microsoft Way. "The user interface environment for Mac OS X is known as 'Aqua'. That name is a reference to w--" "Water, yeah, we know," says the Microsoft guy seated in the front row. "...Well, yeah, but not just water. There's a whole scheme of palette options here for you to use in building your apps. For instance, scrollbars and progress bars have a 'flowing' effect like water, because of their linear, 'flowing' nature; but lots of other widgets are--" "Water, right, we got it. Make everything look like it's wet. Okay, I think we've heard everything we need to hear. Bob! You go design the Office for Mac box; make it look like the Incredible Hulk blew his nose over it. Ken! You do Windows Media player and IE; make the buttons look like you cut out stencils for the shapes in the toolbar and, like, blew up a water balloon right behind it and pressed it through the holes. Even for involved shapes like printers and envelopes." "Duh, yeah, but, uh..." "Don't worry, it'll look great." The Apple guy waves his arms in the background: "Hey! Wait! No! You're not getting it! You're missing the point!" But it's to no avail. Teams are dispatched to handle IE, WMP, and MSN Messenger, all giddy with the thought of Photoshopping to a new standard, one with bright colors and all those funky light effects they learned about in graphic arts class. They've all got a vision. And soon the seminar room is empty. "Hello?" calls the Apple guy. "Anybody want to hear about antialiased text? Or the brushed-metal style and when to use it? Or meaningful icon design that suggests actions through shape and orientation? Or flat gray action buttons with iconic labels? ...Anybody? It's really important that all Mac apps have a consistent look and feel. Hello...?" But no. Look, I'm glad Microsoft is putting in the effort to bring its apps to the Mac. They don't have to do this, and the MacBU is certainly not the part of Microsoft with the greatest job security. These guys are hungry players, and they want the Mac to succeed. It's just that they so often seem determined to not get it. Think that Send button is big enough? For cryin' out loud!