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Panes and Eye Cues
UI Basics
By: David K. Every
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Oct 21,2003
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 ne very, very basic concept of User Interface is what I call eye-cues, or giving people predictable visual hints as to what something is, where it is, and so on. People need to know by looking at something what it does.
     
A perfect example of "how not to" is in the most commonly used OS app of all; Mail.
When you open it, you are presented with a window with buttons across the top. Since many of us have more than one mail account, you need to be able to see all your mailboxes separately. Apple has an icon to do this, named "mailboxes".
Clicking this button pops something out, a whole pane.
Now that pane will pop-out to the left, or right, depending on mood. Actually, it depends on what side of the screen edge the window is closest to; and the mailboxes will jump out on the other side (guaranteeing the furthest mouse distance to travel possible). This behavior is less than predictable; violating the first commandment of user interface. But I digress.
The point I'm trying to make is not just that the pane jumps out like a demented jack-in-the-box, it's that there is no relation at all between the icon and what will happen (or where). The only way to figure out what is going to happen is to click on buttons and see. When a user does something and you get a startled, "oh", that is an indicator of bad human interface; things should be predictable and not startling; and mail falls far short.
Now fortunately humans are adaptable and learn quickly, more or less. If you show this behavior to humans, they are good at making associations - click on this button and you get a surprise. After a couple tries, they get it, learn it, and remember it. But the point is that they adapt to the computer and not the other way around - there were no cues telling them what would happen, and they are surprised the first time, which means this is bad human interface.
The least Apple could have done is define what a sample "pane" button would look like in all apps to convey in a visual language that would help people know by seeing; an eye cue. (Allowing for some details to be added, but keeping with a theme). Instead, these pane buttons change from app to app, and offer no eye cues as to what they are going to do. Which is just plain bad interface. So we can argue about why they did it that way, and so on, but it doesn't change that it is just bad design. And the problem isn't with just mail, it is with a lack of design or standards overall.
All the examples where Apple has icons to do things, the user has very little indication of what might happen. (No eye cues). Is the icon going to change the whole windows mode as in the System Preferences? Is it going to do an action? Is it going to do an action only on the selection? Is it going to pop-out a pane? You have to click to find out. Bad interface standards and design.
      
Did you mom ever tell you, "If you lie with dogs, you'll get fleas", or "if you hang out with dogs, people will think you're a dog"? While I don't know why the clichˇ's belittle our canine brethren, I think we all get the point that proximity means things. It means things in computer interface as well. Or at least it is supposed to.
Another example of bad interface of panes (in the Mail.app) is that the little mailbox button is not close to the side it will jump out. Proximity is important between cause and effect - if something is going cause something to happen on the screen, it would be best to have the cause icon/button close to the effect. Since Apple had no predictability on which side of the screen the little booger will leap out on, they just stuffed the icon in the middle. Bad interface; no proximity.
Also remember that things that are closer together should be related in some way (grouping) and that westerners read left to right (and top to bottom), so left is a higher priority than right. Also know that people miss when targeting things with the mouse (and click on the wrong thing), so you should never put destructive things next to commonly done things and so on, or things that change modes or move things next to common actions as well.
With that in mind, let's look at the icon order of mail. The first button is delete (a destructive behavior), highest priority action and in a very bad place. It is also right next to a common action (reply), a couple less common ones (reply all and forward). Then a common action (new), right next to a bizarre action that causes tumors to grow from the side of your window (mailbox), next to a very common action (get mail). And so on. Could the ordering be any worse? But I'm getting off topic into the many things that are bad UI in mail, and not just the sub-topic of the bad UI in panes, so I'll digress. But this is not good prioritization and proximity.
     
Now there are many solutions to the problems; and Apple has had a few years to fix them, and a few years of warning before that. Apple had a Human Interface list, where many old time Mac Users and Human Interface people were complaining long before the release of OS X, many were warning of exactly these problems (and many others). Many examples and solutions were offered, and the noise wouldn't go away. Apple's solution was to shut down the list. [sigh] I don't think that was quite the result that people were looking for, and that hubris frustrated many even more. But the point is that the old Apple got Human Interface, and the new Apple does not make it a priority, as exemplified by these examples (and hundreds like it) and the time it is taking to fix things.
It gets worse. Let's look to better examples of the same behaviors created by Microsoft. You know you're in trouble when people are using Microsoft Apps to exemplify better User Interface behaviors than your own. But as I said, let's compare Entourage.
Entourage starts with a Window that has an icon and text which clearly explains what will happen, "Hide Folders", and it is in proximity to the area where it will happen. And it defaults to open and allows people to close it; instead of the other way around (with people scratching their heads wondering what to do if they have multiple accounts), and so on. The arrow even indicates which direction something will happen in.
When you click it on and off, your window doesn't get some flying tumor that extends out of it; instead just adapts to the size of window that you've already set (and don't want Apple changing on you). This makes much more sense than having flying protrusions grow out, which cause all sorts of interface bugs like, "what if your window is already maxed in size". The answer is that something would grow off the edge of the screen that you'd never see, which is also a bad eye-cue, since you didn't see it.
So Entourage works better, from a UI perspective, than Apple's default mail program. And this is a behavior that is used not just in mail, but all over OS X. Upon learning of the flaws of the design, Apple appears to have made their little tumor-panes a new standard, and added them to iTunes, iMovie, iChat and so on. Each one is lowering the quality of the interface, but they're going to make it up in volume.
   
The end result is that there are many newly introduced holes in good UI created with Aqua. There has been a few years to fix them, and they don't appear to be acknowledged or getting fixed. All of them are fixable, it would just take time, acknowledgement and effort - but apparently it doesn't matter.
It turns out that good User Interface doesn't really matter as much as some people want it to. If it did, then Microsoft would never have gotten to where they are, and Aqua wouldn't have gotten as much positive hype (by people who don't know any better) as it has. Most people don't even know what good Interface is; and think it is sexy look, rather than consistent and predictable feel. So OS X looks good, and that's good enough for most people.
Truth be told, Mac OS X is quite usable in-spite of many "not-so-good" or outright bad User Interface choices. But this article is about educating people on where there are some questionable interface decisions, and to educate them on what good UI is really all about; picking nits in order to make the Computer Interface more consistent, predictable, and easy to use.
Don't get me wrong; for each bad choice in Aqua, I can find many more in Windows or various UNIX UI's - so I still feel that Apple and OS X is better overall than the alternatives. But Apple used to have a much larger advantage that they're just pissing away with their own arrogance or denial. That just doesn't make sense. Let's hope they get their act together, and start putting as much focus on the UI feel as they do on the graphic arts and look, so those of us who care about better Interface can once again be proud to say we use Macs.
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